During this year’s E3 we had a chance to sit in on a demo of Saints Row the Third, the latest game in Volition/THQ’s open world series. In this latest iteration, Saints Row has gone from being a hard core gang warfare game with some humor elements to a satirical look at the open world genre, heavy on humor and jokes.
And, frankly, it’s amazing.
Though the game was one of our ten most anticipated games going into E3, we ranked it so because we were ready for a diversion from some of the more “serious” games that were going to appear at the show, like Mass Effect 3 and Skyrim, where the enjoyment was on a more epic scale. While Saints Row 3 is definitely just as huge of a game, it is also decidedly more light-hearted. Sure, you can still beat the crap out of people, blow up buildings, and rob banks, but it’s done so with an emphasis on living out cerebral fantasy over being an actual thug.
Our hands-off demo began with a stroll through Steelport, the location for the game. The city is run by the Luchadores gang, which roams the town wearing Mexican wrestling masks. Our heroes, the Saints, are now celebrities that can do pretty much as much carnage as they want to, often drawing a crowd and cheers of excitement. In the open world the Saints can run around causing havoc, whether it’s by dropkicking prostitutes or smashing drug dealers into an explosion of blood thanks to a pair of giant Hulk fists, aptly named “Apocofists”. It’s pretty ruthless, but at the same time incredibly fun and satisfying.
The same goes for other items of destruction: giant purple dildo bats (see image above), air strikes, tanks, jets with lasers and homing missiles, and even a vehicle called a Manapult that sucks up pedestrians and launches them several hundred feet away. The more mayhem that’s caused, the more the Saints get respect and make money. It’s so mindless that it’s not taken as a serious “GTA-style” murder. It’s cartoon humor like Bugs Bunny, except with more rocket launchers. It’s also the kind of havoc that had several of the demo attendees laughing loudly and yelling “WHOA!” along the way.
The second part of our demo included a bank robbery mission. The Saints “act” throughout the event, pushing their personae as they sign autographs and wave guns. Their choice of costumes? Bobblehead versions of themselves in an act of “ultra post-modernism”. As the robbery begins, it becomes apparent that the bank is run by a rival gang, the Syndicate, allowing the tellers to pull out weapons of their own and fight back.
As the characters run around, several little scenes are playing out in the background that can be interacted with. See one of your gang-mates fist-fighting with a teller? Hop in… or don’t.
The entire mode isn’t just action, though. There is plenty of conversation to continue the mood, with over-the-top explosions (and bank vaults getting ripped through ceilings) almost as the icing on the crazy cake. It’s like an awesome Hollywood B-level action movie from the eighties, with guys hanging from helicopters firing machine guns at rocket-launching cops. Our demo ended with the Saints getting surrounded by cops, but we imagine that many, MANY gamers will see it through in November.
Images courtesy Volition/THQ
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