Saint's Row: The Third Review

Saints Row: The Third Review

A Wild And Wacky Ride Through Steelport

Saint's Row is a series that many have compared to Grand Theft Auto, it has similarities, a large city surrounded by water as the setting and a large arsenal of weapons for you to use but, that is where the similarities end. While Grand Theft Auto has adopted a more serious tone over the last couple of years, Saint's Row has gone in the polar opposite direction, that being one of immature, ridiculous, and all out in your face humor. For better or worse, this is the best open world game of 2011.

Gameplay

Saint's Row: The Third is certainly a funny game to play but, how does the gameplay hold up? Great! From the very start the controls are very easy to grasp and in no time your laying out Syndicate gangsters and smashing people's nuts with a quick melee bash. Beyond the great controls, Saint's Row mission design is varied and fun. You often transition from shooting Syndicate gang members at a party to flying through the air after a lieutenant or protecting a member of your gang hacking a network to traversing a cyber world inspired by Tron. A great example of the varied mission design, is the second mission of the game. In that mission, you start off fist fighting inside of the main lounge of a plane, then you transition to shooting your way through the cargo hold, and finally free falling through a debris field of cargo after a fellow gang member.

One of the many melee bashes you can perform.

Graphics

Saint's Row: The Third's graphics department is on the better side of games released in 2011. The designs of the weapons, especially some of the wackier ones, are all varied and different. The Penetrator, for example, is a giant dildo that you can swing around and beat people with or the Cyber Buster, an arm cannon clearly inspired by the famous Blue Bomber, Mega Man. The gang members you recruit throughout the game, are also varied in their designs, e.g. Bikers, Strippers, Gimps, and Cops. You can customize the look of your gang members to any preset design you want but, are limited to only that. For the amount of customization you get for your own playable character, it is surprising that you can only swap outfits for your fellow Saints. The graphics while good, are a bit lacking, especially when compared to some of the other titles released in 2011, such as Battlefield 3 or Uncharted 3. While they are certainly better than most of the games released, they are not the best of the generation.

Shooting and driving is a bit harder than it looks.

Mechanics

Saint's Row: The Third's controls are smooth and are better than most open world crime games. The driving is easy to learn and makes it very fun and easy to cross the city in any car. Most cars are agile and easy to control, but they start to  The shooting is comparable to most third-person shooters and controls like one of the better third-person shooters. The aiming is easy, switching weapons is quick and the melee and grenade buttons are easy and quick to press.

Nut bashing is the majority of melee attacks.

Score: 9 out of 10

Saint's Row: The Third is one of the best games of 2011 and is the best open world experience in the Saint's Row franchise to date.