Saints Row the Third: Supervillian simulator

[Mr Bean]

What I got
Unlocks at midnight on my Steam copy (Screw you not going to a midnight launch the same night as AC:Relevations, Need For Speed, Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3, Halo CE and of course Lego Harry Potter), my 3rd most anticipated game this season behind BF3 (Meet my expectations), Skyrim(Exceeded them) and it looks like all the crazy fun of SR2.

I start post with a video compilation from Giant Bomb in that apparently in one of the first missions with Pierce just like in SR2 he messes with your Radio and starts singing along to the song that comes on (I can't remember which one) well he does the same thing in Saints Row 3 the funny thing is they got all seven voice choices to sing along with him to. And this lead into the fact in SR2 it was a random chance with several songs if Pierce was with you in the car to start singing along badly and I never ran across that in my two playthroughs of SR2. That's the thing about SR2 I always loved, the meeting that most have occurred when one dev said to another... you know what would be fun? Having our voice actors sing along with the radio songs... okay what if they can't sing well? That's will make it even better.

[One Two]

This game is one of the most ridiculous thing I've seen in my life. In one mission early on (I think) you actually jump out of plane and
Spoiler

have a shoot out while skydiving with no cover (dude has a lot of health). Then you drop your girlfriend who you were sharing one parachute with, jump onto a another plane, kill those assholes and then jump back out and grab the girl. I was like whaaaaaaaaaat

That wasn't in Uncharted 3.

[Stark]

Wat the Christ? 'I start post with video'? Has bean finally gone Zero Wing on us?

Actually information about game required. Are there secret depths to the nerfed character editor? Is the game actually hard? Do you need to unlock access to stuff like weapon upgrades or can you just run off and do activities?

PS Bean that achievement takes like 5m tops to get, just make a custom playlist. At least, if I cracked the code and understand what you're saying.

[Losonti Tokash]

Stark, you don't need to do the minigames you hate to get the upgrades, you can just buy them with space bucks now. You can also buy respect.

The character creator seemed way expanded to me when I played around with it, what's nerfed?

PS: the OP has words in it, and they're in English, but fuck if I can interpret any of it. Maybe he's just drunk posting.

[Stark]

The demo creator had way less options that SR2 for clothes; it was basically just Rock Band's clothing options. Not like wearing hat backwards or backwards at forty-five degrees is a big deal.

[Losonti Tokash]

Eh, I just assumed most clothes were in the stores or as mission rewards.

[Stark]

I'm sure people who have played the game can comment. Before I get home and just play it myself.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

I'm hoping wear options are something that was left out of the initiation station.

I'll comment further on the game later, not that anyone is hanging on my lofty opinion of digital entertainment software. I get to go out an collect my copy tonight.

[Mr Bean]

Two hours in
Not seeing much beyond what was in the imitation station, have yet to find the 4th clothing store (Found Lets Pretend, Planet Saints, Leather and lace and there is one more) About five missions in. Every one was crazier than the last except for the last one which was right up tutorial including customizing your car and getting new clothes.

And then I fought the Incredible Hulk at the end of that mission so it's not all bad.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

6~ hours.

So far... 90% of the missions have been tutorial/side-activity-as-mission. Each new Lieutenant was part of one long 'recruitment' mission, then had 3 or 4 of the side-activity introductions, and then a mission consisting of a cut-scene conversation with them.

Gun-play is about the same, SMG feels on the worthless side, no accuracy or stopping power... While the Rifles and Pistols can both reliably headshot if the dot is in the same neighborhood as your target's skull meat...

The Brutes are somewhere between interesting and frustrating, they amount to little more than bullet sponges if they're unarmored. Occasionally they'll bring a minigun or flamethrower to the party, the minigun you can actually use, and it's hilariously accurate too.

I've seen a few things I don't recall in the IS, although they don't amount to much. And, can't help with that fourth store.

Amusingly, I went out of my way to hit up the military base to steal a chopper, (all they had were knock-off, gunless Blackhawks...) and the very next mission I did gave me a HIND, for keeps... Although, it seems they still aren't customizable...

Driving is about the same, it's mostly knowing how to let off the gas, hit the parking brake, and hit the gas again if you want to maintain any speed through corners... Although the heavier vehicles maintain a large amount of momentum, and take longer to get up to speed.

[Mr. Coffee]

Has anyone tried the co-op yet? Was wondering if they managed to not fuck that up and if it's still limited to 2 player campaign.

[Stark]

Amusingly the Nobody Loves Me store is right near the first base.

It only takes 5-6 hours to max out your income, there are way less activities available, and it seems the only thing stopping you taking over before the first mission is having to find the gang 'operations'. I've done like 5 missions and I'm at 20%, which seems a lot shorter than SR2.

The engine is a huge improvement, especially in combat as enemies don't cease to exist after falling 25m behind you. They've obviously tried to make the combat more interesting, but the spawn rate is so high that it quickly clogs intersections with exploded cars anyway. If only the game remembered that it'd already nagged me about gang customisation a dozen times?

I'm curious about the many bugs. The smg that has a bottomless mag (sometimes), the duplicate car at the bottom of your garage list, the strange disappearing mods/clothing, etc: nothing that breaks the game, but nothing that isn't obvious either. I wonder how much was already fixed by the day 1 patch?

[Ford Prefect]

The game is sort of ... endearingly buggy. Like how sometimes you just teleport out of your car instead of opening the door.

It's a lot of fun to play. Like maybe I've played tighter shooters but there isn't seriously anything wrong with the gunplay, though a couple of the encounters have been kind of unbalanced. It's fun to drive around because there's rewards for doing it if you mess around (ie. respect), and the system handles well. I think I may have spent slightly more money than is strictly necessary on car customisation, however.

[Zablorg]

there are way less activities available

This is

disgusting



Good to hear about the increased "bubble of things existing" radius, though. That was always one of my biggest problems with the game, particularly when I tried to pursue a nice car only to have it turn a corner and vanish forever.

[Ford Prefect]

I dunno, the game is positively loaded with shit to do. I mean maybe SR2 had more shit to do, but there's a point where I just wouldn't bother, you know? I mean there's the various activities floating around the map, the gang ops, the various random distractions like kidnapping people, you get random survival missions and so on over the phone, there's the stuff in Saintsbook. I mean there's only so much time in a day for driving a tiger around town.

[Stark]

They may well add more later, but no idea.

It's a laugh that getting trapped somehow (usually pinned under debris) gets you teleported too.

I actually thought the deathblossom was supposed to have a bottomless mag until I saw you could upgrade it to be larger. :v

[Zablorg]

There's already a bunch of DLC planned, so it wouldn't surprise me if activites were included in those.

I dunno, the game is positively loaded with shit to do. I mean maybe SR2 had more shit to do, but there's a point where I just wouldn't bother, you know? I mean there's the various activities floating around the map, the gang ops, the various random distractions like kidnapping people, you get random survival missions and so on over the phone, there's the stuff in Saintsbook. I mean there's only so much time in a day for driving a tiger around town.

Could you tell me more about the survival missions, and what Saintsbook is?

[Ford Prefect]

They may well add more later, but no idea.

There's definitely a lot of scope for DLC to keep The Third going. Like there's definitely a couple of packs planned like Gangstas in Space, so likee Sab says they could definitely keep adding more activities.

Could you tell me more about the survival missions, and what Saintsbook is?

Well, the Boss organises everything through a smart phone, and from time to time people will just call you up and say stuff like 'there's a police ball going on, it'd be pretty funny if you went and broke it up', which puts a location with stuff on the map. I don't think they'd be hugely detailed or anything. I've only done one, where I got a phone call saying 'the Morningstar are going to attack Image as Designed, can you handle them for us?' and I thought 'wait I am at Image as Designed' and I had to fight off six timed waves of guys and helicopters.

Saintsbook is just side missions. People put up requests for the boss to do stuff, like steal specific cars or assassinate particular people. The assassinations are kind of neat, because you usually have to do something specific to get the target's attention, though admittedly this is just stuff like 'steal baggage car at air port' or 'catch fat prostitute'.

[Stark]

I've done like a third of the gang 'operations' already. It's e nice if they were more than half a dozen guys standing around for no reason, but I wish they were dynamic or whatever. I may conceivably have taken over the entire city by Friday, and that's lame.

The survival shit is crap because upgrade car = do laps until you win. I took the top off my Halberd to be less invincible. :v

The map is smaller by it does t matter, because it's a lot more dense. Here's still more than enough scale for sprawling fights or chases so it's not important. That I can already see the end of the current content is just disappointing. That said, who knows how much shit just doesn't show up on the map until later.
Zab, saintsbook is an online hub for sidemissions and one of the reasons there less 'activity' badges on the map. The car thefts, hitman and other shit is on there instead and the map actually fucking helps you this time. It all pays money because reward unlocks are bought rather than being linked to specific activities.

[Ford Prefect]

Play game too fast = your problem not mine. :v

I don't know, maybe my standards for 'lots of shit to do' are different. At my current pace I probably won't have 'captured' the whole city for a week or two. Then again I guess I didn't play SR2, so.

[Stark]

A lot of it is just that the map filters give you hard numbers on progress; you can see that you've completed (say) 11 of 17 whatever the foozles. That's pretty lame... but I guess complaining the game will take me 60 hours to finish and is TOO DAMN SHORT DAMN KIDS is pretty lame too. :V

At least the devs actually noticed that the missions are just there to give specific setpieces, and that the meat of the game is everything else. And you can buy an ability to not ragdoll like a motherfucker.

[Ford Prefect]

Man, best skill ever.

I mean, at the end of the day I think the game really hits all its objectives of being a really customisable, open world which is really fun to play around in. Like apart from this moment where Angel kept getting killed I don't think I've failed to enjoy any element of the game. I mean I guess it could be bigger or have more variety or be more polished, but I don't think it's really 'missing' anything as such, which is at the core of what separates a good game from a bad game. I guess it's probably worth noting that even after clearing out the Syndicate from Steelport there's still going to be STAG stuff, though expecting heaps and heaps of stuff out of that would probably be a little optimistic.

[Stark]

At least they capped the money you could make, so that you quickly get a nice passive income of several thousand every few minutes so death and customising is no worry, but you don't get the WHAT TO DO WITH MY MILLIONS problem as quickly. I just hope they take a leaf from Crackdown and let you rejig the factions when you get bored.

Then again I haven't tried whored mode so maybe that's where the longterm gunfights will be.

PS I'd pay $20 for 4p coops... even if the netcode still sucks.

WATCH OUT FOR THAT CAR!

What car?
Why am I flying through the air?
Oh, nevermind, I've teleported back. :V

[Zablorg]

suddenly, SHARKS!



oh god they're coming out of the pavement

[Ford Prefect]

Then again I haven't tried whored mode so maybe that's where the longterm gunfights will be.

Unfortunately it's just kind of tacked on. There's not enough enemy types to really fuel a decent Horde rip-off and to be honest I don't think the shooting mechanics would really hold up to a mode which is basically just shooting on a limited map.