Saints Row The Third (Gameplay)

[Mr Bean]

We did not have a big E3 video thread this go around so I figured I'd highlight this seven minute trailer on Youtube which was shown at E3 and now has Dev voice-over commentary and is HD to boot.
For those who missed out on Saints Row 2 let me recap:It was all the open world Zany crime fun that GTA lost when it went from Vice City/Sand Andreas to GTA IV sad unhappy time with Niko and friends only Ballad of Gay Tony had any real crazy moments.

Enter Saints Row 2 which was a solid 8 to 22 hours (Depending on what you did) of crazy murder happy open world fun. And after comparing and contrasting Saints Row 2 to GTA IV the Dev's of Saints Row the Third took the correct lesson away, lets add ever more insane shit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fU2VTZI2as


Lets review
Crazy melee weapons?
Insane Fighting styles?
Large weapon selection?
Colorful enemies?
Easy to drive cars?
Cars that could have been borrowed from old Wacky Races cartoons?
A VTOL Jet with a main armament of a death ray?

It's been over a year since I've shelled out the full 50$-60$ for any brand new game but hell Saints Row the Third has got my money the instant Steam will let me pre-order it.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

It's been over a year since I've shelled out the full 50$-60$ for any brand new game but hell Saints Row the Third has got my money the instant Steam will let me pre-order it.

I love the gameplay itself, but I'd be wary of such a thing. The SR2 PC port was wretched bad, and extraordinarily difficult to play on either of my systems thanks to the fucked-up memory usage/hard drive streaming issue.

[Losonti Tokash]

Pretty sure that's because they contracted the port out to a different company. They're doing it themselves this time around because of that.

[Mr. Coffee]

I'm so fucking there, man. Any game that let's me run around wearing assless chaps, cowboy boots, tighty whitey's, and a tux shirt and jacket while RPG spamming incredibly racist stereotypes to death is to much fun. SR2 was the best sandbox game ever, and with the exception of the fucked up shit gamespy did that essentially requires you to call an exorcist in any time you want to do multi in the PC port, never had a problem with it.

[Crazedwraith]

So SR3rd is SR2 trying to be mercenaries? Blah.

[SylasGaunt]

So SR3rd is SR2 trying to be mercenaries? Blah.

Looks like Saints Row 2 trying to be... even more Saints Row 2 than saints row 2 was.

Part of the reason Saints Row 2 got so much love was for it's generous helping of crazy.

[Mr Bean]

So SR3rd is SR2 trying to be mercenaries? Blah.

If by Merc you mean there is an open world city which you must conquer with three very distinctive different gangs who you must conquer territory from. Each territory is it's own mission and based on statements we are looking at 20%-50% bigger world so each Gang is a nine to fourteen mission arch where you run around on various tasks starting small like disrupting their gambling operations or running a PR even their legitimate side is hosting before you start the final missions where you start going after the Gang's leadership. There are also intro missions and final missions because in all Saints Row games the 3 gangs have agreements with some 3rd party who you then go on to battle in the final missions once you beat all three gangs.

To give you an example from Saints Row 2 of the mission types lets spoil the Brotherhood (The Biker Gang)
The following is just brief mission descriptions to indicate the insanity, and by the way the Brotherhood was tame compared to the others. And I left some details out of each mission Spoiler

1. You go to talk a possible truce with the Brotherhoods Leaders and then have to fight your way free as the cops were tipped off to the meeting and you fight side by side with your enemies to escape the cops.
2. Kidnap a Brotherhood mechanic and make him rig up Brotherhood rides to explode
3. Break into a nuclear plant to steal some toxic waste to
4. Chase down and stop a truck (Simple)
5. Stage a bank robbery to Kidnap the Brotherhood's Girlfriend, get away with her from the cops then deliver her to a Monster truck rally
6. Break in and steal a Pyrotechnics van and escape followed by a rail shooter... rail exploder kinda
7. Kill the Brotherhoods top 4 Lt's
8. Engage prison boats on the high seas and sink them by any means necessary.
9. Break into a arm smuggling ship then use those arms to defend the ship against waves of attackers and technicals
10. Full scale war between you and the Brotherhood as you attack their main hangout, slaughter everyone inside (With the help of your own Lt's and dozens of your own foot soldiers) fight your way to the roof
11. Compete in a Monster truck Rally of Doom, IE lots of Monster trucks and your on foot trying to avoid getting run over until you can jack one of your own

The Ronin and Sons of Samedi were even more crazy than the Brotherhood missions were, I picked the tamest of the three gang missions never mind the final mission with is insane on top of insane.

[Mr Bean]

Missed the edit window
For example here's an old Saints Row 2 "Activities" Trailer which was a direct rip on GTA IV at the time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcHkfLgs ... re=related

[Crazedwraith]

... I know what Saints Row 2. Is like. I've played Saint's Row 2. I note a distinct lack of Airstrikes and tanks in that game. The best you got was attack chopper that was a pain in the ass to fly.

Seriously how many crime bosses really have the pull to call in actual military airstrikes? How do you get from in charge of Stilwater to that?

You would have thought that moving to a new city would be an excuse to stick you back near the bottom of the totem poll. Not have you much more power than you finished the last game as. Still he's probably BSing about how much stuff you have from the start.

[Starglider]

The best you got was attack chopper that was a pain in the ass to fly.

I liked the attack chopper. You also got a machine gun turret on the Bear, but yeah nothing comparable to the Rhino from GTA : San Andreas.

I agree that SR3 looks like it has pulled in some elements from Mercenaries 2, but as long as they're fun and don't completely break the mission gameplay so what? It's not like the series is terribly strong on the whole 'suspension of disbelief' thing anyway.

You would have thought that moving to a new city would be an excuse to stick you back near the bottom of the totem poll. Not have you much more power than you finished the last game as.

SR2 did that, I like the fact that they for once the sequel is not a reset. Besides it's quite possible / likely that at some point in the game you lose everything due to a plot twist and have to get it back.

[Stark]

It isn't impossible that Volition have misunderstood what made SR2 popular or enduring; it wouldn't be the first time, and Volition have a very spotty track record anyway. But there's no way to tell from videos like this, and it seems they have more territory/gang management focus this time from other articles. So long as the whole game isn't a zero-threat, bland playpen it can't be too bad, and certainly more fun than the sandbox competition.

[open_sketchbook]

When he grabbed that guys head, dropped it into the ground, and then struck a pose, I immediately went online to see if I could preorder. 100% win.

[TC Pilot]

Something that struck me while watching the video was how little impact these events seemed to have. A half dozen people getting curbstompped elicited no reaction from people standing five feet away, deploying some orbital artillery and flying around in a VTOL seemed to have just as little consequence. I, of course, realize it's just a video demo and probably doesn't fully reflect the finished product, but it managed to kill my interest pretty much. A game that serves as nothing more than a punching bag isn't what I'm looking for, though I can imagine the appeal.

[Mr Bean]

Something that struck me while watching the video was how little impact these events seemed to have. A half dozen people getting curbstompped elicited no reaction from people standing five feet away, deploying some orbital artillery and flying around in a VTOL seemed to have just as little consequence. I, of course, realize it's just a video demo and probably doesn't fully reflect the finished product, but it managed to kill my interest pretty much. A game that serves as nothing more than a punching bag isn't what I'm looking for, though I can imagine the appeal.

Cops were turned off for the purposes of the demo I'd imagine, if you pause you can see all of the characters weaponry has unlimited ammo. So I'm guessing much like other demos it's on max easy with cheats enabled as the video was from a live play through on the E3 show floor. Other people (online) have noted the lack of cops which is not typical for a Saints game since half the fun is the high speed chases away from the cops with their Boss Hog AI.

[Starglider]

Cops were turned off for the purposes of the demo I'd imagine, if you pause you can see all of the characters weaponry has unlimited ammo. So I'm guessing much like other demos it's on max easy with cheats enabled as the video was from a live play through on the E3 show floor.

A police attack chopper does attack the tank in the rampage section, but yeah it was certainly in a demo mode. They wouldn't have made such a big deal of the VTOL without putting in enemy fighters at least comparable to the ones in San Andreas.

The graphics appear to have caught up with GTA4, including the brown colour palette, nasty polygonal trees and rather sparse vehicles / peds (no real crowds or traffic jams). This is why we need a new generation of games consoles...

[Stark]

Something that struck me while watching the video was how little impact these events seemed to have. A half dozen people getting curbstompped elicited no reaction from people standing five feet away, deploying some orbital artillery and flying around in a VTOL seemed to have just as little consequence. I, of course, realize it's just a video demo and probably doesn't fully reflect the finished product, but it managed to kill my interest pretty much. A game that serves as nothing more than a punching bag isn't what I'm looking for, though I can imagine the appeal.

While this isn't 'real' gameplay, this was pretty much my reaction. They're showing off their zany hijinks and that's fine, but if there isn't an actual game with actual challenge and danger in there, I'm not interested.

[thejester]

And I know that SR2 got it's reputation from over-the-top shit, but I actually enjoyed the campaigns -didn't take themselves too seriously but also didn't abandon any pretence of danger or worth.

[chitoryu12]

It just seems like the entire basis of development has gone from "Can we make an entertaining game that you can pick up and kill a few hours with?" to "Fuck it, I dunno. Add a fuckin' death ray to a handheld ass, or some shit."

I can't decide whether they've made it so over the top that it's funny or so over the top that it circles around and you start to wonder just what the FUCK is going on at headquarters if they decided this was a good idea.

[SylasGaunt]

It should be noted that the VTOL jet actually belongs to one of the factions aligned against the Saints.

[chitoryu12]

It should be noted that the VTOL jet actually belongs to one of the factions aligned against the Saints.

Presumably the huge crime syndicate that got the Boss stuck there in the first place. Though I honestly wouldn't be very surprised if a gang of Mexican wrestlers got their hands on a VTOL with a death ray; it just seems to be the way Saints Row is going.

[Mr. Coffee]

Dude, we're talking about a franchise that has an activity where you drive around literally spraying people with shit and a mission where you rob a nuclear power plant for radioactive waste to put in some asshole's tattoo ink. They passed up death ray armed VTOL piloting Mexican wrestlers a while ago.

[SylasGaunt]

Presumably the huge crime syndicate that got the Boss stuck there in the first place. Though I honestly wouldn't be very surprised if a gang of Mexican wrestlers got their hands on a VTOL with a death ray; it just seems to be the way Saints Row is going.

The cops actually. There's an anti-gang task force in the game called STAG. They're the ones who run the vtols.

[Meest]

As long as they keep and improve the co-op/multi it's all good.

[chitoryu12]

Dude, we're talking about a franchise that has an activity where you drive around literally spraying people with shit and a mission where you rob a nuclear power plant for radioactive waste to put in some asshole's tattoo ink. They passed up death ray armed VTOL piloting Mexican wrestlers a while ago.

Admittedly, radioactive tattoos wasn't THAT insane. Hell, even I might think of that idea.

[Mr. Coffee]

Dude, we're talking about a franchise that has an activity where you drive around literally spraying people with shit and a mission where you rob a nuclear power plant for radioactive waste to put in some asshole's tattoo ink. They passed up death ray armed VTOL piloting Mexican wrestlers a while ago.

Admittedly, radioactive tattoos wasn't THAT insane. Hell, even I might think of that idea.

Point is this is Saint's Row we're talking about. The entire premise is it's like GTA cranked to 11 minus any hint of taking itself seriously, which means it goes from "well, radioactive tattoos was pretty insane, but check this shit out, guys..." pretty goddamn fast. I mean, is any of this really any different than GTA San Andreas (the last truly fun GTA game), where you go from poor ass ghetto hood to stealing experimental equipment from heavily guarded government research facilities inside of 20hrs of game play?