Purchased for AU$55
Played on PS4
Another day, another remaster. Originally, the Saints Row series started humbly as a simple Grand Theft Auto clone. Once Grand Theft Auto IV dropped in 2008, taking on a much grittier and serious tone compared to previous entries in the series, the Saints Row series began to carve its own identity as a much more light hearted games, putting on more emphasis on comedy and rule of cool as opposed to realism and drama. Nine years after the original release, Saints Row The Third has come out with a remastered edition that not only has impressive visual upgrades, but also holds up surprisingly well.
First, lets start with the visual upgrades. These are excellent and compared to other recent remasters, such as the very lazily done Mafia 2: Definitive Edition, there has been a lot of effort placed here. Just about everything has been upgraded, from textures, to character models, the lighting has been completely overhauled, physically based materials are included and HDR is present as well. While it doesn’t look as good as something built for more modern machines, it is nevertheless an impressive visual upgrade that makes the original version look decidedly flat and dated by comparison.
The game itself follows you as the boss of the Third Street Saints, who are about as big as Dethklok (which is bigger than The Beatles and therefore bigger than Jesus) in the city of Steelport after attempting to rob a bank and being attacked by an organisation called the Syndicate. The plot is straightforward: you need to destroy and overcome the Syndicate and take over Steelport. Its very basic but serves as a solid framework for the absurd action and the diverse theming of the rival gangs, which range from the agent or BDSM looking footsoldiers of Morningstar, the Luchadores of well, the Luchadores and the emo hackers of the Deckers.
Steelport is a city that is quite grounded, imitating the look of a typical American city, however having some of its architecture dedicated to steel workers, giving it something of a proletarian, Soviet flair in certain aspects. The setting is largely grounded, which works as an effective juxtaposition with the generally absurd events that take place. The writing is usually quite funny, ranging from the crude to the clever, regularly mixing things up and putting in interesting situations. Some particular highlights are when you enter a virtual world to take out the deckers and your avatar is a toilet, rescuing the auto-tune voiced Zimos or the Murderbrawl and Pierce’s ill-fated chess games. The story also lacks a lot of dramatic tension and some more serious elements, at least a little bit sprinkled here and there, would have elevated the narrative and balanced out the generally ridiculous tone of everything. Additionally, while the humour does not hit as hard as it did in 2011 and is in all honestly a little dated, it’s still fun.
Mission design usually revolves around these kinds of straightforward shootouts that occasionally include clever one-time gimmicks. However, in the early game, much of the missions are effectively tutorials for the side activity city takeover missions, but after this the campaign picks up substantially from here. And besides, the side missions, such as insurance fraud, snatch, escort and so on provide a solid amount of fun,variety and challenge without excessively padding the game. The weapon roster is mostly your standard pistols, smgs and shotguns or rifles, but there are some fun gimmick weapons like the Penetrator, Shark-o-Matic and so on. This is combined with the map design which is smaller than many of today’s mind boggling large open worlds, but this just makes it tighter and more cohesive. There is also a good vehicle roster, which includes all the ones that were DLC in the original release, that all handle differently and are generally fun to drive. Except motorbikes, which I did not like.
The shooting is fairly straightforward, and feels refreshing in a world where third person shooters dominantly use sticky cover systems. If you have ever played a game like Grand Theft Auto IV or V, it should be quick to get a handle of the controls. However, the control of the game is occasionally stiff and at times I had problems getting stun locked if I got hit with a flamethrower in a tight spot. Dodging also feels a bit floaty and it can be easy to, even while on ground, end up in the skydiving animation which is just odd. It would have been nice if you could shoot, Max Payne style, while in this position, but unfortunately it is not so. I also encountered a couple other glitches, like the lighting disappearing once, but things of this nature were few and far between in my time with the game
Character customization is robust. There is a large amount of clothing articles to choose from and you can make your characters body look as generic or as absurd as you like, offering a lot of flexibility and expression.
The sound, meanwhile, is solid, with impactful weapon effects, good voice acting and excellent use of licensed music and a radio music selection that hits a lot of the right notes for me. However, the original soundtrack often feels very sparse and lacking in memorability.
In closing, Saints Row The Third is a surprisingly robust remaster effort, with a game whose core design and writing, for the most part, holds up quite well in 2020. It is a cohesive package, including all the originals DLC and it does not unnecessarily pad itself out to chew as many hours out of your life as possible. In about 20 hours of play time, I have 93% of total completion and 65% of trophies. It is good, light-hearted fun that I enjoyed immensely and is well worth checking out, whether you have the original or not, especially in a year that has so far thrown darkness and unease into our lives.
8/10
CG Kino 