Murderbrawl XXXI (Experience 16)

To mess up Murderbrawl 31 (Wrestlemania!?) effectively all the talent needed to be removed from the picture. Using the remote control weapon introduced earlier, causing the early demise of the wrestlers was no problem at all. While not an overly exciting mission it was fun just because it was a much slower paced mission than others. There was a lot less firing of guns (really none) and a lot more pure driving, albeit limited. It was a basic mission that just inched the story forward. The game could have benefited a lot from more missions like this that play an important role in the narrative and cutting down on the rushed story telling.

And now for something completely different: This vehicle is nowhere near as fun as it should be.

Up next STAG was back in the picture causing the Saints to panic. Some plane was coming in that needed to be taken out. Naturally this was best handled by leaping from one plane to another at thousands of feet in the air. While cinematic and laughable … I was about to make a point about believability. What a foolish thought while writing about this game. Anyway the mission was fine until a section where you board a tank and fall from the sky while firing at enemies all around. I was not clear if I needed to lead with my shots but nothing seemed to work. I tried leading and not leading my shots... I kind of just gave up and let the mission progress without me taking out the enemies firing at me. The tank was on fire and I figured I was going to fail just as the transition out of the tank took place. I ended up in another tank and crashed into the ground. Green gas filled the area as canisters from the plane smashed into the ground around my tank. This caused the populace of a neighborhood to literally become zombies. While normally I think zombies in games are fine and they are nothing to be excited about... in Saints Row it was awesome. The zombies are vicious and a welcome change of pace from pure gun firing enemies (the oafs being the exception previously). The zombies even remained outside of the missions in this playthrough session.

I wish my glasses would stay on my face after leaping from a plane.

Using a falling tank to take out infantry: not exactly my cup of tea.

I needed a vehicle to take me to visit the mayor for my next mission. I went to the list of vehicles that my gang could deliver and figured I should try out something called the ASP. Little did I realize was the ASP was... an Atari like tank with blocks for shells... effective but a bit on the slow side.

Block you too!

Just what the game needed: Zombies.

Zombie cleanup! After meeting the mayor, Burt Reynolds, the zombie cleanup was a priority due to his promise to support the Saints. The zombie mission was a great aside that played just as well as other zombie games. Things were hectic and just a bit out of control. The best part was the fact that I had some Saints tag along and somehow one was able to get a car into the zombie neighborhood. This was an impressive feat because all of the bridges had been raised to not allow the zombies to leave (and no cars were intended to get into the area). Tearing around in a vehicle was a lot less difficult and a lot more fun (and humorous... drive-bys on zombies made me snicker).

Cars vs. Zombies (new video game title)

Like Left 4 Dead, the supply of zombies is unlimited.

Cyrus was surrounded but not defeated... too bad he avoided becoming a zombie leader of some crazy zombie STAG.

Before the big Murderbrawl 31 event there was one more task at hand. Wrestler/Saint needed some mask back to make an appearance at Murderbrawl so we had to trash a casino and go into an already open vault (open because...??). This mission was just a sequence of fights and did not inspire a lot honestly... unlike Murderbrawl itself.

"Tell me where the next mission is so I can be done with this one!!"

Murderbrawl is definitely a mission worth experiencing. Like the end to the Deckers' storyline this one was big deal. Instead of a large over the top mission with lots of locations and activities you play out a ridiculous wrestling match against Killbane. The scripted events were well done and the mission was enjoyable. My only complaint would be that Murderbrawl should have an audience of thousands not hundreds as shown in the background of the match.

My character definitely does not inspire a lot of fear...

The little guy is voiced by Hulk Hogan and gets stomped out of the match by jobbers.

The match plays out as a reasonably simple/fun sequence (the quick time events are very acceptable in this form).

Victory! (what match ends with a headlock??)

Hit the Deck(er)! (Experience 15)

Before taking on the Tronnies (apparently they are called the Deckers) through some super computer matrix thing... Kenzie needed the routers in the nuclear facility taken out. This mission was fairly bland. But along the way I lost my catpack. I am not sure if this was a glitch or intentional after using a parachute. After jumping into the facility and parachuting down my catpack must have fallen off! Sadness. Emoness. This was a prime example of a mission that was not well thought out. It also concluded out of nowhere and did not make a lot of sense. After destroying the routers my character was left standing in a hail of gunfire and no clear route to escape the facility. Instead of forcing me to say... move my character out of harms way, the mission immediately concluded and showered me with rewards. Not exactly a logical conclusion to my being present in the belly of the Deckers' fortress.

The drop that made me lose my catpack.

Up next was the enter-the-matrix-and-take-out-the-Deckers-leader mission. This mission was a lot of fun and quite unique due to a number of entertaining homages to other games and media. While the art referenced Tron (of course) a variety of old games were on the list to be parodied or hinted at. There was even a sequence to bring back the memories of old text based adventure games. Your character enters as a toilet due to technical difficulties and upgrades to a low polygon blow-up doll before finally becoming a slightly higher poly character. They also throw in some fun items like a crash screen and negative effects to mess up combat (such as built-in lag and reversed controls). The final battle reminded me of Shadow of the Colossus a bit (but nowhere nearly as incredible). This is definitely one mission worth experiencing simply for the variety of references and activities you take part in.

You are a toilet. What other game has you play as a toilet with a gun?

KILL THE UNICORN is always the right answer.

Epic battle for supremacy of the Internets!

Too bad you cannot exist as this huge monster in the game's "real" world...

An outfit change was required before moving on. I finalized my outfit for the rest of my game playing experience. The Cardinal outfit with a punk attitude was absurd and fun all wrapped in one! (check out the swinging cross!)

Nothing too offensive... oh wait it kind of is.

So previously the Saints moved out of their palatial high rise downtown to set some kind of trap for STAG... In the next mission apparently all the cars around the building were rigged with explosives to knock out STAG ground forces upon their arrival. This kind of thinking seems really foolish. STAG has planes and helicopters and whatever else. As predicted the ground attack went poorly and STAG lost only some of their forces... but not their air support... and not the forces entering from the roof. The defense was reasonably fun and introduced some new item that I never used again that rained missiles from the sky. Anyway things did not end very well. The ambush was a failure in my view from the moment it was conceived. STAG had no problem replenishing their unlimited forces and kidnapped Shaundi... retrieving her would be my next mission.

See! All the ground forces are gone! ... wait why am I still having to defend against ground forces?

Seeking rockets are great as long as you don't move the cursor accidentally.

The final mission of my play session required me to change my appearance to look like Cyrus (the guy in charge of STAG). This mission was a change of pace and a bit goofy. My character continuously gave away the fact that she was in-fact not Cyrus but instead a bumbling phony gang-banger. I took two Saints to the main STAG aircraft carrier to imprison them and then sneak around to release them along with Shaundi. This mission was the first where driving carefully was critical. I failed the mission twice before making it to an aircraft to take to the carrier. After freeing the Saints the decision was made to take out the carrier. Easy as pie, and boom one carrier cracked in half.

Hardest part of the game is the next 5 minutes.

What could go wrong? Why does Cyrus' voice come out of my character's vocal chords?

When in doubt, use a tank. (Experience 14)

Oh no! Killbane (main antagonist) has broadcast some Saints dancing in front of a picture of the destroyed bridge appearing to celebrate. This is a public relations nightmare! Although highly cheesy it worked as a motivation to have a mission where you have to find the secret broadcast location. Of course Killbane escaped but the mission was alright. At the last moment before Killbane's near demise, my helicopter lost control... introducing a remote control item that can take over any vehicle (I had this earlier due to my side mission completions).

I believe I can fly... (... a helicopter ... to the coordinates of the van)

In an attempt to crush STAG, the decision is made to move the entirety of the Saints operation out of the main building to accomplish some kind of unknown counter attack. It did not make sense in the end and the mission was some kind of protect-and-escort-but-not-really--actually-distract-by-utter-destruction mission. The strange thing was that some of the base buildings that I was supposed to attack with a VTOL refused to take damage. I had to land the plane and manually throw grenades to inflict any damage at all.

Crispy little critters and buildings abound!

As per usual my vehicle can take about four hundreds times more damage than any enemy.

Up next the nerdy FBI agent (Kinzie I believe) needed me to go steal a super computer so I could hack into the Tronnies matrix or some tech nonsense. The mission went well but I failed to follow instructions and used a tank to gently free/destroy the computer.

Pirate protagonist has phasing capabilities.

Using the tank as was highly *NOT* recommended... and resulted in my retrying from checkpoint.

Up next it was decided to kidnap the Nytblade actor (apparently from the first mission) from STAG headquarters. To sneak in, Viola and my character had to get into outfits befitting of the Nytblade theme: a cardinal and some kind of stripper nun. (if you arrived on this page from a google search for "stripper nun" my apologies... this is only a game blog) Everything went reasonably well except the escape when Viola felt the need to not enter the escape vehicle and instead take on an entire STAG battalion. She eventually figured things out... but only after I drove about half way to the Saints base and came back.

Very comic book like...

All those red dots on the radar and flames engulfing the screen can only make my escape that much more entertaining!

There is a general problem with the way missions are concluded. There is some exposure to the plot through cutscenes before and during missions but some missions end and cut right to the rewards screens without a moment to take in the weight of what had just transpired. Many instances feel as though they were rushed and no attention to actual storytelling was given. Even a few moments of the camera panning around the situation or a few additional lines could have added a lot more depth. I am not implying that Saints Row is some kind of masterpiece of writing but the plot deserved a bit more time/development than it is given.

All dark and emo with a cat pack that looks like my actual cat.

I guess this is less emo and more thief.

Kill Zimos Please (Experience 13)

This play session I started with a mission for Zimos that was about the most offensive thing I have seen thus far in the game. To put it nicely you free some “indentured servants” for Zimos. The mission begins with Zimos being a stereotypical pimp and your character ending up nude running around a brothel. ...really classy stuff. After blasting out of the building I wound up on a boat freeing people from cargo containers and fending off the Rescorts.

 

Boat Defense - Great summer internship for any college student!

An outfit change was necessary...to clean off the gross of the Zimos mission. The Saint-Pirate seems alright.

Needs a parrot. (that speaks zombie)

The next (ten thousand times less offensive) mission involved Oaf man and my character meeting one of the main antagonists recently turned informant. With hints of a military presence coming from numerous new reports it was no surprise that a massive military onslaught interrupted the meeting and played into the mission at hand. The escape from the STAG military forces was entertaining enough. This was a drastic change of pace and resulted in some changes I was not exactly expecting (the police cars are now driven by STAG forces for example).

Looks like a usual visit to a park in Eugene Oregon.

Taking a jet down with a pistol is easier than one might imagine.

Hopefully the missions/story follow the second type as I am not sure I would tolerate much more of the first type. Not so much content this time around... just some pictures and disappointment in the Zimos mission... FRAPS captured two entertaining screenshots during this session:

Might be a critique on my driving... or maybe someone is carjacking me.

I hope there was a twenty page design document on this feature alone.

Missions that are not missions (Experience 12)

Saints Row The Third does not differentiate social calls with characters from missions. I intentionally avoided numerous missions while completing all of the side tasks. Unfortunately I think I may have missed the proper introduction to the given side tasks because they appeared on the map before I learned exactly why the given tasks existed.

All clear on the Tronnie front... come out from under the table.

 Nerdy FBI agent wanted to hack the Tronnies and take them down... did not really understand why I was doing the side tasks of protecting her... until afterward when I visited her and likely missed some critical plot point.

All of your stupid missions are done, what terrible offensive thing awaits our partnership next?

Zimos wanted to pick up contacts and anger the Rescorts... did not really understand why I was doing the side tasks... until afterward when I visited him and likely missed some critical plot point.

... this character should not be voiced by Hogan. They should have picked Randy Orton or someone remotely the same age as this character appears to be. (could have saved $$$)

Hulk Hogan (yea the character is voiced by Hulk Hogan!) wanted me to earn courage by riding with a Tiger.. did not really understand why I was doing the side task... until afterward when I visited him and likely missed some critical plot point.

I did receive access to a VTOL directly from my phone after all my task work. It has two functional modes: Helicopter and Jet (it transforms). Helicopter mode is fairly workable and fun. Jet mode is not. Jet mode is also slow and does not maneuver so well... though I am comparing it to other games ... who knows maybe it is flawless.

Those jets are just for show... cars are a faster way to travel.

After all my social calls some dumb Saint threw a party and the Rescorts attacked via prostitute assassins. I won naturally. Shaundi was arguing about the stupidity of the party because of the dead Saint (Johnny I think) from the first mission... I guess the 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 people that have died throughout the rest of the game are small potatoes.

Ever wonder where the graveyard in Saints Row The Third is? (hint: is it in the ocean?)

I never remember to zoom in when sniping... whoops!

 New outfit – The Calledge. (har)

Working on that Masters in Gang Management...

TASK MASTER (Experiences 11 to infinity)

The time had finally arrived. I decided to take on every task on the map. The challenges awaiting me were definitely epic, ridiculous, and difficult.

Jaywalking is dangerous!

With Insurance Fraud and the Genki television show being the most difficult tasks (for me), the option to automatically complete all tasks within a single 'hood was well worth the cash. As an upgrade I think it was a good design call as some of the tasks in the game can be very difficult depending on how things play out in a given sequence. Genki is fairly heavily scripted but even a medium difficulty node seemed to be a bit rough (though I kept trying to take out the heavies... they destroyed me every time). Insurance Fraud is simply a pain. I was glad to be rid of it. I knocked out the hard difficulty nodes for both Genki and Insurance Fraud without a second thought. They aren't all that fun and probably would have required a lot of replays to knock them out.

I hate insurance fraud... but the screenshots are humorous.

Escort offered two varieties: Drive around some guy cheating on his wife and avoid the news vans OR drive around with a Tiger as a passenger (again with vans chasing you). Both were equally annoying but the escort the cheater turned out to be the most difficult. I had to replay the hard node about three times to beat it. The biggest challenge is that it is completely random how traffic will play out in the area you run around in. Also the random requests from the guy along the lines of “get a second of air time”or “power slide for a second” can make things complex if you aren't near any ramps or if the game somehow opts to ignore your power slide five times in a row. (this is one of many reasons why I repeated this task three times) I was relieved when I finished the hard difficulty escort mission... never again (?).

Nothing calms a Tiger like the offering of a can of Tuna.

Mayhem proved to be a fun task... albeit repetitive with the larger point requirement nodes. Unlimited rockets and unlimited fodder is fun for a bit but the huge point values and time limits really bogged down the medium and hard difficulty nodes.

Boom shaka laka!

Very cinematic of FRAPS to capture this screenshot.

Snatch was initially difficult as I kept having problems picking up the targets. After a while I seemed to figure things out and never hit any issues. You drive around picking up people and avoiding the very angry gang in the given area. These missions would be nearly impossible without the semi-invincible car they give you when you start the mission.

Trail Blazing came in two distinct flavors: Tron bike weirdness and Radioactive ATV or some such thing. The tron bike weirdness just required you to make it to the end of a long and winding tube dodging stuff along the way. It was bland. Radioactive ATV required you to race around town to a number of checkpoints but rewarded you for hitting pedestrians and cars with additional time. Your ATV is permanently on fire and destroys cars upon any slight impact. It was definitely ridiculous. The trick to the Radioactive ATV seemed to be ignore the cars, hit people, and boost often (if you happen to have nitro).

A couple more rounds of Heli Assult proved to be even easier when I realized the rockets fired from the helicopter sucked. Using the machine gun was a lot more accurate and easy.

Trafficking for “Zimos” (the Vocoder man apparently) proved to be entertaining for the most part. I would always intentionally bring along some Saints and immediately hit the Z key to request they join me. This way I would start the mission with 3 additional guns to keep the gangs occupied or at bay. Unfortunately a heavy flame thrower oaf trashed the near-invincible vehicle and we were forced to take a very weak Rescorts car. This meant after every delivery I would have to pick up a different car. Luckily Zimos seemed to never be hurt much and recovered quickly. These missions worked out reasonably well and provided lots of over the top drowning-in-enemies action.

Punk Saint and I aiming back at the Rescort oaf hoping to ruin our run.

Zimos drives and I fire my explosive ammo based hand cannon at the Rescorts.

No outfit change this time!

Mega Mission (Experience 10)

This session included a very long, drawn out... multi-part... lots of talking... and action... and run on and on... like this poorly formed sentence. Up first was the attack on the Rescorts headquarters to take out the main boss (he appeared in the first mission). Unfortunately he passed on without any actual gameplay. He died in a cutscene with little fanfare.

Oaf dude is half truck.

Some huge oaf (apparently the genetic source of all the oafs in Saints Row) helped out and joined the gang a bit before the conclusion of the mission. He ran around naked with blurred out bits for maximum entertainment. He primarily proved that the AI in the game has issues as his pathing consistently became snared by things.

After the successful Rescorts attack a funeral procession was held for the character who apparently died in the first mission. Of course there was a catch. The procession became stuck in traffic on a bridge being dedicated by some politician. The Luchadores bombarded the bridge with rockets  and attacks from vehicles in a semi-exciting sequence... though one you just watch and do not play any role in. This mission was still not over though.

Enjoy Saints Row The Third the cutscene! We will return you to your hour long mission after these words from our sponsors!

 As a continuation to the mission I had to go to a boat and free an FBI agent from the clutches of the evil Tronnies gang. This was nothing spectacular. My female character expressed an attraction to the Tronnies outfits... I was mortified but continued on. Freeing the agent was simple and immediately rolled into another part of the mission: free/collect yet another character.

So then I went to the house of BDSM. Yikes... no screenshots please. The developers left little to the imagination of the player with a variety of disturbing characters and devices. While nothing overly shocking it was also not really that entertaining with the conclusion being the exception where you have a low speed carriage race using ball-gagged weirdos... look never mind. It was weird and I laughed for a moment... and then soon after thought to myself "what the hell was that?"

I am fairly sure this pedestrian was illegally crossing the driveway.

So for whatever reason we collected yet another character. Vocoder man (he only speaks in musical tone or some such nonsense) joined up to drag me to collect a fourth new character... some wrestler/fighter. At this point I wondered if this was the last mission in the game because it seemed to have dragged on for a long time. I do not understand how the writers did not see an opportunity to build up the importance of 4 entirely unique characters with back stories and otherwise. This mission should have spanned 10 missions or more to make all this misfits remotely desirable. Pacing just slightly could have added a lot more gameplay and story... oh well. This is intended to be a crazy sandbox not literature I guess.

EVERYONE CELEBRATE THE MISSION ENDED WITH MINIMAL SUCCESS!

NITROUS UNLOCKED! Every car can now launch into space with a key press.

Rebel outfit seemed like a good fit for my next run involving a slew of mayhem!

What... no glasses?