chronovore | STAY CLASSY, STEELPORT (Reply)

Played, finished, loved Saints Row 3.

GTA V is announced, will probably come out next Spring or Fall; it has huge shoes to fill. Saints Row has grown from being the "wannabe GTA" before Rockstar managed to get one out this generation, to picking up all the forgotten mirth and madness Rockstar forgot to put into GTA IV, to out-and-out embracing the utter madness possible in an urban crime sandbox setting.

The very first mission of the game has The Boss (your entirely customizable main character) robbing a bank with a couple Homies from Saints Row 2, and a method actor who is participating in an actual robbery to be able to more effectively portray a Saint in their upcoming movie. Shortly after shooting your way out of the bank, you find yourself in a gunfight in an airliner, and again in freefall. The game immediately sets a very high bar for craziness, then lets the player continue to find creative ways to surpass it on their own.

The game is outrageous, and largely free of the systemic "jank" which characterized the two previous entries in the series.

side-missions have integrated as main missions: I love goofing around in open world games, but it's even more fun if there are parameters and win-conditions associated with the goofing. The SR games have always had lots of Activities and Diversions (mini-Activities), but this time at least some small lip-service is given as a reason for why the activities should be undertaken.

cred/money economies: This is the first time an Open World Game has actually had an economy which works. It wasn't until the end-of-endgames that I finally felt like money wasn't an issue -- and as a gang leader who had taken over the majority of the city, it actually made sense that I wouldn't be worried about cashflow anymore. Prior to that, there was always something I'd wanted to buy, which was just out of reach unless I saved for a bit. Well done.

user selected upgrades/cheats effectively creates a "choose your own difficulty level" feature: based on the economy mentioned above, The Boss' rpg-lite "level" determines which Upgrades become available. The Boss starts out robust, and able to handle himself in most fights, but with the right Upgrades, s/he can become virtually indestructible, even able to perform the casual "walk away from an explosion without looking back (and without being blown up." These upgrades can also include ones Homies and the overall gang abilities.

storytelling tone: SR1 was serious, so serious. A big, bad gang story as told by the hard core gaming nerds of Champaign, Illinois. SR2 was less serious, more crazy... but still had a few missions with a very dark tone which stood out as intense, but not necessarily keeping in tone with the rest of the game. It was like Looney Tunes as directed by John Singleton. SR3 keeps a consistent tone; it's as light as one can get when dealing with drugs, whores, and mass murder -- this is the Saints' world, and it is internally consistent this time around.

storytelling mechanic: Instead of a massive number of cutscenes bookending each story mission, much of the storytelling has been shifted to phone conversations. Missions are initiated from the player character's phone, so the introductory conversation giving exposition for the mission makes a natural flow into the mission itself. The player-character is shown to touch an earpiece to receive calls, so unlike other games where the character must actively hold the earpiece to their ear, and cannot shoot, drive, enter a building, etc., this allows them to move/play freely while the conversation unfolds. This is one of those minor changes which makes all the difference to a player. Lastly, by shifting the storytelling burden onto voice conversations, there are fewer cutscenes overall; this give a much lower production cost, as well as allowing gameplay to continue uninterrupted.

Five out of Five Raised Fingers. This game was awesome.