Saints Row 3?

[Rologton]

I played Saints Row 2 on XBox and fucking loved it (Seriously, play SR2, it's so fun it shouldn't be allowed to exist), and wanted to get Saints Row the Third when it came out. Unfortunately, it came out not too long after Skyrim, and I only had enough money for one or the other, and Bethesda has had me by the balls and the wallet since I was 13, so that didn't happen. Now with my new summer job and money I'm getting back from my College, I'll be able to afford the still $50 SR3 off Steam.

So, my question: Who's played it? Will I love it as much as I loved SR2? I've heard that it's very fun and super funny, but I've also heard some things about it that turn me off a little, and I don't want to shell out $50 for a game I won't have as much fun with when I can spend $15 and just get SR2 again for PC (My/my brother's XBox broke while I was at school, and since I've gotten more and more into Steam I haven't been too bothered by it).


What say ye, CSn?

[SovietPanda]

Step 1: punch people in the genital region

Step 2: Do this

Step 3: repeat as many times as necessary

[VoltySquirrel]

As an adamant fan of SR2, I have to tell you that no, it won't live up to expectations and is ultimately an inferior game. There are a variety of reasons why that is:
1. Part of what made SR2 special was the balance of funny over the top shit and the actual badass stuff. SR3 has none of that. It's just ridiculousness 24/7. After a while, it gets to be too much.
2. It MUCH shorter. On my first play through of SR2, it took me 30-40 hours. This was a combonation of the actual story length, the amount of side missions that I did (about half), and general fuck aroundedness. SR3? Maybe 12, and that was with the main storyline, almost all of the side missions, and general fuck aroundedness. You see, one of the biggest issues with SR3 is the general lack of content. The story is MUCH shorter, clocking in at around maybe 8-9 hours. Part of this is because it's a much easier game, and part of this is the abandonment of the 3 separate but ultimately interconnected storylines in the 1st and 2nd games. It's pretty much a straight shot campaign from beginning to end, which is lame as hell.
3. The side missions suck ass. No really, they're awful. Each mission is fairly un-unique, with all of the cool ones being made into story missions instead. They felt that they needed to pad out their short game and take all of the cool side missions like the ride with the tiger and the pimp game main story missions instead.
4. This is a spoiler, but fuck it, it's a spoiler of something that happens 20 minutes into the game. I'll make the text white, so highlight it if you don't care. They kill off Johnny Gat after the 2nd mission. The best character in the entire series save for maybe the Boss is killed. Not only that, he's kill OFF SCREEN IN A PLANE CRASH. Seriously, game, fuck you.
5. And this is the big one. For all of the fuss they made about their new over-the-top tone, the game really isn't that funny. I mean, sure, the game has it's moments, but they're too far spaced. The voice acting is great, but the dialogue is just all kinds of awful. This ties into the first point. You see, the serious parts of that game like the murder of Aiesha and Carlos made the more ridiculous stuff like painting the town brown with poo and tossing rabid fans off buildings that much funnier. Here, there is no context for all the insanity, so it ends up being dumb.

So please, don't waste your time on this. If you have to, rent it or buy it used at like 30 bucks. Or even better, buy the 2nd game on Steam. It's not a terribly great port of the game, but the mod community for it is amazing.

[Rologton]

That is wildly dissapointing. Fuck it, I'm not wasting the $50 when I can get SR2 for $15. And I didn't know there were mods, are they any good?

[VoltySquirrel]

I'm too bored to go looking at the moment, but I did find a link to the best mod of the bunch: a compilation mod by the name Gentlemen of the Row.

Keep in mind, however, about the quality of the port. It's pretty damn awful considering. But, there are a couple fixes. The aformentioned mod helps out, and this FAQ will help fix most of the issues. The port of SR3 is actually pretty damn good and it actually has a better mod community. SR3 is one of those game that is only really good with a few mods thrown at it.