Saints Row: The Third - Preview

Let's begin this article with a little preface: I haven't played 'Saints Row' or it's sequel. The way things are changing here at What Culture is such that we contributors are now being assigned to games, and as such I find my plate filled with an unfamiliar portion of the open world absurd-em-up 'Saints Row: The Third'. An open world game with the 'infamous three' both playfully dancing around the title, yet obviously absent from it in the most literal sense. So are we talking about a trilogy here? Do I need to play Saints Row 1 & 2 to understand the long gestated seeds of character motivation, the nuances of thematic shading and complex web of narrative ready to be unwoven before my eyes? No. No not at all. From my perch here on the unfamiliar periphery it seems that the 'Saints Row' franchise is born almost as a direct response Rock Star's 'Grand Theft Auto' series. GTA may once have been a playground for the pubescent, a car lot of destruction peppered with chainsaws and katanas awaiting your blood soaked five star arrival €“ but as the series and studio have matured so have the games. 'GTA IV' and 'Red Dead Redemption' are the perfect examples of how the studio has moved away from the pop corn action of it's past, in favour of gravitas, narrative and characterisation. If the recent GTA V trailer is anything to go by, its seems Rock Star's continuing aspirations are for the more grounded, earthly realm of the human crime drama. But then Saints Row knows this and in a way the game also knows that you know too. Saint's Row is also is acutely aware that, although you like the gritty realistic world of GTA's IV and V, a part of you will always yearn for that juvenile thrill of hyperbolic violence and silliness. They know, like you know, that story is all well and good but there's a bit of you that really just wants planes, bikes, cars and anything else you can crash, jump out of and shoot at. Enter the the 3rd Street Saints. If GTA V wants to overwrite the cartoonish, blocky graphics of San Andreas in the pursuit of photo realism (something I'm sure we'll see reflected in the gameplay), Saints Row: The Third embraces the hyperrealistic, both graphically and mechanically, like a surrealist painter jacked up on heat. Yes, the saints live in sandbox: Steelport (or St33lport if you prefer marketing man) and yes there is open world crime, both scripted and emergent, but beyond the gameplay similarities, comparison need stop right there. No one in the Saints Row development team has any interest in the player questioning the morality of his actions; no one wants you to stop driving and take a moment to reflect on the broken, maladjusted nature of the character you're inhabiting; they want you to blow some more s- up. The Saints aren't here to glorify violence, nor are they here to ask you to question it €“ they're here to give you some fun. Silly, mindless, guttural fun. How do I know this? - After all I'm new to the series. (Apart from the hints in pictures like this). Well the answer is the demo I just downloaded to my Xbox. Sorry did I say demo, I meant character creator. 'Saint's Row: The Third €“ Initiation Station' is the most anarchic fun I've ever had in a character creator. Consider that most are nothing more than token-aesthetic-gestures that force you to pick a male voice for a male character and only restrict you gender specific clothing options. Well I made an old man in a skirt voiced by a zombie. Then I took all his clothes off and snorted at the pixelated genitals under his kilt. Then I changed my characters gender before increasing his (now hers) €œsex appeal€ which then proceeded to produce obscene, so-bouncy-they-must-be-from-a-japenese-fighting-game beach balls on the front of my ageing cadaver. Then I gave her a male cockney accent and made decisions on how my character would 'insult' or 'congratulate' others respectively (choosing two surreal dances for my undead East-End hermaphrodite). Then I uploaded my monstrosity to the net ready to be played in the main game and although I'd seen no gameplay I was already sold. (Not my own personal hideosity, but something in the same league of balls to the wall 'dumb-but-fun'). Now that said I don't want to play 'Saints Row' or it's sequel. I really, really want to play 'Saints Row: The Third'. I don't want to answer the phone to my cousin or fake cop girl friend every five minutes; I don't want to muse on how this life of terrible crime is better for the wallet than the old country, yet simultaneously horrendous for the soul; I don't want to drive through a toll both and I don't want a brown tracksuit. I want Jason Statham's miserable mug, plastered to an ageing body and with Pam Anderson's boobs tacked on shamelessly. I want a kilt and hooker boots, and then I want to jump out of a plane with my shotgun firing wildly shouting 'Woooo Weeeee!'. Choke on that you boring, verisimilitude drenched whinge bag. And bring on November 18th.