Publisher: THQ

Developer: Volition

Release Date: 11/15/2011

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A game claiming it’s one of the craziest around is something that would be hard to live up to. Thankfully Saint’s Row: The Third does and man is it crazy. Parachuting out of planes, shooting tanks while falling out of the sky, God of War-style boss fights in virtual reality, beating people up with giant purple dildos? Yeah, I’d say that’s crazy, but The Third offers even more!

The story is really great with awesome characters and witty dialog. Johnny Gat dies in the beginning mission (that’s no spoiler), but returning characters like Pierce and Shaundi return, and the new characters are just as great such as the bit brute Oleg and the nerd Kenzie. This time around you are famous and the Saints own the city, but they lose it because three new gangs move into town: The Morningstar, Deckers, and Luchadores. A para-military group STAG has also moved in with heavily armored guys, tanks, and VTOLs (jets) that, yes you can fly and keep in your garage.

A lot of the story missions are interesting and completely varied to help deliver this interesting and entertaining story. From going inside a supercomputer and fighting as a walking toilet, blow-up doll, or fighting in a Luchadore match, and shooting cars with a rocket launcher from a helicopter, to just running around and killing everything is a huge blast and each mission is different. Of course, there are side missions such as Trailblazing where you drive around in a fireproof suit on an ATV and run into people and cars to blow them up to earn seconds on a clock as you blow through a checkpoint race. There are other side missions that let you pimp your girls around, Insurance Fraud lets you get hit by cars to earn money, Mayhem lets you use pre-determined weapons to cause as much destruction as possible, and a lot more. My favorite is the Genki matches which are like a gladiator-type game show. There is no shortage of things to do in The Third with collectibles to be found, assassination missions, car theft missions, and tons of challenges.

Saint’s Row doesn’t stop there with a ton of cars to drive as well as a bunch of customization options for building your character, upgrading and decking out cars, to a crap ton of upgrades, for you and your guns even. You can use your phone to call in homies to help you fight, delivery vehicles, and even customize how your gang looks and taunts. You can run around and buy property to increase your respect rating and how much control you have over that territory.

But what about the world you play in you say? It looks amazing with DirectX 11 features exclusive to PC which makes the game look ten times better than that of the consoles and the world is huge and bursting at the seams with life. The game never looks boring, feels boring, or sounds boring with great radio stations with funny commercials, and even one radio station dedicated to Adult Swim. I just can’t describe how crazy this game is because you have to play it to experience it. The controls are silky smooth with great car control, and even aircraft control nicely. Is there anything wrong with the game? Yeah there are some irritating issues like ragdoll physics when you get blown up, there are way too many enemies to kill, and the side missions are extremely difficult, but these things can be easily overlooked. If you love open-world games I would say Saint’s Row: The Third is the best out there and there really isn’t anything quite like it.