Saints Row The Third: Part 1

By Shamus Posted Thursday Jun 7, 2012

Filed under: Game Reviews 84 comments

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Like I said, Saints Row The Third is really great, but not perfect. So let’s talk about the bad parts, the odd parts, and the stuff that was left out. I had originally titled this series “Saints Row Nitpicks”, but as I wrote it grew from an enumeration of shortcomings to a more general discussion of the game and the genre it inhabits.

For the record, I didn’t play the first Saints Row game. I know nothing about it, except that it was notoriously buggy. For me the series began at Saints Row 2. I’ve played through the third installment once now, and I’m currently working on a semi-completionist second run.

You may notice that the player character is different in some of these screenshots. I tend to re-invent my character every couple of hours, changing my gender, race, voice, outfit, etc. (You can change all of this at any time. The character builder is just another store in the game. Going from a tiny female waif to a burly bearded muscleman is no different than buying a new shirt.) It’s a bit schizophrenic, but I like hearing all the different versions of the main character’s voice. And if you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll admit that I enjoy playing dress-up with my avatar.

A final warning: Spoilers ahead. I mean, this game is really, really obvious and I sort of balk at the notion that any of this could spoil the game for you, but I understand it’s considered rude not to give fair warning.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Saints Row The Third: Part 1”

 


 

Alan Wake EP25: Keep Your Head Down, Genius

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Jun 6, 2012

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 260 comments


Link (YouTube)

Yes, the show is turning into a podcast with accompanying unrelated videogame footage. We just don’t have a lot left to say about Alan Wake. There’s about 40 minutes of footage left. I don’t know if Josh will break that into one episode or two. Either way, we’ll be wrapping things up this week.

We discussed The Stanley Parable in this episode. It’s a source mod game. You can get it for free here.

 


 

Saints Row The Third vs. The World

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Jun 5, 2012

Filed under: Game Reviews 188 comments

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I’m sure you’ve noticed the thin gruel that’s been passing for content around here lately. If it wasn’t for Spoiler Warning this place would have been a ghost town last week. This is why. I’ve been playing Saints Row the Third.

I did a series a few years ago where I compared Saints Row 2 with GTA IV. Now I want to do the same thing with Saints Row 3 and compare it to… everything else.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Saints Row The Third vs. The World”

 


 

Alan Wake EP24: The Beginning of the End…
Of the Beginning

By Josh Posted Saturday Jun 2, 2012

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 143 comments


Link (YouTube)

Man, it sure does suck that Shamus inexplicably forgot to post this yesterday. Because there’s no way I got sick and only got around to editing it this morning. Nope. Nothing like that happened.

And even if I did somehow get sick, I’m sure it’s all Shamus’ fault somehow. It’s more fun that way.

 


 

Alan Wake EP23: Swan Dive!

By Shamus Posted Thursday May 31, 2012

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 219 comments


Link (YouTube)

This late episode has been brought to you by Saint’s Row The Third and what the heck is it seven o’clock already how long have I been playing this game?!? I should probably do a post about that game. It’s sort of come and gone, news-wise, but it’s some of the most fun I’ve had in ages.

I just want to reiterate what we said in today’s episode: Alan Wake is not a horrible game, and our criticism of it is the result of a game that did a lot of things different, took a lot of chances, got a few things right, and missed on a couple of crucial points. I’m sure I’ll never play through it again, but I don’t begrudge the hours I spent with it. Well, maybe a few of them. The ones in the middle.

Swan dive!

 


 

Project Octant Part 14: Moving Goalposts

By Shamus Posted Thursday May 31, 2012

Filed under: Programming 103 comments

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We’re a few weeks into the project now and a lot has been done. Now is a good time to assess our progress and see how things are going. After all, it does seem like I’ve satisfied my initial goals, which I talked about at the very beginning:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Project Octant Part 14: Moving Goalposts”

 


 

Alan Wake EP22: The Hellevator

By Shamus Posted Wednesday May 30, 2012

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 198 comments


Link (YouTube)

The Mr. Scratch trailer I was talking about is here. And while looking up that one, I found another, much shorter one.

Also, I suppose we kind of broke our own rules with regards to political talk. On the other hand, we weren’t doing a critique of any particular viewpoint, but on the way a particular individual espoused a viewpoint while acting hypocritically against those stated values. So you can continue the conversation, but this isn’t some kind of open season pass to start sniping at various political groups.

However, while writing this post I read Schilling’s Wikipedia page, where it mentions that he campaigned for Bush. That makes it seem kind of unlikely that he’s actually a Libertarian. So, if I’ve mis-characterized or misunderstood his politics I apologize. Still…

  1. They moved an entire studio to Rhode Island.
  2. They did this to get their hands on a seventy five million dollar loan from the government.
  3. They got this loan by promising to bring 450 jobs to the area.
  4. They entered the crowded market of fantasy RPGs and their game failed to perform.
  5. The studio went broke and laid everyone off.

So the people of Rhode Island are out $75 million, and they didn’t even get the jobs in return. The studio is dead. The employees picked up, moved to a new place, slaved away making a game, and were then canned as soon as the thing was done.

There’s a lot wrong there, and I don’t think there’s much of a political argument to be made over this. It was a bad idea and everyone lost. The only winners are the people who liked the game. While it’s nice to see that the game scored 80% on Metacritic, that’s not all that impressive. I mean, the $75 million loan was bigger than the budgets of a lot of games. I’ll bet a lot of games could perform better if we handed them that kind of money. (Just imagine what Vampire: Bloodlines or KOTOR 2 could have done with just a tenth of that.)