His Review with Ian

It gives me great pleasure to introduce a game that could bring inordinate amounts of great pleasure into your life. Welcome to a world that is littered with creativity, ideas and absolute joy – this is the world of Saints Row the Third. Here the tone is pure and unashamed outrageousness with potty mouths, rudity nudity and a whole lot of death via purple sex toys.

As the lead character of The Saints, you and your homies bring destruction and bring it in a big way upon the gangs and hoodlums who’ve taken over your once mighty city. That’s the plot, but how you accomplish this is where the strength of the game lies.

With main quests, side missions and maximising your city income – it’s the detail and design of each individual quest that proves this game is a work of genius. I’ve racked up at least 25 hours in the open world of Steelport to date. Ranging from being a tiger’s chauffeur who will take chunks out of you if you don’t drive dangerously enough, to Professor Genki’s Super Ethical Reality Climax (a warped Ultimate Banzuki where you kill mascots in a fiery laboratory for cash) and hurtling out of an aeroplane in a tank destroying every one/thing on your way down. There are enough distractions and deviations including gang take over and other mayhem activities, including an homage to Tron; as you speed through a neon framed landscape on a motorbike which enhances the main story. The creativity is immense and spoils you completely.

Purchasing buildings, shops and increasing your city income is strangely addictive as well. The game works on the incentive model of gaining respect and cash to power up yourself and help your homies to aid you in your future quests to kill harder bosses with larger weapons, a happy upward spiral.

Moving across the city on legs, wheels or wings is equally pleasurable. When in a vehicle, with the extremely well chosen soundtracked radio stations (a nod to Grand Theft Auto), you feel invincible; the cars handle well, drift in your favour and aid escape if escape is needed. The ability to create your own mixtape from all the music available is one of the many ways to customise your route through this game and helped me build a real connection to the game and the city. The flow and pace of the game is relentless, and I like this. There were no down times, pauses or insignificant missions to break the rhythm because you were gearing up to the next big spectacle; it’s all a massive coup de theatre.

The character design and shopping experiences means you can tweak everything from the angle of your cheek bone to the colour of tattoo on your left knuckle. This sense of freedom is also extended to the cars you have in your garage that can be delivered (via speed dial) to you anytime or anywhere you want. The menu design of the phone with multiple options of map, upgrades, missions or friends is exemplary of how the game is so considered and authentic with the world it creates. It may be a world of ultra-bling, hyper-reality and silicon enhanced hoes, but at least it’s consistent.

The character pool is rich and versatile from the mighty Burt Reynolds as Mayor (you have THE Burt Reynolds on speed dial), to an auto-tuned singing pimp called Zimos. All are complete characters in the truest sense of the word. I even played as toilet, not just any toilet but a jumping toilet. They all feel like they belong together, painted from the same brush, and conceived from the same twisted mother. The weapons and private arsenal you have access to back at your crib can elicit destruction on either a micro scale or macro scale.

The graphics and art work are not spectacular, but fit the style, attitude and tone of the world that has been created. The loading screens in between missions can be slightly onerous and could have done with a few more designs, but apart from that I cannot find any faults.

There’s also co-op and online modes where you can share the riotous fun with others. Alongside this there’s a fabulous spoof called Whored Mode, with wave upon wave (30 in total) of enemies that you have to eradicate that includes; armed prostitutes, zombies, floating question marks and even hotdog mascots.

Saints is crystal clear about its own identity and what it wants to the player to experience. It executes both of these so successfully that I cannot help but love and admire this game. It is so refreshing in its attempts to put the player at the centre and make sure they have an absolute ball.

Her Review with Tracey

My fourteen year old self would love this game! Oozing sexual innuendo and comedic violence from every pore, Saint’s Row the Third is a brazen, ridiculously outrageous and histrionic vision of gangland fantasy wrapped (or should that read warped?) up in purple velvet with some serious bling added for good measure. Sadly, I’m not 14 years old, nor have I been for some time and at the risk of sounding like a gnarly old bird, this for me was a monotonously bland blend of useless swear words, pubescent humour and elaborate carnage.

As Ian rightly points out, Saints IS crystal clear about its identity and the execution is consistently vibrant, extrovert and saucy which I appreciate there’s a huge audience for. Undoubtedly there’s plenty of liberating, spoof gang war action and scrutinising the component parts bit by bit reveals them to be brilliantly well designed though gamers looking for more than mindless destruction or titty humour might find the superficial Saints party is rather lacklustre and flaccid beneath the glamour and sex after a couple of hours.

The character selection screen allows for extreme creativity with the ability to max your sex appeal to 100% (yup, this means whopping wobbly tits squished into a tight cleavage carving hoodie) plus you can squash noses, pinch elf ears or apply weird and wonderful tattoos – its limited only by your imagination… well that and the unusual parameters set within the game. For all the Saint’s swagger and attitude, there are boundaries. Early on in the game, a fellow Saint advises a shopping trip as changing your look earns respect innit, as does getting inked or finding secret stashes of blow-up sex dolls. Pick out a pair of built up trainers and some chequered golf pants or a baseball cap to see the little respect gauge fill up. Boring!! There’s no deviating away from the basic premise which is to gain respect and earn cash in order to reclaim Steelport but this must be done the Saint’s way or not at all. Try walking around naked and it incites surprisingly conservative views from your peers as they recommend you visit a store whilst reminding you that wearing clothes is the way to gain respect – GAH! What’s with the confines? I’m a bad ass beeatch with guns and bombs strapped to my booty. If I wanna walk butt nude down town with my pointy elongated, enlarged head covered in bullseye tattoos, what’s wrong with that? Covering up the body serves to remind players that though the residents of Steelport are greedy, kinky, money obsessed, exaggerated and fabricated, they are born out of real-world minds. Where Saints gives with one hand, so it takes away with another and this censorship butter is spread thick over the missions and environments. Wander down Steelpoint’s Soho and the doors to the strip clubs remain firmly shut, even if you purchase them. Throw a party and the suited gents will lounge around whilst ladies in teeny weeny bikini’s gyrate to hip hop, but it’s all just eye candy – you can look but can’t touch. The Saints world is purely fantastical but the content and freedom was far more controlled than I’d expected. The virtuoso vocal performances are exceptional though sadly I found no humour in the clichés and stereotypical personalities attached to the voices, mainly because despite it being an age 18 rated game and Saint’s Row plays it safe with cut-out cardboard characters appearing to have stepped off a shoddy American parody film bus. Lets talk about sex baby, lets hope Radio One ban us. Look and listen a little closer and predictably learn that’s it’s a load of fuss about nothing.

Its attempts to be tongue in cheek, witty, outrageous or provocative are predominately obvious, dumb and pointless. For me, a pinch more depth to the overall plot would have made a huge difference to my experience. Trudging through missions to earn mega bucks and gain back control over the city I’ve given away thanks to my selfishness, vanity and downright stupidity is a repetitive and unengaging task. The ludicrous and brief side missions like throwing yourself repeatedly in front of incoming traffic in order to rack up huge insurance claims are brilliantly inventive, funny and addictive yet fail to shine and seem shallow; stirring no more than a short occasional giggle from me as there’s no balance against the meaningless main quest. I’m certainly not saying that all games have to have an emotive thread in order for the gamer to enjoy the experience but here I think just a dollop would have helped to create a reason to give a damn and keep playing. It is after all aimed at an adult, not teenage gaming audience. We have long concentration spans, legally allowed to drink booze and watch porn and our opposable thumbs mean we can take on the hardest of Russian mafia bosses in extreme gun fights without it corrupting our minds or reducing us to fits of giggles. Refusing to implement any thread of complexity, morality, emotional narrative or actual sex/violence for me removed any chance of genuine connection to the game. Mature gamers may find themselves quickly desensitised to the events and people involved – strip away the initial feeling of joy you get when bashing your enemy around the head with a giant purple dildo or from executing the perfect “nut-shot” and it becomes a chore.I found myself wishing there was no plot. Cruising around Steelport, stealing some slick vehicles and listening to the awesome radio stations, seeking out mischief was often more satisfying than entering yet another warehouse to steal/blow up some expensive merch to… oh god, I don’t care what with. The side quests were far more entertaining as beating/racking up scores in frantic time limits are always addictive. The shooting system is accurate (apart from whenever using a rifle which had an awful zoom) whilst the weapons are varied and fun. Entering Professor Genki’s super game show studio where you shoot jailed criminals dressed as hot dogs has some replayability whilst having a smart phone that access your pimped ride, your homies, bank account and more is a genius menu feature.

I really wanted to love this game and will concede, some small parts of it, I did. I wanted to laugh out loud at some of the more elaborate and surprising weird situations like Ian did but it didn’t happen. Instead I had a constant feeling that every inch was carefully constructed to demand a titillating laugh like a modern day Carry On film featuring rocket launchers, sniggersome references to geek culture and velour sweat pants. It stopped short of being authentically provocative, shocking, sexy, graphic, violent or full on taboo-breakingly funny and I just couldn’t find a way in. It’s not necessarily a bad game but it’s mild when it promises to be red hot. I think gamers deserve better. You want my attention? Lets see the real Steelport Saint’s in either a super sexed, hyper reality onslaught for the eyes and ears or in an engrossing story that gives me a reason to care not just for the bling.