Rest in Peace you crazy THQ fellows: Saint's Row 3

I talked about this last year when I was playing through Just Cause 2: I've never played a GTA game. I can't recall if I mentioned that GTA came out on PC back when I was a youngun with a friend who tried to sell me on it. I'm still not sure why he successfully got me into Master of Orion and X-Com, but not GTA or Fallout. It's a mystery for the ages. Mind you, GTA was a top down game that was a bit of a letdown from Carmageddon. I don't know if they came out at the same time, but Carmageddon was way more interesting. You know, because I love murder. He played the shit out of both of them though...

His sister was very pretty. I considered making a misogynistic comment here to help set the mood for talking about Saint's Row 3, but the game is into some sort of bizarro land where the very concept of misogyny or misandry fail to deliver enough punch to what the game is like. Saint's Row 3 is nonchalant and almost inoffensive in its vile tendencies, simply for lack of anything connecting to real life response. There should be some level of revulsion to using a stripper as a human shield before throwing her into the pool and taunting her, but the game is so far gone into clown college territory your brain just can't make the connection. Like you know those words should hold meaning but the game is just one big crazy bear show.

This game hates humanity. Loathes it. Even if you play very tightly, drive safe around civilians and refuse to kill cops, they'll end up dead. A burst of gang warfare sees traffic around you freak out, with passing grannies plowed over by desperate fools who spin their car 360 degrees before moonwalking into a curb that six people happened to be standing on. Hell, sometimes you can just see traffic screw itself up without any input from you. Someone will walk into a car, a body will go flying, people will panic and then there's just death everywhere.

this it not ever going to be mature

Once you get away from the ridiculousness of its parade of buffoonery the real game lies beneath and ... Actually, that game is pretty good. For an effort that is tied very intimately to the death of a publisher and its years of excess, Saint's Row 3 is neither desperate or ugly. It's an attractive game, a mad men murder simulator, in which you take your sharp dressed gangster and plow into a cadre of opposing thugs in a garbage truck before leaping out from your flaming wreckage to benny hill your way into the distance. In theory you can dress your guy or gal in whatever outfit you like, but I just can't get over the idea of dressing as some sauve motherfucker as I barrel through city streets with barely any idea what I'm doing before t-boning a truck in traffic and dying in the resulting three car pile up explosion. Death and carnage follow in your wake, leading me to feel like you should dress for a funeral, because holy fuck people die.

And once the heavy weapons come out? Only the dead can know peace from this circus. Murder time fun time, indeed.