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The Boss survives, but finds him/herself stranded in the city of Steelport, home of the Syndicate. It's up to you, as the boss, to take the fight to The Syndicate. You don't have to build your gang from the ground up, since The Saints are only a city away. But you do have to recruit some local talent to help you take on The Syndicate. This entails blowing up a variety of bad guys, stealing cars and getting up to all sorts of other shenanigans. If you've played Saints Row 2, you'll know what to expect. And if you've not, then imagine Grand Theft Auto if it was designed by a lunatic. This is a game where you can fire people out of a huge cannon, hurl yourself into traffic to earn points, leap through a car windshield to take it over and so forth.
One of the best things about Saints Row 3 - and 2 - is that your character really is largely amoral. I never felt my sympathy for GTA 4's Nico Bellic because he was always whining about how hard life was, yet he was participating in bank raids and carting heroin around at the drop of a hat. The Boss, on the other hand, is just a badass. Your badass, in fact, since you can customize your character to your heart's content. Although the character customization system, for example, has been toned down a little, so you can't choose as many character clothing options as you could in Saints Row 2. Nor can you replay the cutscenes to see how your different characters look during these scenes as you could in Saints Row 2.
In fact, that pretty much sums up Saints Row 3 - it's fun, but not as good as Saints Row 2. The way Saints Row 2's missions worked was that you'd have to participate in some whacky activity -such as faking injuries in traffic - to get enough 'respect' to play the main missions. The missions were divided by gang, so you could tackle each opposing gang's missions at any time. Saints Row 3 forces you to play the missions in a specific order, which takes a lot of the freedom out of the game. And while you no longer have to earn respect to play these missions, the game now forces you play the whacky activities as part of the main storyline, often for the vaguest reasons.
The graphics are fairly good - although they're not a massive improvement over Saints Row 2's. There's also plenty of gunplay in Saints Row 3 - and you even get to use some insane weapons such as air strikes and homing missiles. Although while Saints Row 3 may be madder in this respect, the game tries to ramp up the difficulty by throwing hordes of bad guys at you at once - whereas Saints Row 2's missions were more complex and generally more fun.
That's not to say Saints Row 3 is a terrible game - it's not. It's fun, especially if you can rope in a friend to play the game's co-op mode with you. And if you've played the second game then it does continue the story nicely. But if you've not played Saints Row 2 then you're better off with that game. Saints Row 3 just feels rushed - it's crazier in some respects than Saints Row 2 but in other respects it's not as deep or as entertaining. It's fun, but it could have been far better.
(also posted on Dooyoo)
The Boss survives, but finds him/herself stranded in the city of Steelport, home of the Syndicate. It's up to you, as the boss, to take the fight to The Syndicate. You don't have to build your gang from the ground up, since The Saints are only a city away. But you do have to recruit some local talent to help you take on The Syndicate. This entails blowing up a variety of bad guys, stealing cars and getting up to all sorts of other shenanigans. If you've played Saints Row 2, you'll know what to expect. And if you've not, then imagine Grand Theft Auto if it was designed by a lunatic. This is a game where you can fire people out of a huge cannon, hurl yourself into traffic to earn points, leap through a car windshield to take it over and so forth.
One of the best things about Saints Row 3 - and 2 - is that your character really is largely amoral. I never felt my sympathy for GTA 4's Nico Bellic because he was always whining about how hard life was, yet he was participating in bank raids and carting heroin around at the drop of a hat. The Boss, on the other hand, is just a badass. Your badass, in fact, since you can customize your character to your heart's content. Although the character customization system, for example, has been toned down a little, so you can't choose as many character clothing options as you could in Saints Row 2. Nor can you replay the cutscenes to see how your different characters look during these scenes as you could in Saints Row 2.
In fact, that pretty much sums up Saints Row 3 - it's fun, but not as good as Saints Row 2. The way Saints Row 2's missions worked was that you'd have to participate in some whacky activity -such as faking injuries in traffic - to get enough 'respect' to play the main missions. The missions were divided by gang, so you could tackle each opposing gang's missions at any time. Saints Row 3 forces you to play the missions in a specific order, which takes a lot of the freedom out of the game. And while you no longer have to earn respect to play these missions, the game now forces you play the whacky activities as part of the main storyline, often for the vaguest reasons.
The graphics are fairly good - although they're not a massive improvement over Saints Row 2's. There's also plenty of gunplay in Saints Row 3 - and you even get to use some insane weapons such as air strikes and homing missiles. Although while Saints Row 3 may be madder in this respect, the game tries to ramp up the difficulty by throwing hordes of bad guys at you at once - whereas Saints Row 2's missions were more complex and generally more fun.
That's not to say Saints Row 3 is a terrible game - it's not. It's fun, especially if you can rope in a friend to play the game's co-op mode with you. And if you've played the second game then it does continue the story nicely. But if you've not played Saints Row 2 then you're better off with that game. Saints Row 3 just feels rushed - it's crazier in some respects than Saints Row 2 but in other respects it's not as deep or as entertaining. It's fun, but it could have been far better.
(also posted on Dooyoo)