Saints Row: The Third

Saints Row: The Third doesn't have the raw destructivity or explosivity of Red Faction: Guerrilla. It doesn't have the fishtailing car physics or the narrative gravitas of Grand Theft Auto IV. It doesn't have the Nazis of The Saboteur.

What it does have is a predilection, nay, a thirst for raw, intense chaos. Dive-tackle a rival gangster, use him as a human shield, then leap through the window of his car and speed off into the sunset. That's what Saints Row 3 brings to the table.

In its third iteration, Saints Row has optimized a lot of its gameplay mechanics, and it's really for the better. You don't need to gather Respect to do story missions; rather, Respect acts as experience points, and higher levels open up new abilities for purchase. As for the purchasing itself, that's done with cold, hard cash -- cash which you earn by doing missions, by completing activities, and periodically by virtue of owning property. While buying and profiting off of the city was sort-of a sidequest in Saints Row 2, here it's front and center: if you want to buy new abilities, safehouses, weapons and upgrades, you've got to prime the money-pump with some real estate investment.

If there's any "point" to Saints Row: The Third, this is it -- taking over the city, not just figuratively, but financially. It's a neat objective, albeit vague, and feels more like a refinement on the previous installment than a new, marquee feature. You're not - as far as I know - at risk of your investments being taken away by your rivals, nor is it really a challenge to prioritize your acquisitions: higher cost = higher reward. So the formula, as it were, for taking over Steelport is pretty straightforward.

But you get to wreak absolute havoc along the way, and that counts for a lot.

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