Zero Punctuation: Saints Row: The Third

[Aureliano]

I was a little disappointed this week with Yahtzee's review. It's not so much that he's nitpicking a really fun if flawed game, which is what he's done countless times before. I loved SR3 and I'm happy enough that his review still sounds net positive, even if not the love letter that SR2 got. It's just that the review seems kinda joyless this time.

Same thing last week with Skyrim in my opinion (and most of Yahtzee's reviews of late): he liked Skyrim, but took no special joy in criticizing or praising it. Perhaps this is just what happens when you make something fun like video games a career and start to get tired, but it's starting to drain the fun out of Zero Punctuation.

Post-script: To see what I'm talking about, check out the ZP for Red Faction Armageddon (from about 3 months ago). He may not have expressed a desire to fellate that game either, but the review itself was fun as ever. Here's hoping that on Yahtzee's X-mas list he remembered to include hookers, a pound of cocaine and (probably before the pound of cocaine) about a week's worth of sleep and not playing video games.

 

[Fasckira]

So in short: Im sitting in an imaginary game store where all games are free but I can only leave with one, with a copy of SR2 in one hand and a copy of SR3 in the other.. which should I go for?

 

[drednoahl]

I was annoyed because the sprint button has been moved to Lb (on 360) - I keep throwing a grenade instead of sprinting, so end up casually strolling into said grenade as it explodes right in my face. I'm not far enough into the game to comment further than that though.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

He's right about Coventry. *shivers*

Pretty much right about SR3 as well. Shame.

It's still fun though.

 

[JehuBot]

I knew it! I knew that Yahtzee won't like this game as much as SR2.

the moment I saw the disappointing downgrade to the customization system in the Initiation Station , I knew there's something wrong, and now I can't recreate my Hispanic gangsta from SR2.

that, and the fact that they made shit ton of there content as DLC, how many DLC were in SR2 again? yeah, only 3, and one of em was for free. ಠ_ಠ

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Hah, at the end where he was summarizing that the game has become a sold-out parody of it's former self I was expecting him to draw an introspective parallel with himself and this show.


Alas, I was disappointed.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

So in short: Im sitting in an imaginary game store where all games are free but I can only leave with one, with a copy of SR2 in one hand and a copy of SR3 in the other.. which should I go for?

Steal both and shoot up the shop.

SR2 is like slightly burnt pizza. You have to eat round a few bits, but it's a solid mass of nom.

SR3 is like Space Dust. Makes weird poppy noises, makes you feel awesome, but has no real core to it.

If you've got a PC, burn the pizza a bit more.

 

[04whim]

Oh thank Christ someone finally bought up the comparatively pathetic clothing options. When I got the character creation demo, I really hoped that would only be the way it worked at first, and not in the full game. But alas. It's still fun but it's kind of a let down for a Saints Row 2 improvement. I think all the wacky content could still be in there, but it should be the filling with some some medium cut coherency and some straight-laced-in-mad-world humour.

 

[weirdee]

Of course, the sombrero actually IS gone, so....

I immediately call for a public revocation of SR3's wackiness license.

 

[boyvirgo666]

Strangely enough upon starting the game i noticed a lack of bowler hats and i wasnt happy, but the game was very fun if a bit too short for my liking. The game didnt quite go too far off from what SR2 was but it focused far too much on being wacky and turned around to being genre savvy in the worst way, I dont regret puchasing it but i wish they had stopped the online pass thing and tried to pace out the wacky abit more.

Though i must say the best part of the game is you sitting in the car singing what i got by sublime. I caught myself singing along because im a nerd and i secretly weep for bradley nowells rough drug crazed lo...what were we talking about?

 

[KDR_11k]

I can see that they thought the customization was too hard to use for Joe console user but since they already have the outfit system why not just make that more prominent instead of throwing out all those options you had before? They even trimmed the number of clothing stores down to a fraction of what was before.

Also what happened to food? Waiting half a minute until your health deigns to start regenerating isn't fun (and often not even possible when every stray bullet resets that counter and you're usually in the middle of a crossfire).

There are improvements too though, the expanded vehicle upgrades actually make upgrading cars cost something (SR2 would let you upgrade a car to the maximum performance for a couple hundred bucks) and the running car entry makes traversal WAAAAAAAY more fluid and fun, unlike SR2 I never felt a need to get unlimited stamina just to bridge the distance to the next car.

Also the weapon balance is kinda wonky when the pistols are pretty much the best weapons in the game because headshots dominate everything while body shots do little more damage than a gnat bite. I used to be an assault rifle guy in SR 1 and 2 (and believe me, those things were expensive to use in SR1) but in SR3 I ran with dual KA1s almost the whole time, only switching to the SMGs to set enemies on fire. The weapon selection got downgraded in SR3 too but I think the upgrades make up for that (they rolled the regular assault rifles, the AR with the nade launcher and the machine gun into the Krukov's upgrade path). Well, guns are excused with the upgrade paths but what happened to the melee weapons? You only get three options (baseball bat, dildo, taser) for most of the game with a few more coming near the end of it, where did the huge selection from SR2 go?

Seriously, I don't get why so much stuff got cut.

 

[floppylobster]

Watching the trailer a few months ago these were exactly the reasons I held off buying it (too wacky). The guy showing off the demo was getting so excited about how you could beat people with dildos and I was just thinking it was too childish, too 'wacky', and it had lost its edge. The possible irony of this all is that they might have been encouraged by Yahtzee's original review (a lot of industry people watch them) and so gone more in this direction. Even if not, the general feedback was people enjoyed this more than GTA because it embraced the game side of gaming (and didn't get so serious).

Another case of developers giving the public what they want and screwing up their vision. And another argument for games not being art.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I'm still getting it

 

[jawakiller]

Wow, I've never agreed with Yahtzee more. Sure it's fun but it's way too ridiculous. That and there's no progression whatsoever. That also annoyed me. I like having to build up. Starting with a tactical nuke or a battalion of Panzers is a bit much. Unless it's a strategy game but I won't get too caught up in the details.

But it's not terrible I guess. The clothing did piss me off though.

 

[Something Amyss]

FYI, the correct word for "person who identifies as something other than man or woman" is genderqueer, not transsexual. Transsexuals generally live and identify strictly as men/male or women/female... just opposite whatever they were born as.

The More You Know!

Not necessarily, sorry.

What if... they're holding ALL the previous customisations for ransom as DLC?!

Probably not, but I wouldn't hold the paid DLC model past holding up a lot of the clothing itself.

I must belong to the minority of people who thought this game was better than Saint's Row 2 in every single way.

My only complaint:

Game needs way more Zimos.

More games should have autotuned pimps.

 

[duchaked]

I still haven't finished SR2. think I've gotten bored of it finally, so maybe it's time to move on to SR3 lol maybe I'll have more luck there

tho I will say I really should have gotten a friend to join me in co-op lol

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I loved this game.

With Loving.

Love.

Because it was fun. In fact, with most of the 'it's not the same' responses, most admitted they had fun with it. Thank everything Just it was silly. Out of all the brown, gritty, MW clones out there, Please sign me up for shooting the vaguely foreign gang that makes all of their female members walk around in Lingerie.

There was so much I liked about Saint's Row 2 that I OVERLOOKED a lot of what I disliked. New Types of Races, I felt nothing for the new gangs, No one was as cool as Tobias... I felt I got more... I never felt like I got better.

I finished every bit of Saint's row the third with a smile on my face. It was short, I know, but I knew the reason why: DLCs. A lot of them on the way. There's a Genki focus which is great because I loved those missions. This is what the modern gaming world is going to be, and a lot of you already buy DLCs, so it's unfair to blame Saint's Row for just following the trend that gamers and developers set out.

I feel a bit unnerved when just being fun is not enough. That's exactly why I buy games. And if a game gave me fun... well, Mission Accomplished.

 

[Something Amyss]

He forgot to mention the terrible draw/render distance and the mediocre framerate.

Yes, he forgot to mention two flaws common to the prior game.

 

[o_d]

Impressed by the 'Homicide: Life on the Streets' namedrop Yahtzee.

 

[Vausch]

What if... they're holding ALL the previous customisations for ransom as DLC?!

Probably not, but I wouldn't hold the paid DLC model past holding up a lot of the clothing itself.

That's becoming a real problem with the games industry, isn't it? I'm fine with DLC as a whole, it's a good concept and additional campaigns and stories that won't make or break the game are good ideas (Al-la Fallout 3/NV), but ones where the content seems like it was necessary and should have been on the original game to begin with, especially ones that give you the feeling that they planned to put it on the game then purposefully removed it.