I know that by now I should be used to Saints Row the Third being completely fucking absurd

[Sean Strife]

Here's the thing about Saint's Row: The Third that worries me. The more they hype all of the wacky, zany, loony, over-the-top options that you can do here, the less they're sounding like options. Just because you offer a vehicle that sucks up pedestrians and shoots them out of a cannon doesn't mean I should have to use it.

Why do you hate fun!? It's out there! Many of us are having it and it's a wonderful break of a life full of meh. You can be cultured, intelligent AND also have fun.

That said, holy mackerel this game looks so incredibly campy, it's oozing fun from it's stitches.

Saints Row is what recent GTA games should've been. Screw this realism bullshit, go for FUN.

Okay, I'm going to go off on a little rant here, so bare with me.

I am tired Tired TIRED of people that use the "fun" excuse as their argument. And that's what it is, an excuse that people trot out when they don't have an argument. Because they don't understand, or don't want to understand that what they're crying about us wanting to be taken away is THEIR VERSION OF WHAT IS FUN, NOT OURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me inform you all of a fact that apparently doesn't register with some of you. All of the realistic touches that were added to Grand Theft Auto 4, the ones that supposedly sucked all of the fun out of it, these were the very reasons I bought this game. Yes, as much as you don't want to hear it, or in this case read it, the realism is what actually made the game more fun! I also enjoy the dlc until "The Cop Out of Gay Tony" came along.

I like the action/adventure games that care enough to interject realism into their games. Why? Because the realism adds a degree of difficulty that you have to factor in. Why did you think there were people that chose Splinter Cell over Metal Gear Solid? I love that in the Mafia and Driver games, cops will come after you for minor violations like running a red light, or driving over the speed limit. I love that in Mafia II that you can actually run the risk of your car running out of gas during a high-speed chase. Or if you return to a store you just robbed, the cops will be there and the cashier will identify you as the robber. I love that both Mafia II and Driver: Parallel Lines both have police that will initially chase you based on the car you drive and you can lose them by ditching the car without them seeing you. But if they do see you ditch the car, they will chase you no matter what car you drive. Even Scarface: The World Is Yours had a more believable method of using a minigame to attempt to talk your way out of trouble with the police that didn't completely go away until you paid them off. It's sure better than the "Let's Ram Our Way through a Drive-Thru Confessional and Magically Everything Is Forgiven" method.

Another GTA4 realism related bashing that infuriated me at the time was the whole "no airplane" decision. People said, "Well, they did it in GTA: San Andreas. They should do it here." Well, let me be the one to give you the definitive reason why planes make sense in San Andreas and not any other GTA game. Do you know what the key difference is between San Andreas and Liberty City? San Andreas is a state comprised of three fairly large cities, each separated by a forest, a desert, and highways. So it would make sense that each city and the desert would have their own airports as a method of fast travel between them. Liberty City, however, is just that, one city. It makes no sense for it to have more than one airport. I will give all the credit in the world to Saint's Row 2 for including planes and jets to fly out of their one airport just to show how stupid and useless they really are. Because this brought about the question no one bothered to ask, "Other than the airport, where are you going to land it?" Despite not having any remote training as a pilot, I learned through these games that the one thing you need when taking off landing a plane is a wide, long, flat stretch of land. Where else are you going to land, the street? Which are populated by cars, people, and buildings you'll be lucky to squeeze through? This is even more evident by the fact that The Third had to invent a fighter jet that takes off and lands vertically like a helicopter.

So the next time you want to use the "realism takes away fun" excuse, tell that to the Forza and Gran Turismo fans. Tell that to the Civilization and Age of Empire fans. Go to operationsports.com and tell the NBA 2K fans and the NHL game fans that their game is boring because of all the meticulous aspects of realism that are going into it. Go to the forums at caws.ws and tell all the fans of the UFC and WWE games that the realism in their games is sucking out all of the fun. Get in-between a Madden vs. NFL 2K5 debate and tell them that neither game is fun because it's too realistic. Tell that to the Fight Night fans. Tell that to the Top Spin fans. Tell that to the Fifa and Pro Evolution Soccer fans. Tell that to any fan of Will Wright's games from Sim City to The Sims 3. Hell, tell the Battlefield 3 fans that less realism = more fun and see how many of them tell you to go to a Modern Warfare 3 fansite. Try and impose yourself onto them and see what answers you get.

While you're more than welcome to have that opinion, that doesn't mean the rest of us HAVE to share your opinion. I can appreciate realism in gaming, but at the same time, I just want to have crazy fun with video games sometimes. While I can see what your point is with it, at the same time, your entire rant, to me anyways, does tend to comes off as an eloquent version of "My opinion is right and anybody who doesn't share this opinion is wrong". Just as you're welcome to enjoy realism in video games, we're entitled to like batshit insanity in video games as well.

 

[goliath6711]

While you're more than welcome to have that opinion, that doesn't mean the rest of us HAVE to share your opinion. I can appreciate realism in gaming, but at the same time, I just want to have crazy fun with video games sometimes. While I can see what your point is with it, at the same time, your entire rant, to me anyways, does tend to comes off as an eloquent version of "My opinion is right and anybody who doesn't share this opinion is wrong". Just as you're welcome to enjoy realism in video games, we're entitled to like batshit insanity in video games as well.

Really? Because that was the very point that I was making. I was just making it to the other side.

At what point did I ever say, "No one should have any remote type of fun playing this game. Not you, not me, not anybody"? Because I was pretty sure that I was saying, "Don't say that this game is the universal definition of 'fun', and anyone who doesn't like it themselves, doesn't want people to have fun".

A baby can play with a piece of paper for hours, laughing and giggling the whole time. Do you think that because I would be bored after a minute I would not acknowledge that the baby was having fun?

 

[yaoinut]

I'm honestly one of those types that never did very well in realistic games. I see why people would enjoy them, for all the reasons goliath pointed out because I am not copying and pasting all that text, but for me, I love bright colours, absurdity and all that ilk.

I am a gamer, but a bad gamer. I always play on easy. Games that turn realistic can often become frustrating for me. Games where I can be a cross between human and fridge though, those work fine.

I loved Saints Row 2. The story is laughable but that was kinda the point. From the looks of it, it gets just 100 times sillier in The Third and I couldn't be happier.

 

[Sixcess]

Here's the thing about Saint's Row: The Third that worries me. The more they hype all of the wacky, zany, loony, over-the-top options that you can do here, the less they're sounding like options. Just because you offer a vehicle that sucks up pedestrians and shoots them out of a cannon doesn't mean I should have to use it.

After the first gameplay trailer (the one with all the silly weapons) I was definitely thinking much the same, but I'd guess they'll be mostly confined to the mini games, since they do seem to be playing the story sections fairly straight - well, relatively speaking.

Ironically perhaps, I find intentionally zany hijinks less funny than the idea of the Boss and the rest of the Saints just going about their usual gangland business, surrounded by all this lunacy but acting like there's no difference between "Go whack this guy in the diner across the street" and "Go whack this guy, in cyberspace."