Playing Saints Row: The Third (a.k.a. Saints Row 3) takes me back to the day I first picked up my Xbox 360 Elite, back in 2007.  I was looking for a game to pick up alongside Dead or Alive 4, when my friend told me about all the things that happen in Saints Row.  Seeing that the game was on sale and the price wouldn't hurt me if the game was horrible, I picked it up.  I saw all the different things that my friend stated could be done in the game were true, and I played it through to the end. Picking up and playing Saints Row: The Third takes me back to when I started the first game in the series, being amazed by the game's personality and the amount of things available to do.

Saints Row: The Third is the latest in the series of open world games from THQ. Placing players in Stilwater as a seasoned gang banger, taking on a series of activities to build his gang notoriety back, the Saints Row series prides itself on never taking itself too seriously. In the introductory mission, the main characters are robbing a bank while donning huge mascot heads made to look like one of the more prominent members of the gang. As the gang goes further up in the bank, a hostage stands to the side and asks for an autograph. Eventually this leads to a shootout on top of the bank's safe, which is being carried off by a helicopter. After this, a series of events leads to the player's gang being forced to leave town and start things anew in another town, Steelport.

To gain prominence in this new town, the player must earn respect and money. These two forms of currency build tie into another. Respect and cash are earned for doing various activities around the city, be it completing a story mission, driving in the direction that goes against traffic, killing a rival gang member on the street, or owning various businesses. Earning Respect levels your character up and lets you purchase abilities with money earned from various activities. Saints Row: The Third is all about having fun causing mayhem and seeing all there is in the world, and this way of leveling up and purchasing abilities goes hand in hand with that ideology. Players can choose what they improve based on how they play, rather than each mission having a specific unlock associated with it. Respect in the previous games acted as a deterrent to completing story missions, so now having the ability to complete the story without earning respect in turn makes the system that much better.

With the ability to do so much in Saints Row: The Third, the controls are thought out well. Cars, boats, and helicopters can all be maneuvered with ease, and doing drive-bys is easy without being a contortionist. SR3 also does a good job of letting the player know the different abilities that can be done gradually through gameplay, taking the majority of the first act to introduce the player to everything.

Graphics are top-notch in SR3, and the scale of the world is conveyed seamlessly. The character creation system has nearly anything you could think about, and with this entry being over-the-top, characters can even appear non-human. The game's soundtrack is great, having radio stations dedicated to different genres of music and even a talk radio station with material from Adult Swim. The only thing I could say I miss from the previous entries is the omission of the 3 original songs sung by Aisha in the first game.

There are plenty of things I could say about Saints Row: The Third, but for the sake of brevity, I will say that it has something for everyone. There's a hilarious story, tons of activities to do, and the ability to play through the story with another player. With the amount of things to do and the thoughtfulness put into everything, all that's left to wonder is, where will the series go next?

GameDynamo's Score for Saints Row: The Third (PC)

	Score	Description
Graphics	95	Top-notch, great sense of scale in the game's world. The over-the-top character design makes it extra entertaining.
Sound	95	Huge soundtrack, but if you were to drive around without the music playing, you would hear a lot of funny quips from NPCs.
Gameplay	95	Tons of things to do aside from the missions. The leveling up system assures that you can cater your character to your personal play style.
Play Value	100	Plenty to do, tons to see, and the whole campaign is playable in co-op. There is also the ability to take other players' characters within your game. A steady DLC stream ensures that you can come back to this game over and over.
Final Score	98	Saints Row: The Third is better experienced than talked about. The gameplay and the world come together to create a game unlike any other out on the market.

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