TGS: Saints Row the Third's Sci-Fi Surprises

And now for something completely different. Anyone who's been following
the progress of Volition's third Saints Row game should be well aware
that the upcoming sandbox crime epic is pulling out all the stops when
it comes to providing the most over the top avenues of action, from the
daring airborne escapes from private jets to high stakes bank heists and
the notorious man-cannon that sucks up pedestrians and launches them
face-first into the skyline. But for the game's TGS demo we were shown a
mission that came flying in out of left field to knock our socks off.


One of the Saints' rival gangs in Saints Row the Third is the Deckers, a
group of cyber crime hackers who exert their influence via keyboard and
mouse rather than with sawn-off and fist. So in the mission titled
'Deckers Dot Die', it's up to the Saints to infiltrate the Deckers'
private usenet and make an attack on their databases. Sounds kinda dull,
right? Like this is suddenly an action game starring Mark Zuckerberg as
the protagonist?


Wrong. What transpires is the player being beamed into a Tron-like world
crafted by neon lines and polygons, full of Decker hackers represented
by cybernetic ninja types that wouldn't seem out of place in a Metal
Gear VR mission.


Of course, this is sci-fi delivered with Saints Row's typically tongue
in cheek tendencies, and so when the player is first teleported into
cyberspace your avatar is initially a talking toilet due to a mistake
caused by your fellow Saints hacker, only to be replaced by a floppy
blow-up doll moments later to make things worse. However the problems
are quickly rectified and you soon morph into a polygonal Lawnmower
Man-esque character with Mega-Man's gun arm, enabling you to dish out
digital death to each of the Deckers you encounter. After all but one of
the virtual gang members is dead the mission suddenly switches to a top
down view as you randomly get stuck into a 2D tank battle circa Atari
2600 era, before switching back out to a boss fight against a hulking,
winged monster carrying a sword the length of a small station wagon.


Yes, believe it or not I'm still talking about Saints Row the Third.


What happens next in the mission remains to be seen, as the demo jumped
back into the main game world of Steelport, but the sci-fi shenanigans
weren't yet over as the team from Volition
revealed the game's jetbike vehicle – which is more or less the
equivalent of the speeder bikes from Return of the Jedi. You can zoom
along the Steelport streets, dipping under overpasses, knocking down
pedestrians, performing barrel rolls and mowing down your enemies with
the front mounted machine guns. Yes, Saints Row the Third has speeder
bikes. Honestly, it's getting to the point where it might be less time
consuming to come up with a list of awesome things that aren't in Saints Row the Third rather than a list of things that are.


As if to reinforce this notion the demo concluded with the player
calling in an airstrike on the Luchadores gang complete with the onboard
thermal rocket cam that gamers know best from the Call of Duty: Modern
Warfare series. It seems like Volition only needs to throw in some
dragons and space marines and you probably wouldn't need to buy anything
other than Saints Row the Third this holiday season. Here's hoping it
lives up to its enormous potential.