Anyone else looking forward to Saints Row the Third? (Game story spoilers)

I’m enjoying the game so far, although not as much as I had hoped I would. It doesn’t seem finished.

Things that annoy me:

Pathfinding for my homies isn’t too good. More than once they have just gotten stuck.

I hate what they did to the driving mechanics. Maybe it’s just because this is new and I’m so used to Saints Row 2 controls, but I hate that they now have a “drift” button, instead of just handbrake.

Low-level enemies are insanely strong. I have to unload nearly a clip just to kill someone.

The end to missions are anticlimatic. I’ll be holding off bad guys until Shauni gets to a computer, where in the middle of a firefight I’ll see “mission complete” then be warped outside.

Maybe it’ll get better as I go along: I won’t give up on the game. I’m still having fun, but not as much as I should be having.

I like the new driving mechanics, it seems a lot smoother than the previous game. In SR2, hitting the gas meant hitting a solid object right quick. In SRTT I can zoom between cars and around corners and avoid most major obstacles.

Brutes are insane. I know I have to level my weapons up but seriously? These guys are just stupid hard to kill. The worst one is the flamethrower brute. There’s also some ninja chick who warps in and out and can blast off a million bullets in one shot. I made the mistake of calling an airstrike down on a gang operation and a ninja chick and a flamethrower brute came after me. I killed the ninja chick with spray and pray and used her weapon to kill the brute. This was after they kicked my ass all over three city blocks however.

The missions are pretty good except they don’t seem quite as open as SR2’s missions. The first two missions don’t give you any leeway at all, it’s just follow the path. But at least they aren’t drive here, kill some people GTA style missions.

The police rampages are insanely hard. Hold off five or six waves of cops as they attack you with increasing strength. I ended up hiding inside a Rim Jobs and they busted through the door with a Humvee!

The enemies seem a little smarter too. I’ve learned to fear the laser dot of snipers.

Fun but I think it will be insane fun once the game opens up more.

I think they took the character customization a bit far. In SR2, you kinda just picked a body shape, slid some bars, grabbed a quick face and a hairstyle and off you went. The Third went all Fallout on it. I hate having to adjust every last wrinkle of my face, the width and depth of my lips/chin/eyeballs, and how high my forehead is, especially since they start you off with emo hair that’s hard to see through. I pretty much just wound up hitting random until I got something acceptable. The only time I actually enjoyed it was when I was picking my dance moves (Hell yeah Scroob!!)

It also doesn’t seem to be as open as SR2. I liked being able to just run around doing tons of activities and various missions as I saw fit. I liked crushing one gang into the ground before I started anything on the others. Now I have to drive around to find “gang activity” instead of pulling up strongholds on my map. The first few quests seem to simply be there to teach you to do things (I can buy stores?!?:eek: And guns?!?:eek::eek:) There seem to be fewer activities, and you have to beat the first one before any others open up anywhere else on the map, resulting in an ingame map looking like a real estate brochure more than anything else. I drove to three red squares hoping they were something before I realized they were all weed dispensaries. I really wanted to spray sewage.

I noticed the gun thing too. Three head shots from my upgraded pistol to kill one girl in a stripper outfit? Four from the shotgun at close range? 872 from my uzi? Cars seem to be equally tough, unless you’re driving them. I stumbled upon some gang activity centered around a car, and thought it would just be easier to blow up the car and take them out. Gave up on that when it looked like the clips I’d put into it hadn’t so much as scratched a headlight.

I hate to sound negative about it. I am enjoying it. The driving feels better. The story is still kinda fun. It’s got a good soundtrack. Jumping feet first through the windshield of a police car will never ever get old. Being able to hide in any building I own will be nice when I actually own buildings, and I’m looking forward to the VTOL vehicle. It’s just not as fun as SR2. It may open up later, but Saints Row 2 just threw you in and told you to mess things up. Saints Row The Third just seems to be trying to sell me on the concept of messing things up.

I’ve got more playing to do, and I’ll enjoy it. I just don’t think I’ll enjoy it as much.

I think you guys are forgetting something. SR2 only seemed more open because you had to drive to certain areas to start missions. In SR3 you only have to use your cell phone to call someone for a missions. However, if you just want to screw around between missions you can.

SR2 seemed longer because you had to have a certain amount of respect before you could do missions. Which just pads the amount of playtime you have.

Are you using the upgrades as they become available?

For sure; it’s quite handy being able to buy them from a menu rather than go out and earn them randomly. I hated grinding in SR2 just to find out I now had a 5% discount at a food store! But like SR2 you need mucho respect to unlock the good rewards and I don’t have that yet. Nonetheless, the side missions seem easy enough so I’ll grind through a few and I should be able to level up a bit more.

So it turns out heavy weapons are very effective on the brutes. If you upgrade your health a couple of times you can even blast a brute at point blank range with an RPG. You’ll survive. The brute won’t. Also the armed ones get dizzy if you ping them in the face with a good rifle.

You know who else I hate? Snipers in helicopters! Everyone has them except me! I hope I can upgrade my gang homies enough that they will shoot down helicopters for me. Those things are a major pain in the ass!

STAG just appeared. I thought I was doing so great, taking on the enemy gangs Jack Bauer style, popping heads with the pistol. This tactic does not work on STAG guys. However, they have left me with a high-powered laser rife and a truck with a big gun on it. And as already mentioned I could still upgrade the pistol and might be able to pick STAG guys off with it then.

Eh ? They’ve never really been a problem for me, except during those chop shop vehicle theft missions, where these bastards are the only ones to keep up and since you’ve got to cross the entire map with them on your back, pinging away, they often blow up my ride 5 meters from the drop point :mad:. My advice: leave the 4 and 5 star ones for when you have the “wipe police stars” cellphone ability. You’ll get rage headaches otherwise.

Other than that, between the RPG, the remote control device (upgrade it to full - bye bye army helicopters, tanks, VTOLs…), just plain putting bullets in the snipers’ dome with the upgraded .45s (best darn weapon in the game there - I don’t think there’s anything these babies will not murder) or simply keeping on the move and fighting under bridges and such, they’ve not been too much of an issue to me.
Now, minigun brutes on the other hand, can go eat grenades.


I gotta admit, I’m in two minds about the game. On the one hand, there are some really awesome moments (I couldn’t aim straight during the rickshaw chase, I was laughing so hard), I like the driving, I like most of the activities, most of the new homies too though Angel is pretty meh…
OTOH, I find Steelwater pretty darn bland and lacking character, and I positively hate what they did with Gat and Shaundi. I mean shit, the opening crawl itself acknowledges that they’re the most beloved characters in the franchise, and they go and do … what they did. Makes no sense to me whatsoever.

It’s also too darn short - there’s like half the gang missions and half the activities SR2 had (and only 3 levels of activities instead of 6, though maybe that’s not a bad thing. I still have flashbacks from Trailblazing 6…yeh gods).
Maybe they plan on getting to the same breadth eventually with DLC ? That would be a bitch move.

Still, the fact that each of the Boss’ voices has entirely different lines for the missions makes up for it a bit. I’ve played it through once with the Russian female voice, replaying it now with a Cockney dude.

Yes, it’s a bad thing. Better to have too much content than not enough.

The “bad ending” feels like it should be the midpoint in the game.

Part of the reason that the game feels so short is that half of the missions are activities: trafficking, mayhem, escort, snatch, etc. You have a few rounds of activity missions before you meet your new gang, and a few rounds after. The game also lacks the strongholds of SR2, which added some play time. Driving around to find the “gang activity” is more of a pain, and the 8-10 gang members that are there go down quick to my fully upgraded pistol and SMG that I can dual wield.

Never had a problem with the chopper snipers. I could usually get them before they hit me too many times, and now that I’m heavily armed I can just take out the choppers in a few shots.

It was just on sale (maybe still is) at GamersGate for $5.08. I’ve played it for about 3 hours, and am having a lot of fun. The controls took a bit of getting used to, but this is the first game of it’s type I’ve played on a PC as opposed to a console. I highly recommend it for 5 bucks…

Joe

So I just picked this up on Steam for $25. What a great game. I love the driving mechanics, particularly the drift button. It may make it too easy for some but for me it just makes it more fun because I don’t have to concentrate on the driving, just get where I’m going without crashing.

The graphics are very good. I’m playing on my Alienware M14x and it plays at max settings fine. I also really enjoy the goofy animations.

Voice acting is exceptional. Great script that has had me chuckling many times already.

Lots of guns so that’s fun.

It’s far easier than GTA or even SR1 or 2 IMHO.

The dildo bat is funny.

I also still really get a kick out of running up to random pedestrians and piledriving them or whatever other funny animation comes up.

Tank destruction games are fun, though seem pretty easy. I’ve already managed to beat a “hard” one with little difficulty.

Enemies sure take a shitload of rounds before they go down though. Way too many IMHO.

The controls in general are excellent. I’m playing with a 360 pad on my computer though. Can’t speak to the keyboard controls.

So if you were waiting for it to go on sale or something it is (was?) $25 on Steam and is certainly worth it.

Just picked it up with all DLC for $12.49 at the Fall sale. Really, really a ton of fun - way better than SR2, and more pure fun than any GTA game I’ve played!