Saints Row: The Third - The Full Package Announced
That it–there’s no innuendo left. It’s all been used up.
Saints Row: The Third
Players: 1 Offline player, 2 Players Online
Publisher: THQ
Genres: Action, Adventure, Third-Person Shooter
Publisher: THQ
Genres: Action, Adventure, Third-Person Shooter
Release Date: November 15, 2011
Developer: Volition, Inc.
MSRP: $59.99
Developer: Volition, Inc.
MSRP: $59.99
Years after taking Stilwater for their own, the Third Street Saints have evolved from street gang to household brand name, with Saints sneakers, Saints energy drinks and Johnny Gat bobble head dolls all available at a store near you. The Saints are kings of Stilwater, but their celebrity status has not gone unnoticed. The Syndicate, a legendary criminal fraternity with pawns in play all over the globe, has turned its eye on the Saints and demands tribute. Refusing to kneel to the Syndicate, you take the fight to a new city, playing out the most outlandish gameplay scenarios ever seen. Strap it on.
Sage Reviews: Saints Row The Third
Posted By Bennett The Sage about 1 year, 6 months ago
I never knew I wanted to play a game with an auto-tuned pimp before now.
Follow me on Twitter at BennettTheSage
I’ll be at Empire Comics in Sacramento on November 29th. Stop by and say hi! Info can be found here
Saints Row: The Third Review
Grand Theft Dildo
Sage Reviews: Saints Row The Third
I never knew I wanted to play a game with an auto-tuned pimp before now.
Saints Row: The Third Angry Review
Notorious An-Gre-Jo and his Krew review Saints Row: The Third as they rise to the top of the music billboards as True Gangsta's! Does the latest game in the franchise ride high with them or do they all come crashing down as a one hit wonder? Find out! 
"Enter the Dominatrix" No Longer an April Fool's Prank
The Saints are back in a new expansion! Aliens and Superpowers to follow
Saints Row the Third in 5 seconds
Who knew our children could learn something from playing Saints Row ?
Saints Row: The Third Angry Review
Notorious An-Gre-Jo and his Krew review Saints Row: The Third as they rise to the top of the music billboards as True Gangsta’s! Does the latest game in the franchise ride high with them or do they all come crashing down as a one hit wonder? Find out!
Saints Row Co-Op is AWESOME!
Dickin’ around… Co-operatively! Our story mode play through of this remarkably deep sandbox experience continues. Two heads are better than one, especially when their purple and floppy!
Saints Row: The Third is AWESOME!
What’s long, purple, and flopping all over? Watch this absolutely absurd pimp and gimp filled sandbox adventure to find out!
Angry Joe Plays Saints Row 3
Angry Joe gets naked, practically makes a sex tape, and fights perverted jedi all while
Sage Reviews: Saints Row The Third
I never knew I wanted to play a game with an auto-tuned pimp before now.
Saints Row: The Third - The Full Package Announced
That it–there’s no innuendo left. It’s all been used up.
Saints Row the Third in 5 seconds
Who knew our children could learn something from playing Saints Row ?
Saints Row: The Third Angry Review
Notorious An-Gre-Jo and his Krew review Saints Row: The Third as they rise to the top of the music billboards as True Gangsta’s! Does the latest game in the franchise ride high with them or do they all come crashing down as a one hit wonder? Find out!
Saints Row Co-Op is AWESOME!
Dickin’ around… Co-operatively! Our story mode play through of this remarkably deep sandbox experience continues. Two heads are better than one, especially when their purple and floppy!
Saints Row: The Third is AWESOME!
What’s long, purple, and flopping all over? Watch this absolutely absurd pimp and gimp filled sandbox adventure to find out!
Angry Joe Plays Saints Row 3
Angry Joe gets naked, practically makes a sex tape, and fights perverted jedi all while
Sage Reviews: Saints Row The Third
I never knew I wanted to play a game with an auto-tuned pimp before now.
Saints Row: The Third Review
Posted By Austin Yorski about 1 year, 6 months ago
Saints Row: The Third Review
At the end of Saints Row 2, Pierce asked the nameless main character “What do we do now?” It’s a question that not only applied to the Saints themselves, who had conquered the entire city of Stilwater, but to the franchise as a whole. Having pulled itself out of the shadow of Grand Theft Auto, the Saints Row series needed a new direction to stay relevant. So Volition answered that question the same way the franchise’s protagonist did: “Whatever the fuck we wanna do.”
| PROS | Improved plot, Over-the-top humor and gameplay, Plenty of content |
| CONS | Underwhelming escort missions/tutorial missions/boss fights, Few minor glitches |
| WTF?! | Every. Damn. Thing. |
Saints Row: The Third is insane; bonkers even. Its cheese has slipped entirely off of its cracker, and that’s just the way it should be. After the introductory sequence–which parodies Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey, wacky Japanese commercials, and Street Fighter in rapid succession–you’re dumped right into a crazy bank heist in which every gang member is disguised as Johnny Gat, the most popular character in the series and one of the bank robbers himself. It’s a hilarious sequence, and one that sets the tone for the free-falling, zombie-fighting, luchador-wrestling action that will ensue. After that, you’re dumped into the character creator.
The default character is pretty cool, but the possibilities are endless.
The “Initiation Station” character creator was released separately before the main game for a reason: it’s just fun to use. You can choose your avatar’s gender, nationality, skin color (everything from albino to metallic silver), voice type (including zombie), personality, and various other facial and body features. It’s as robust as it is ridiculous, and even better, it’s not permanent. I started out as a Caucasian man with a British accent, mid-mission changed into an Asian woman with a Russian accent, and then became a huge African-American dude for the last few levels. Of course, clothing shops scattered throughout the game give you even more options to customize your gangster, leading to literally the most fun I’ve ever had playing dress up.
But that’s not why you play Saints Row though, right? You want to hit Belgian businessmen in the mouth with a giant purple penis, and that is one category in which the game delivers in spades. It can’t be overstated how wacky this game gets; some of the greatest “Wow Moments” outside of Uncharted are buried in this sandbox, although you’ll have to dig through quite a few tutorial missions to get to them. It seems as though the game assumes you’re new to the series, because every activity throughout the city is given its own little intro mission, which seriously slows down the plot pacing in the early going. Also, a lot of the characterization (and some whole characters) are thrown right out the window from the get-go, so don’t go into this with high hopes for continuity.
A gang of mexican wrestlers is the most normal thing in steelport.
With that said, Saints Row 3 does a lot to improve on the series formula. The game sets up the standard “take down three themed crime organizations,” but then goes out of its way to shake things up, resulting in the best plot in the series. This increased focus on the narrative means that there is less freedom to the mission structure, but this is compensated for with the ability to make choices at the end of some missions that affect the game in minor ways, from gaining certain allies to monetary benefits. It’s a nice touch, but I’m sure it will bother some fans who preferred being able to take apart rival gangs in their own order.
Getting to the end credits is a shorter trip than you might be used to, but there is still plenty of content to be had in Steelport. There are assassinations to be carried out, cars to be stolen, ramps to jump, and pedestrians to crush. It’s all a bit juvenile, but if you want to get 100% on this title, you’ll be investing quite a few hours. In addition, the final mission can be replayed in order to see a different ending, although you’ll have to start a new game to replay previous levels. It’s unclear if this will affect the confirmed Saints Row 4, but it certainly looks like Volition is hedging its bets in the direction of a long-running story.
8/10
Saints Row: The Third Review
Grand Theft Dildo Sage Reviews: Saints Row The Third
I never knew I wanted to play a game with an auto-tuned pimp before now. Saints Row: The Third Angry Review
Notorious An-Gre-Jo and his Krew review Saints Row: The Third as they rise to the top of the music billboards as True Gangsta's! Does the latest game in the franchise ride high with them or do they all come crashing down as a one hit wonder? Find out!-
December 11, 2011 at 01:54am
I thought SR3 was a great game, I never played the second one so I wouldnt no were to compare them.
The only thng I had to complane about it was i couldnt finish it, on the mission “3 Way” I chose to save Shaunti and Viola, but when i meet up with Khenzi i didnt get a cut scene, and now im stuck in endless waves of enemys, I traveled to the island and no ones there, ive restarted the mission, nothing.
Some help on this matter would be great.
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November 23, 2011 at 07:51am
It’s not often I disagree with my fellowed BTers, but this is just such a case.
I was as pumped as anyone for this, but there are some insanely gamebreaking glitches in this. I’d like to think you guys have been playing the 360 one (at least the reviewer), because I had several glitches in the PS3 one that made passing missions at times impossible, far from just “minor glitches”. Times when a gang of people that were supposed to show up never did, when gangs would spawn infinitely and would prevent me from “clearing the area” with the progress bar not budging an inch, during one of the Guardian Angel missions my chopper randomly wrecked and somehow I passed the minute I did that. Times when the Professor Genki stages had traps that wouldn’t cycle through and completely blocked the only way out (and when it’s the thunderbolts you flat out can’t go through). There are times when you call for a vehicle transport and the vehicle never shows up or shows up damaged for no real reason (this especially applies for aircraft which almost NEVER arrives no matter where or when you call upon it). And don’t even get me started on the game’s final mission and how many times glitches failed me there (aforementioned waves of enemies not showing up, revive timers not showing up for my “homies”, some normal enemies being invincible for no reason at all, VTOLs crashing around me when I was supposed to be destroying them myself). I seriously wonder what the testing department was up to.
Add that to a rather short main story mode (with long missions though…personally I’m not a fan of that design choice), a soundtrack that’s a step back from SR2′s, a city NOWHERE near as good or as big as Stilwater (you will easily see the entire town within an hour of just doing normal missions), downgraded hand-to-hand combat, and this is going back to Gamestop in short order. But not before I at least redeem the code so I can get the much-superior SR2 for free digitally.
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November 23, 2011 at 04:02pm
You should probably get your PS3 checked or return the copy of the game to the store because… well, I’ve had no such glitches… at all. Seriously, nothing that even comes CLOSE to what you’re describing. At most I got irritated at the cars that disappear and that the AI had a tendency to get a bit wonky from time to time but other than that?
Nothing and I haven’t even heard of someone with the same problems as you. Either you’re the unluckiest son of a bitch in the world or you’re gonna have to get your PS3 or copy checked.
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November 22, 2011 at 12:43am
One bad thing about this game that ruined for me was that unlike SR2, the game allows you control most or if not the entire map before going into the main storyline. I appreciate the developers for giving us the freedom to take over the city in advance but I’m a type of guy who like to collect/find things and buy the very best equipment before engaging the main event. I may be a minority for revealing my play style and I see my half sister play, she directly goes to story mode and declares collecting and upgrading is boring.
Before I started collecting and upgrading, my game was about 15% complete. Once I have finished doing the side aspect of the game, it bumped it up to 76%. This kind of scared and discouraged me. Now the main storyline seem little easier than the couple first missions I’ve did. I’m not sure if anyone noticed this but heed my advice, go at your own pace and don’t stress yourself with other endeavors before going into the main event. -
November 19, 2011 at 06:12pm
Cheat codes are now priced DLC? THE FUCK IS THIS BULLSHIT , VOLITION?!
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November 19, 2011 at 06:26pm
I was so pumped about this game , but now after knowing about this + Fucking online pass , I’m going to avoid this game for now.
also , the clothing aspect of the character creator was so disappointing , they pretty much dumped it down and made it too simplified, that , and the absence of some of the voice options (Where’s the Male Latino Voice?)
yeah , this game disappointed me. I know my reasons are mostly shallow , but it just turned me off after being so excited about this game.
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November 20, 2011 at 01:46pm
Well it is a shallow game, so you’re excused for not wanting to play it for shallow reasons. ;D
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November 19, 2011 at 06:51pm
As Kaj pointed out, only a few cheat codes have to be bought. The rest can eventually be unlocked in-game. I’ve amended the review text to be more clear about this point.
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November 19, 2011 at 06:33am
Just finished it. You already know most of my thoughts on it, Austin. The standout moments are great, but wow all that filler.
WIll be very interested to see if the DLC is better than the last game’s.
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November 19, 2011 at 06:06am
Got my copy yesterday and I was pretty impressed. Very fun and entertaining game, despite some cuts in the German version (No Whored Mode, unable to use civilians as bullet shields and killing them makes the police more cautious).
Unfortunately, these changes also make the German version unplayable in Co-Op with the rest of the world
I have to agree with the Tutorial mission structure. Never played any Saints Row game before and I felt kind of annoyed to do things I’ve been doing for the past 5 hours. But it really is hilarious, especially the Genki Reality Climax segments.
Don’t know why, but this game constantly reminded be of GTA: Vice City, my favorite from the GTA series. And that’s always a good thing.
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November 19, 2011 at 05:08am
“8 OUT OF 10! THIS CLEARLY SHOWS THAT THE STANDARDS OF THIS PLACE HAVE FALLEN SO AS TO ALLOW THEM TO SCORE EASY GOOGLE LINKS AND MAKE MONEY FROM ME LINKING THIS WHILE TELLING PEOPLE TO NOT VISIT THE SITE!!!”
*Goes onto prove his moral and educational upstanding so as to prove my self-importance actually matters.
Honestly mate, damn fine review, one that I feel more then nails this game on the head. It’s very much a fun ride to be sure, but I did end up wondering just what they will have to do with the series now that they want to position themselves into the spot everyone used to think GTA was there for (aka, the mindless fun). They can do good things with it, but they need to make sure they don’t let the series ride on it’s coat tails, something THQ kinda let themselves build up a rep of doing.
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November 19, 2011 at 02:00am
I feel that although this is a great game to play comparing two the third doesn’t do as good of a job with the gang. I was expecting the story to go the same way as two with three distinct gangs rather then working as one big gang. My favorite gang still is the Brotherhood, even though all the crazy stuff that happened in three what happened with them was just so much more given what happened with the rest of the world.
I do think its worth the price, but two is still on top for me.
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November 18, 2011 at 10:55pm
I never got into the GTA series when 4 came out and i only liked San Andreas because of how wacky it can be sometimes. This is the kind of crazy game i’ve been looking for and i will pick it up.
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November 25, 2011 at 06:54pm
To be fair GTA 1 and 2 WERE wacked out like Saints Row in ther’e own way.
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November 18, 2011 at 08:22pm
Definitely a step up from SR2 and it’s just been a blast to play. It’s exactly what I want to see from an open world crime series, something GTA didn’t do right with the last game and I think will need to play catch up with SR3. If they don’t want to do zany anymore, GTA has to bring it in other areas now.
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November 18, 2011 at 07:05pm
In my eyes, this game beats Skyrim hands down. I sank 30 hours into this game in less than five days and I had a blast throughout the entire time and I’m not even done yet. This is my personal Game of the Year, easy, everything else just pales in comparison… in fact, I can’t even remember any other games I played this year anymore… except for Skyrim.
Everything from surfing cars, basejumping, waging turf war against mascots, laser cannons, Genki, the fast cars, the slew of weapons, the customization, the humor, the whole package is a total riot from beginning to end. There are some technical glitches for sure but I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of patching on this game in the near future.
It’s by far the best open world sandbox game I have ever played and it went from being a pretty good GTA clone to easily beating GTA in every department. Rockstar, play this game and learn, this is what a true sandbox game should be like.
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November 18, 2011 at 04:28pm
Only a few of the cheats have to be purchased, and they’re mostly the game-breaking ones, such as infinite ammo, never die, unlimited sprint, etc. The rest of the cheats can be unlocked by entering in codes. When you activate a cheat it disables trophies/achievements and the autosave feature. You can still save your game manually after this, but I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to unlock trophies in that save from then on. So be careful.
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November 18, 2011 at 04:17pm
This game was defintitley worth my money, i think its gonna entertain me for a long time.
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Saints Row the Third in 5 seconds
Who knew our children could learn something from playing Saints Row ?
Saints Row: The Third Angry Review
Notorious An-Gre-Jo and his Krew review Saints Row: The Third as they rise to the top of the music billboards as True Gangsta’s! Does the latest game in the franchise ride high with them or do they all come crashing down as a one hit wonder? Find out!
Saints Row Co-Op is AWESOME!
Dickin’ around… Co-operatively! Our story mode play through of this remarkably deep sandbox experience continues. Two heads are better than one, especially when their purple and floppy!
Angry Joe Plays Saints Row 3
Angry Joe gets naked, practically makes a sex tape, and fights perverted jedi all while
Sage Reviews: Saints Row The Third
I never knew I wanted to play a game with an auto-tuned pimp before now.
Dear Bennie.
It’s great that you want to seem like a well spoken lad, really. But if you are going to use a word, know how to pronounce it. This time I will correct you… Lenient is pronounced LEEEE NEEE UNT not Len i unt. If that is still not clear enough http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lenient here you go.
Ah, so it is.
Guess I’ll add this to the list
The one thing that turned me off the saints row games is the Enemy car AI, they were always on your ass like glue and were hard to get rid of, anyone know if that has been sorted in the 3rd one as i have never seen any review mention this !
I have never been big fan of GTA series (not even first two) so this game is not for me. I stick with Skyrim.
It should be a requirement for reviewers to play SR2 before Third.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a damn good game. But it’s such a colossal downgrade in nearly every area from the last one that it really needs to be noted so more pressure can be put on the developer to not CUT content.
Though I do think the anti-DLC people are being way too goddamn whiny and paranoid.
Playing both Skyrim and SR3, I can view it like this:
Skyrim starts off a bit rocky with some difficulty curves and it does have easy exploits when it comes to the A.I. but its a better game in the long run and it gets better very quickly.
Saints Row The Third is more fun right out of the box but it definitely feels the shortest out of the series so far, but damn is it satisfying.
In the end they are both fantastic games and are contenders for my game of the year.
“Stop all the downloading.” XD
I was so excited about picking up this game, but after hearing some of the game’s elements being dumbed down (clothing customization getting a bummer downgrade compared to SR2 , Online Pass , important cheat codes turned into priced DLC) I decided not to buy the game until much later. just…not now.
BTW , If you know Vangelus (You Know , the toy reviewer/DJ.) there’s an assassination side mission referencing and spoofing him alongside his friend , DJ Enigma. XD
First of all, important cheat codes? I played the game to the end without any cheat codes and I still ended up with unlimited ammo, invincible to nearly everything, all weapons upgraded to max, owning all stores and properties not to mention garages and cribs (but these are a natural progress of the story so no big surprise there) plus I had a 50% bonus on all cash and respect I earned (or somewhere there around). What cheat codes are so important you decided to push the buy up for a while?
Oh, and the customization is fine, I achieved every look I wanted and I’ve seen some pretty funky designs out there.
I played for over 30 hours before I felt everything was done and I had a blast throughout the entire thing. You can pass this up but be damned sure that you are missing out on one of the greatest gaming experiences you’ll have this year if you do it. And I’m dead serious.
SR3 is a great game, but as a single-player experience I’m not sure it’s better than its predecessor. The characters are not very well fleshed-out and most of the game’s missions are just thinly-veiled instances of the sidequests. It’s a great sandbox game and it’s a lot of fun to screw around in, but if you want a more well-structured single-player experience and you can only get one, get SR2.
I never cared for Saints Row 1 or 2 but I bought this one and have enjoyed it so far. You have to have a different mentality going into the game, it’s kinda like GTA with cheats activated and you don’t have to care about how many people you kill. The game actually rewards you for doing stupid shit.
Don’t you mean “This is like GTA BEFORE it got all serious”? GTA 1 and 2 were not serious and to me it feels like Saints Row inherited that sense of humor somewhat when GTA abandoned it for gritty, boring realism in the fourth game.
Personally, I now see GTA as the one lagging behind but maybe GTA5 will be closer to what they used to do.
Damn I wish the game had some actual King Crimson instead of that tired rap bullshit. D:
This is an awesome game, but i havent finished it yet. Mainly because i have been hooked to all the other awesome things there are to do.
Just beat the game myself and while it seems abit shorter than it’s predecessor, it really is a blast to play. It’s ridiculous, over the top, and oh so very fun. To me, it really is the lead open world crime game right now. It’s not perfect, having a few nasty bugs, but it’s a must play I think.
I was wondering how they might go about with a fourth game for the series or future DLC, to top this one, I see exactly where they are gonna take it, and I’m all over the future of this series lol
Some many damn A+++ games coming out this month. The two that I want mostly are this, and Assassins Creed: Revelations. But I don’t want to spend that much money at once.
Awesome review Sage. I’ve never played SR series games, but I might pick this one up on rental once Christmas starts.