Saint's Row: The Third (XB360): Swinging around a Big Purple Dick.

When I first heard about Saint's Row I had heard that it was a Grand Theft Auto clone and nothing more.  Because of this I had no interested in playing it. Same thing when Saint's Row 2 came around. But a few months after it was released I started to hear some rave reviews about how it was better than GTA. So intrigued I took home the second installment and after making a friggen picture perfect image of myself I began a highly entertaining play through that forever made me a fan of the game. After backtracking to the first game, I was more than ready to sit down and start playing...

SAINT'S ROW: THE THIRD (XB360)

The game picks up a few years after the events of  Saint's Row 2, and the 3rd Street Saints are the hottest thing on the streets since Wrangler jeans. Television shows, energy drinks, movie deals, their own clothing line, and still taking the time to bang on the streets. The game opens up with a severely made over version of the SR2 cast about to pull of a bank heist with some method acting movie star, although the routine has become that, just routine and uninteresting. However, this heist goes wrong as all the tellers are armed with shotguns and shit quickly goes haywire. After then ensuing gunfight with the bank tellers and the subsequent police swat teams, the Saints are arrested and then taken to the figure head of an organization known as the Syndicate. They offer the Saints a shitty deal and in typical Saints fashion mayhem ensues. After a daring escape we take control of the action and begin to take the streets of Steelport and get back at the Syndicate.

So right out the gate, I have to say I was a little disappointed with a lot of the hype going into this game. Primarily I was not thrilled with the overall design this time around. Everything in the trailer seemed very over the top and cartoony and when they started to show the game play footage it wasn't looking to be much better. When the game first opened up I wasn't even sure if the cast was the same until someone mentioned Shaundi. Looking at her new image I didn't even think it was her, I was actually disappointed because the easy going chill hippy chick had turned into the gun toting gangsta psycho. I guess it makes sense on a thematic level, she joins this gang and rises to the top ranks, then becomes famous has money so she changes her image, but ugh.. Makes her a lot less likable. It seems like all of the characters in this game took a step back visually, as pretty much every seems to have adopted a more animeish kind of appearance, and I would say this stands out with the twins the most. Its not off putting I guess, but SR2 did a better job of finding a realistic balance between real and silly.

Nope, not Tom Clancy's HAWX. Missions get as out of hand as this.

Speaking of the characters, the create a character for this one seems to be severely cut down this time around. I usually make two characters when I play a game like this, one of me and then just one designed completely off the wall. The first time through I try to make a reasonable facsimile of myself, ended up doing alright just inside of a half hour. But in Saints Row 2 almost every option had sliders which gives incredible depth to each option. This version of the game they took away sliders to just one extreme to another on some options. They also cut away layers as well. Before you could pick undies, socks, undershirt, shirt, jacket, pants, shoes, hat and accessories. And with almost all of these features you have a slider to adjust things and how they sit to your liking. Now you are restricted to upper body, lower body, undies shoes and hat. It seems like a nit picky thing to complain about but it seems like it would have been easy to just lift that from 2 to 3.

I felt the face wrinkles were a nice touch. Shows how fucking tired I look all the time

Ok, So watching me being all badass helps this game be awesome. Love when my character actually looks like me

Control is basically what you would expect out of this franchise. If you have ever played a Saint's Row game or even a GTA then nothing they throw at you here is gonna knock you for a loop. The combat is still fast fluid and fun with switching weapons and running and gunning being as simple and fun as it ever has been. Cars seem to handle a little more realistically than the last game but it still maintains that arcadey feel of being able to take a turn doing like 90 mph. Now if you are being pursued by another car you can actually shake them in traffic or turns unlike in the 2nd game where if you were being chased, they were on your ass constantly.

The game is presented as the typical GTA clone usually is. Although instead of finding your mission checkpoints on the map, now you have to make a call to one of the members of your crew to activate the checkpoint before you start the mission. Otherwise you are free to explore the city, fight gangsters, or complete the goofy minigames the city has to offer. Most of them are still there and to its credit, now they aren't exactly mandatory to do to unlock missions like they were in previous installments. This time around your respect functions as more of and experience gauge and the more you have the more abilities you can unlock. They did take away most of the cutscenes that go with it that explain why you need to do 300,000 dollars of damage with a tank or why you need to fling yourself in front of traffic. And what the fuck happened to the bouncer minigame, you pricks? I loved just flinging rabid fans off the roof of a building.

The games pacing is a bit off too. I get that the 3rd Street Saints are kind of a big deal by this point in their mythos, but you are basically in a shithole apartment for about 2 missions before you raid a massive multistory tower to get an elaborate pad. By that point you are already firing rocket launchers, sniper rifles, flying attack choppers. Weapons are pretty inexpensive and so are car mods. So there are two ways to look at this: Either its cool because it gives me the toys to wreck havoc early, or it sucks because there is no build up to get these rewards and their effect is diminished. Saints Row has always had a bit of a silly approach to the game, and by making the action as over the top it really amplifies this effect. Speaking of silly? Yes, this is a weapon....

No better way to humiliate someone then publicly beating them to death with a giant purple dick.

The game has a Whored mode which is basically just a series of rapid fire challenges its entertaining for a little but it just seems like something they could have spliced into the main game. There is also an online Co-op mode to play the campaign, but if you are going to play that make sure you have punched in your online pass. I have a friend who yelled at me for like two weeks about not playing the online mode with her, and after waiting for her for 2 hours to get to position to invite me to her game, she realized she didn't have the online pass and I basically waited for nothing.  More companies basically trying to kill used online gaming.

We did eventually get the online going, She gave her Vespa nitro....

Lastly I'd like to go over the sountrack a bit. One thing that Grand Theft Auto has over Saints Row is the goofy talk radio stations that you can listen to instead of the music stations. These to me are always funny and I was pretty disappointed to find out they weren't in this one. The radio stations were pretty lack luster for the most part I felt, there are a couple of decent tracks but for the most part nothing I really cared for. One feature that the game gives you is the ability to make a mix tape so you can just select the songs you like from all the radio stations and put them on to one. I was able to find some decent songs but ultimately I didn't think much of it....  However, on specific missions, they will play a song off the soundtrack to add to the feel of the mission. There is one specifically near the end of the game that I won't spoil (unless you know me on Derpbook) but its placement was so perfect and so genius that not only did it sell the whole mission for me, but it kind of dictated my decision to what I was going to do when I was presented with a choice as well. Days after I had finished it I was still humming the song and wanted to keep playing that mission. The soundtrack may have not been the best I've heard in a game, but they made some fucking genius calls for the placement of some of these songs.

Ultimately Saints Row: The Third knows what it is. It knows it was seen as a Grand Theft Auto knock off, so they go over the top to make things very silly and fun to play. Its because of this stance that I find myself agreeing with some of the people that think Saints Row is better. Even though I came into this game with lukewarm feelings about it, playing through it changed my opinion. If you have never picked up a game in this franchise you're really missing out. Its just a solidly built fun to play game.

Dead Rising 2: Off the Record (XB360/PS3): I've covered this game, you know....

So after the hideous abortion that I suffered through in Dead Island, I have been pretty eager to get around to playing this one. When the Xbox 360 was first released I was never a hurry to get one, and didn't till 3 years after release. They just released a shooter then a sport game, then a shooter, then a sport game. This continued for friggen years and I told myself I wouldn't get a 360 till they released some titles I had to have. One of those titles was Dead Rising, at the time a fresh angle from they typical Capcom survival horror genre to one of more hacky slashy action. With some minor frustrations it gave me everything I wanted in it. The subsequent sequel, they fixed many of those issues, but then took away the iconic hero we've come to love. So they've since released another version in....

DEAD RISING 2: OFF THE RECORD (XB360)

Basically the story picks up from the events of the first Dead Rising following the original protagonist Frank West. After being the journalist who uncovered the zombie infestation in Willamette, Frank was on a rocket to super stardom. Best selling books, hot girlfriend, meetings with the president, tv appearances, etc. But as his rise to fame inflated, it eventually had to burst. His TV show gets cancelled and he begins to bottom out, spending his time alone and drowning in the bottom of the bottle. As zombies become more common place he makes the decision to get his life back in order he'd make some money by going to Fortune City and fighting on a reality show apparently hosted by the Rock called Terror Is Reality, where he uses his zombie fighting skills to earn money. After an empty feeling victory, as he leaving he see's the Rock (actually called TK) make an a suspicious transaction with someone before fighting off some thugs who have cornered him. As he leaves the building there is an explosion that releases hoards of zombies and begins killing innocent people. After making his way to the saferoom with other survivors, a news story runs pinning the explosion on an zombie support activist group called C.U.R.E and their leader Stacey. So Frank and Stacey take to the zombie infested casino resort to discover the truth....

Did some of that sound familiar? Yeah, it did for me too. Almost like I have played this game already. Probably because I have, but then it was just called Dead Rising 2. Originally I thought it was intended to be an alternate timeline, like the game would follow along with the events that took place with 2's protagonist Chuck Greene. But as I found out right out the gate, its more along an alternate reality because aside from the story pretty much following the exact pattern of the first one, the first 2 that is, there is a cutscene and boss fight very early on where you actually have to fight Chuck Greene on his chainsaw motorcycle. Really, it was the most interesting scene because it painted an interesting picture and let me imagine how Chuck failed between Dead Rising: Case Zero and Dead Rising 2 and makes it a believable reality. That's always been an interesting concept to me, to take the hero of one game and make him a villain in the next, something that I believe was tried in Tales of Symphonia 2 and the now scrapped but being reconsidered Final Fantasy VII-2.

Chuck in DR2:OTR is one of the best scenes ever. The whole time you can imagine
 his decent from defeat to denial to insanity in the brief moments you see him. 

I'm getting off topic. Originally with this idea, I wasn't bothered that this is what they did. It fits well and its fun to see Frank's reactions to somethings.  But what bothers me is that it feels like in some of the scenes, Frank is just repeating the same lines of dialogue that Chuck delivered in the original version. I might have to replay 2 to confirm this. Frank does add to end of some fights some terrible cheesy one liner when he wins, and yes at one point he brings back his infamous catch phrase, but he delivers it with a smug irony, like he knows the humor of it now. However, when I feel the game starts to become something its own, sometimes someone will just say "Hey you're Frank West! Original dead rising 2 dialogue line!". This to me is somewhat irritating because it feels half assed. While the setting was the same, I hoped that the way the story played out would be different. Sure some scenes change subtly, but just call this what it is: Dead Rising 2: The version people wanted and we should have released first.  

Bibi is one of my favorite Pyscho's. Just an aging showgirl who just doesn't get it.
both Chuck and Frank act like their being hit on by their mom. Hilarious.

So for the most part, most of what made DR2 good is still here. Most of the controls haven't changed so its easy to pick up and start playing. Leveling up Frank functions the same way as the previous Dead Rising games, The best rewards are found from saving survivors who, like in DR2, are generally much smarter and braver than in the first DR game. So keep a handgun or shotgun handy for when saving people and order them ahead. They dash to the point and then huddle up and shoot anything that comes by. Much easier to save them in groups now. Bosses provide fairly decent PP as well and most of them can be found in the same places and times as the previous DR2. In addition to that, It wouldn't be Frank West if you didn't take pictures as well and taking them at the right time offers big PP opportunities, (lol, big PP.. It may be juvenile but its still funny). And yes the timed mission mechanic is still pretty annoying but at least you can just use the zombrex at the hour you need to than running back to the safe house to do it.

They have added some new weapon combinations and all of the old designs still work. The Bowie Knife + Boxing glove and the Broom + Machete combos are still the same arbiters of zombie decimation I grew to love in the previous game.  Some of them are good for a laugh but you'll basically stick to one or two powerful weapons and then if you are smart, you'll get the entertainment and blade magazines, when you get the Katanas you can pretty much the ride out the game with two swords that never break. Another good tip is when you find bars or coffee places, try to collect Wine or Coffee Creamer, combining 2 of each of those in a blender make a quickstep drink which covers a lot of ground quickly. So when not saving people its good to know where to make those because when saving people, they get the quickstep ability too, makes some rescues a breeze.

The soundtrack rocks my ass off. Dead Rising always has a kick ass soundtrack. The ambiance for the casinos and malls is the same plasticy "muzak" you would hear in actual malls. But when you would fight the psychopaths or other bosses, you get some kick ass hard rock, hardcore, or metal soundtrack that really amps up the fight and makes them very fun and entertaining. These soundtracks kick ass and totally make some of the fights and if you don't think so then you are brain damaged. Go to youtube and check out Celldweller's "Own Little World" or Chuck's boss theme "Firewater". Capcom understands boss fights and making them feel awesome.

There is also a sandbox mode, basically you get the freedom to browse the map and try to do various challenges that rank you online and reward you with money. You can carry this over to the actual story mode but It really isn't necessary as there are many was in the actual story mode to build money, its a neat little time sink though for the completionists.

The presentation in this game is what you have come to expect, graphically nothing has changed from DR2 to DR2:OTR. The survivors and zombies are pretty generic looking save the showgirls but not horrid. The major characters and bosses though, are all pretty well designed and have been polished up for the release, and with the proper HD sheen the characters could look downright lifelike, especially Rebecca Chang who admittedly I rule 34'd (don't judge me). The Boss characters are generally well designed and diverse as well, some of them just downright hilarious. A few of them reference some throw backs to previous DR games as well. I don't know why I didn't notice this before but something with the voice acting didn't settle with me. While most of the male characters act reasonably normal given the situation, all the of major female speaking roles with the exception of Stacey seem to be like they are all delivering their lines like they were hired by the soft core pornography actors association. All the dialogue they give is over sexualized and drenched in innuendo, and you barely get a feel for an actual character until much later in the game.

"Your performance was a little limp tonight, Frank. At that age you need pills for that."
I wish I was making that line up.

Rule 34: Its not always a bad thing... (seriously, Don't judge me)

One thing I wanted to specifically address about the presentation is Frank's actual appearance. When I first started playing the game I watched the intro cinematic and even the beginning play through, I thought little of it at first. "Oh there's Frank! This is gonna be awesome." But as I played on, in one of the first cutscenes the Rock mentioned that Frank sold baldness remedies, and it reminded me about the cover. I couldn't help but notice when I looked at it that Frank was definitely balding on the cover. It just looked strange, and now that they mentioned it I couldn't help but notice it. Then I started looked at his actual appearance as I played. I noticed Frank doesn't really run as much as he has kind of a waddling shuffle. He had that in the first DR but it definitely was more noticeable in this one, he also looked a bit more heavy set as well. I thought it was just design of the suit but nope, Frank got fat. At first I was somewhat off put by it, but then something clicked. Frank is an actual everyman. He's not a superhero, he's not some well cut trained soldier or a well traveled adventurer like say Nathan Drake. He's a dude who let fame get to him and lived a fast paced lifestyle that crumbled around him and fell into some bad vices. That topped on the degenerative nature of being bit by a zombie in the first game, it was completely natural and believable that he would let himself go. You tend to hear a large number of female gamers complain how women portrayed in video games are just over sexualized bombshells with massive chests. Now you are starting to see women in gaming starting to have more normal and regular appearances, but you don't really notice this kind of thing about men. I am going through the list of games across from my bed here, and aside from games with create a character, most of the male leads all have the same generic hero archetype. I stumbled upon this article that describes this realization pretty well. Perhaps this is a bit liberal arts douchey of me to make note of, but I thought it was an interesting point and I think I would like to see more actual average joe's as game protagonists.

Sorry about that, let me get back on track here. So if the game seems to be the exact same game as the one I played before, and not much of it seemed to just seemed to show any other variance the one before it, why would I continue to play it? Well, that's just the inherent beauty of this games design. Its just fun to run around to mash zombies into paste. And as I played through, the story does eventually start to branch off from the original path about half way through, making the game an alternate timeline as well.  I guess it still somewhat fits but the last boss is nothing short of ridiculous. But as soon as I finished, even having like 3 other games to play, I wanted to keep playing this one because I wanted to save all the survivors and keep leveling my character, keep discovering new weapons, want to rip through with my stronger character to see all the endings. I ended up playing this back to back just so I could rip through with all the levels and abilities I've earned. My same reaction to the other Dead Rising games.

Its a cool little add on to Dead Rising 2 but really it didn't need to exist. I, like most people, was pretty disappointed when Frank wasn't the star of the sequel but it was cool that Capcom listened to the fans and eventually gave them what they wanted. 40 Bucks for this title seemed a bit steep for something they didn't add all that much to, but I'm glad that I have it and its added the to play life of a game I was done playing. If you are a fan of Dead Rising, I would say it is worth a pick up but I might recommend waiting on it coming down in price a little bit. 

Bastion (XBLA): The indy game that could

As I recover from my new years hangover as I'm sure all of you are as well, I've decided to take a small break from the glamorous lifestyle of playing games by myself, and have enlisted the help of some contrasting personality and opinion for this next review. Lady Blue, The floor is yours...

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Hello! Big Sister here sitting in for our Ragemaster at the moment, to talk to you for a bit about Bastion - the little indy game that could.

BASTION: (XBLA, STEAM)

There were two things that attracted me to this game: the art style, and the fact that in the demo you could smash the fuck out of every single object in sight. I can say that the game delivered consistently on both of those points so if that's all it takes to drive you then it's worth a play through at least. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Bastion is a pretty simple, straightforward platformer. You play as a nameless character, known only as The Kid, who hacks his way through shortish levels capped off by boss fights. The Kid wakes up to an annihilated world and sets out to find what's happened, heading for a haven called The Bastion (which was conveniently built just in case this exact circumstance should occur). On the way there he realizes that pretty much everyone is dead, as a result of what they refer to in the game as "The Calamity". Adventure ensues.

I would not call the gameplay of this game its strength, as the levels (of which there are maybe a dozen or so) are pretty brief and the boss fights are not super challenging. What makes it so awesomely playable is Rucks, a secondary character who talks like a cowboy but looks like Colonel Sanders, and narrates your every move throughout the entire game. In in between action narration, he's dropping cryptic blurbs about the background of the story, what led up to this point, and where it could possibly be going. So, while you're playing the game, you're also being told a story. It might seem like it could get annoying, but it doesn't. Somehow it just works. In fact, I'm reading my own writing in Ruck's voice in my head as I'm writing it. How fucked up is that?

Other game elements include building up your home base with practical shops to work on your weapons or add challenges & powerups, collecting a series of weapons throughout the game which include melee and distance weapons, earning or finding special skills, and seeking mementos of all the folks who are now ashen corpses. (you run into them throughout the game and can hack them into smoky nonexistence. Effectively killing them twice). There are also some "shooting range" type of challenges for each weapon you acquire, with three prize tiers on each level.

As far as gameplay goes the play control is pretty good, although you can't really navigate in true 360 degrees so sometimes lining up shots is hard, but the game likes to auto aim on what's closest or mostly in front of you so it's not often an issue. If you're locked on, you can toggle targets, and if you're in attack mode, it will auto target to the next enemy once your focus is dead. You can be equipped with any two weapons at a time, plus a special skill and a shield which can also deal damage with well timed blocks. This brings me to one of my few complaints about the game: the in-level weapon swap. If you find a new weapon mid level (and you do, on almost every level) then it is auto-equipped-taking the place of whatever you were using before. You can't switch back until you return to the Bastion at the end of the level (unless you find an armory mid-level which happens not nearly often enough for my taste). At least the levels are short enough that you're not stuck with it for long, but I don't like being force fed an item. The only other real inconvenience has to do with the map edges. In this game, the ground is floating in an abyss. If you fall off the edge, you fall off the edge. You don't die, but you do take a damage hit when you come plummeting back onto the map. (Oh, I didn't mention that there is a lot of plummeting in this game).

As I mentioned, this isn't a long game. I played through in two sittings. If you want something super challenging then this probably won't grab you, but if you just want to be entertained by some beautiful game design a good story, and some odd folksy sort of music that is haunting and catchy in a way I never thought I'd enjoy but do in fact to a borderline obsessive degree, I'd say spend the points (or the five bucks, you Steam people).