Review: Saints Row: The Third Remastered (PlayStation 4)

by Jim Smale · May 22, 2020

Saints Row: The Third – Remastered gives you control of the Saints at the height of their power, and you live the life to show for it. This is your City. These are your rules. Remastered with enhanced graphics, Steelport the original city of sin has never looked so good as it drowns in sex, drugs, and guns. Take a tank skydiving, call in a satellite-targeted airstrike on a Mexican wrestling gang, and fight against a highly-trained military force by your lonesome in the most outlandish gameplay scenarios ever seen.

Pros:

Decent graphics.
59.15gb download size.
Platinum trophy.
HDR with setting sliders.
Display settings-film grain/sharpening slider/motion blur/FPS lock.
Invert axis and sensitivity slider.
Campaign-solo and co-op.
3 difficulties-Casual/normal/hardcore.
In-depth character creator.
Opening Heist with tutorial pop-ups.
It contains all previous DLC and cosmetics.
Open world action gameplay.
Play how you want.
Humour and innuendo throughout.
Save when you want.
Earn rep (exp) and level up to unlock new abilities and upgrades.
Crib-your home base where you can change outfits/weapons/vehicles.
Many hidden collectibles from drug packages to sex dolls and more.
Four huge boroughs make up the game map, you can freely go between them from the off.
Radio stations covering many genres from classic to rap to pop.
Mixtape-make your own collection of songs.
Day/night cycle with rain weather effects.
Find and use cheat codes.
Notoriety levels fro each of the factions and a wanted level for police.
Gang wars are everywhere and you can align or attack them as you play.
Phone-home of the map, upgrades, missions, calling in help, or vehicle drop-offs.
Crew-can call reinforcements to help you in gunfights or driving.
Discover activities/missions/shortcuts as you drive around.
Buy businesses around the game world and generate hourly incomes.
Each map part has its own tracker for discoveries/completed activities etc and an overall percentage.
Missions-main story mission, DLC missions, and side missions.
Bonus actives like drive the wrong way, near misses, drive on two wheels, etc. Fill the bar to earn a bonus rep.
Fun activity mini-games to find like timed tank shooting or insurance fraud.
Always something to do.
Fast weapon change wheel.
Fun little interactions like taking selfies, signing autographs.
Minimap.
Uses touchpad.
A lot of Bruckheimer levels of destruction and explosions.

Cons:

Only one control layout.
The slowdown happens a lot.
Slow sluggish gunplay.
Old clunky controls.
Enemies got stuck in walls a lot!
A lot of sexual content.
The main story missions are kind of boring and predictable.
Not a likable group of characters.

8/10
Graphics - 8/10
8/10
Sound - 8/10
7/10
Accessability - 7/10
8/10
Length - 8/10
9/10
Fun Factor - 9/10

8/10

Summary

Saint Row has long been a game series that takes a stab at doing a GTA but having a bit more fun with it. Saints Row the 3rd is the most Saints Row ass game you can get from deplorable innuendo to sexually charged weapons the game has it all. For the remaster not much has changed outside of a visual lick of paint and all the DLC chucked in. The same clunky out of date controls are in there, the game ruining bugs can still be seen like enemies stuck in walls or enemies shooting through walls it’s quite a bit broken. But the thing is and this is true for all Saint Row games, you keep coming back, you come back for the over the top violence, the random Ai swearing contests the absurd missions and of course the colorful ensemble of characters. For everything that Saints Row does wrong it does right by doing it wrong, if that makes sense then you are better than me at understanding my rambles but I mean the game has flaws but who cares when action is so intense. Don’t get me wrong the game has loads of technical issues and it could and should have had more love poured over it but for the chance to play the game how it is? Well it’s passable but only just. I hated how the pace of the game was up and down, the jokes are old and not relevant but I just love exploring the world and watching people cause absolute chaos.