The third in the Saints Row series.This game was released on November 15, 2011 in the US, Australia and some parts of Europe, on the 17th in Japan for consoles, on the 18th for other parts of Europe, and on December 16th in Japan for the PC. It takes place in a new city called Steelport. Years after taking Stilwater for their own, the Third Street Saints have evolved from street gang to household brand name, and a legendary criminal fraternity called The Syndicate, with pawns in play all over the globe, has turned its eye on the Saints and demands tribute. Its power within Steelport is divided among these gangs:
The city is also home to the STAG (which stands for Special Tactics Anti-Gang) unit, which is apparently rather well funded+
they're in possession of a model of VTOL jet which would be right at home as a New Game Plus reward in the Ace Combat series, tanks with microwave laser turrets and hoverbikes that can take off like aeroplanes, putting them just a spot above Ultor's Elite Mooks in terms of weaponry
and are a State Sec. Refusing to kneel to the Syndicate and having never let police slow them down before, the Saints take the fight to a new city.The game differs from its predecessors in a number of areas. For starters, respect is no longer needed to play the missions. Rather, it allows you to level up your character and purchase valuable upgrades with in-game cash, in an RPG-like system that's new to the series. Furthermore, activities now factor into gang territories: complete the activity for that territory, and it's yours. As for aesthetic character customization, while it doesn't have quite as many options as the previous game, it adds some new ones in (ranging from realistic, such as scars, to absurd, such as making your character blue) while improving the physics. For example, loose clothing and longer hair are no longer solid and stiff like they were in the previous game. A demo of the game's character creator was released as a free download shortly before the game came out.Character sheet is found under the series due to continuity reasons.
Provides Examples Of:
Abnormal Ammo: Saints Row: Money Shot features a hit-woman who uses homing bullets to kill her targets. The Boss also uses such toys as exploding bullets with enough force to juggle a man fifty feet into the air, and massaging octopus bombs that mind control targets... and then explode into pink sparkles.
Not to mention the cannon on the Genki Manapault, that sucks up pedestrians and uses them as ammo.
Adam Westing: Burt Reynolds is the mayor of Steelport. No, seriously.
Boss:Burt fucking Reynolds?! Burt Reynolds: Who else could keep this town running?
A God Am I: Matt Miller considers himself a 'cyber god' due to his skills as a hacker. Inside the Decker usernet however he pretty much is god.
Matt: Don't you get it? I'm god here.
Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Killbane begs the Boss not to unmask him and even offers to teach the Boss the secret of his Apoca-Fists in exchange to show how desperate he is.
Alternate Universe: Assuming Jon isn't just joking, we can assume that Saints Row takes place in a universe where February has 31 days.
Amazing Technicolor Protagonist: You can give the Boss either blue, green, pink, or grey/silver/chrome skin. Those are just a few out of fifty-five colours.
Amazon Brigade: With the exception of male Lieutenants the Saints' can become one as the gang customization apparently allows you to pick what the unnamed members of your gang look like (from a list of presets) including their gender. Also, an idea early in development was to have the Syndicate sisters at the head of an all-female gang as a counter to the all-male Luchadors, but the idea was scrapped.
And This Is for...: The Boss, if the Female 1 voice is chosen, will give one when planting each explosive during the final mission of the serious ending.
Arm Cannon: In the mission http://deckers.die, Kinzie gives the Boss a Cyber Buster to fight the Deckers in their usernet. After you finish the mission, the Boss will be able to use it as a weapon outside of the level. It's Flavor Textlampshades this, wondering where Kinzie found the time.
Armies Are Evil: STAG. To the point where they will declare martial law, blow up a statue with Saints they've kidnapped on it, place the blame on the gang so they look like terrorists, then try to level the entire city. Although most of that is only in one ending.
Art Evolution: Compare the "Power" trailer to the more recent in game footage. Phillipe Loren's hair has gone from black to grey and he looks older. Kinzie in trailer is rather sexy looking but in the Deckers Die trailer she's more Hollywood Homely and the Boss' default look is nothing like the one in the trailer.
Which is definitely for the better, as many confused the main character in the Power trailer with Johnny Gat until Johnny himself showed up in it. The devs have even admitted that they made him look a bit too much like Johnny.
Johnny Gat: Hell yeah. Who doesn't want to be Johnny Gat?
Artifact Title: The game is not even set in Stilwater, and of the one mission that does take place there, you're not within the titular district of it.
Asskicking Equals Authority: Killbane uses this rule to take over direction of The Syndicate after you kill Loren. Despite Matt Miller suggesting that it might make more sense to leave Loren's Co Dragons, the DeWynter twins, in charge.
Authority Equals Asskicking: Averted by the leaders of the Syndicate gangs; Loren is shown to be the only competent leader of the gangs in Steelport, having forged the Syndicate out of his own Morningstar gang, along with Killbane's Luchadores and Matt Miller's Deckers. He is also a rather fragile man who is old enough to have gone gray. Matt Miller and the DeWynter sisters are also just normal people (Miller actually flees Steelport out of fear of the Boss killing him). Killbane himself is a competent fighter (the game takes place during the 31st installment of his "Murderbrawl" wrestling event, implying he's been at this awhile), but can barely hold the Syndicate together after Loren's death, and is openly defied by Miller and the DeWinters several times.
Played straight by the Boss, who is the Saints leader and also most dangerous member, despite being in a gang that includes Oleg, a nine foot genius.
Auto-Tune: Zimos is a pimp who, thanks to his smoking habit, had to have a tracheotomy, which forces him to speak with a voice box. Deciding to make the best of the situation, he has it shaped built into his pimp-cane and has Auto-Tune installed in the box, and he practically sings his dialogue. In other words, every word out of his mouth sounds like T-Pain.
Badass Cape: It's now possible for the Boss to wear these.
Badass Grandpa: Phillipe Loren, as well as The Boss if you wish.
Badass Longcoat: The Boss has a selection of these to choose from.
Bad Boss: Zhen in Gangstas In Space. He will never stop to when on Jenny's acting and praises everything Boss does despite him/her being an horrendous actor. Jenny ends up being fed up with Zhen's BS and rams a plane in his face at the end of the DLC.
Berserk Button: Phillipe isn't very happy when you call him French.
Boss: Listen, you French fuck! Phillipe: Please! I am Belgian. Gat: So make yourself a fuckin' waffle! We're done here.
Then Gat makes it official when he does it again and the result is him getting killed.
Bigger Is Better in Bed/Buxom Is Better: The only effect the sex appeal slider seems to have is increasing the size of the female character's breasts or the male character's package.
Bilingual Bonus: Philippe rants in french when Johnny holds him off to let Boss and Shaundi flee. As expected of a Belgian (or at least, a Wallonian), his french is flawless.
Philippe: Ah, putain de merde! Ouvrez-moi cette porte! Je veux sa tête!
Translation: Oh God damn it! Open up that door! I want his head!
Bittersweet Ending: No matter which ending you choose, since there are two things on the line and you can't have both. If you choose to save Shaundi, Viola, and Burt, you stop Kia from framing the Saints for blowing up the Magarac Island monument. STAG even gets called off due to this new good publicity. This ending affirms Johnny's thoughts that the Saints have begun to lose touch with their roots and are slowly becoming complete corporate whores. To hammer the point in, the follow-up mission is a Saints movie shoot, something the Boss was against the start of the prior mission. The other choice is to go after Killbane, who even gives a speech that is an Ironic Echo to what Johnny said. You will later hold a(nother) funeral for recently fallen comrades and get to confront STAG head-on and kill Cyrus. After that, the Saints take over Steelport and declare it as a sovereign city-state (as well as an awesome taunt at Monica Hughes to try and stop them) on now international television. This ending shows that the Saints haven't gone soft and are still a Badass Crew willing to get dirty, but you let Shaundi, Viola, and Burt Reynolds die. Pierce gives you a Was It Really Worth It? and you can't answer.
Blown Across the Room: According to this article on the official site, the fully upgraded McManus 2015 sniper rifle is powerful enough to make anybody shot by it occasionally fly backwards. You can also buy "Muscles" upgrades that let you toss around mooks like paper airplanes, and explosive bullets for guns with that upgrade also make people fly around more when you kill them.
Book Dumb: The Boss, coupled with Logical Fallacies. There are multiple occasions where The Boss shows varying degrees of incompetence, and then there are occasions where s/he will come off as a purely arrogant dumbass.
Boss: Okay, nerd time is over. Why do we need this chair, and Kinzie, for once, keep it simple. Kinzie: Ugh. I need the chair. To stop the Deckers. Boss: Thank you!
And another example:
Pierce: What's the plan? Boss: (disguised as Cyrus) It's simple, we go in, rescue Shaundi, then go back out. Pierce: So what if they shoot at us? Boss: Stop bringing logic into this conversation!
When Kinzie tries to explain something about Matt's computer this might come up.
Blah blah blah geek talk blabity blab blah blah.
S/he isn't clueless about everything, however - for example, when STAG brings an AWACS plane into the city to look for the Saints, nobody needs to explain to the Boss what it is or why it being there is very bad.
Boss in Mook Clothing / Metal Slime: The rarely-appearing "Professor Genki" mascot drops up to $500,000 (tripled with an upgrade) when killed, but has more HP than a Brute and usually carries a rocket launcher. And attacks everything on sight when you attack him.
Bottomless Magazines: Once you hit level 50, you're allowed to buy infinite ammunition (though you have to buy it separately for each weapon category, and it costs a ton of cash to get them all). In addition, along the way you can also upgrade your reloading speed to the point where you don't need to reload and can fire for as long as you have ammo.
"I told my therapist I'm not responsible for awful things I do... It's almost as if someone else is controlling me."
Jon, the DJ of the Adult Swim radio station will talk directly to the player at one point.
Bribing Your Way to Victory: An in-game example: as you collect money, you buy various character and gun upgrades. Also, to get complete control of an area, you'll need to buy stores and buildings. Or you can get up to two one-time deals to just completely take over an entire 'hood.
Brick Joke: In the beginning of the mission "Live! With Killbane", the news ticker mentions a boy convincing his parents to get him an adult elephant. At the end of the serious ending, the news ticker mentions a funeral planned for a boy trampled by an elephant.
Bring My Brown Pants: After completing the "Ho Boat" mission, a news report describes your midair firefight and ends with that, while the contents of the cargo container were unknown, what fell to the ground stank like urine.
Butt Monkey: Pierce is actually competent this time around and can both sell merchandise and stand his own in a firefight. However, the Boss still openly ridicules him for not quite standing up to his/her standards of Badass. At one point, Pierce is casually dismissed when he considers asking for a promotion to be the Planet Saints manager. Played for Laughs.
Minigun brutes are just one reskin away from being a Heavy. Justified as their prototype is a massive Russian, and actually semi-acknowledged by Valve as you could get Killbane's luchadore mask and Apoco-Fists for your Heavy as a part of a promotional offer.
Finally, a zombified one shows up in several missions... and a Whored Mode level simply called, "Tank!".
Catgirl: The Genki girls in Genkibowl VII, Angry Tiger and Sexy Kitten. The exception is Sad Panda, since she's a sexy Panda.
Central Theme: Buried underneath all the silliness and Roaring Rampage of Revenge, the Saints' new fame at the start of the game leads to an identity crisis. Some missions with multiple resolution choices, particularly the penultimate mission, let you weigh in on this. What exactly do the Saints stand for? Summed up nicely with the following exchange:
Johnny Gat: Birk's right-we traded our dicks in for pussies. Seriously... Movie deals? Commercials? The Saints name used to mean more than body spray and some ass-tasting energy drink. The Boss: Our brand's worth a shitload of money. Johnny Gat: Is that what it's all about?
Monica Hughes and Cyrus Temple's disagreement on how to fight gangs highlights the two paths: "Hearts and Minds" and "Shock and Awe". The chat between the Boss and Viola about how many guards are assigned to Josh Birk when kidnapping him also shows this.
Characterization Marches On: Shaundi has become serious-minded and has dropped her "stoner college drop-out" act. Though the issue of her innumerable former boyfriends still come up.
She's also subject to Running Gag about the sheer amount of people who openly admit their Perverse Sexual Lust for her or have slept with her on radio, in pedestrian dialogue and even Professor Genki game show.
Pierce has become more of a slickster, but still manages to retain some of his Butt Monkey repertoire. Johnny Gat is still Johnny Gat, though. For as long as he's around.
Choice of Two Weapons: For most of the game, the gun store offers two basic types for each gun, usually skewing to damage vs. accuracy. Weapons in the former category shoot slower and are less accurate, but can be upgraded to have explosive or incendiary rounds, weapons in the latter category are usually modified to shoot faster and be more precise with armor-piercing rounds.
Continuity Nod: Several, from Cyrus mentioning Jessica's death as a reason why they need to take down the boss, to the boss mentioning having dealt with zombies before ( Zombie Lin in 1 and Zombie Carlos in 2).
One of the Professor Genki moderators will also mention having been in Stilwater once, driving in a convertible, when some idiot was driving around spraying feces around with a septic truck. Guess who?
Some buildings and vehicles, such as the silos on Arapice Island, have the Ultor logo on them. Doubly so, said silos apparently contain a zombie virus that Tera Patrick was researching in the Saints Row 2: Ultor Exposed DLC, which is released when the player unintentionally crashes a STAG plane into them, releasing the virus and creating zombies.
Jane Valderama greets the Boss with "It's been a while", referring to her involvement with the Saints in the previous game.
Covert Pervert: Kinzie. When you are doing the mission to rescue Zimos, she will casually mention that her safe word is 'tea cup'. She also owns a gimp mask and her own copy of the Penetrator.
Which is strange since later in the game, Boss insinuates she lacks interest in anything that doesn't involve computers.
The Cracker: Matt Miller and the rest of The Deckers.
Cut and Paste Environments: The game loves to reuse areas. The insides of each shop look the same as every other shop of the same name. Strongholds get a bit standardised once you take them over, instead of using their pre-existing interiors which look different from each other.
Sometimes it's more subtle. The warehouse you chase the Morning Star lieutenant to in "Party Time" (early in the game) is the same warehouse that Kinzie takes up residence in (much later in the game). Another example is the mission "Pimps Up, Hos Down" which has the player re-visit a BDSM club not too long after their first visit, but drugged up this time. But between the blurriness, screen wobbling, nakedness, and general rushed lead-up to the start of the mission, the player is unlikely to notice.
Cyber Punk: The style for the Deckers. With a little Goth thrown in.
Damn You, Muscle Memory: Several buttons are mapped differently. The driving controls now actually help with driving and aiming your gun, but the sprint button in past games now throws grenades instead, with sprint being on LB like some other games. How do you take human shields, then? Y. (Which causes problems when you try to participate in a photo op with a Saints fan and instead take the poor sap as a human shield by accident.)
Zoom/melee attack have been swapped between RS and LT, and jump and reload weapon are also swapped between A and X. Also, the driving controls now have accelerate on RT, brake on LT, handbrake on A, and shoot on LB. In a nutshell, on-foot controls are a bit more like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (save for sprint and crouch, which follows the convention set by The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Crysis), while driving controls are more like Grand Theft Auto IV as opposed to earlier Grand Theft Auto games.
The weirdest part? Saints Row 2 at least lets you customize the gamepad control mappings in the PC version, while The Third forces you to use the defaults. Ironically, the PC port of 2 is considered a Porting Disaster while The Third is supposed to be a Polished Port.
It's difficult trying to switch controls for keyboard/mouse as well - try to bind an action to a key that already has more than one command bound to it within that section of the controls menu (say, mouse wheel directions for switching weapons and changing the sniper rifle's zoom in "General") and the other actions will be forcibly unbound.
Defeat Means Friendship: Morningstar, Deckers, and Luchadores in the story missions allows you to have members of the three gangs appear as Saints Mooks too.
Denser and Wackier: The game is mostly made up out of this trope applied to the already-boundary-pushing Saint's Row 2.
Digital Avatar: The last Deckers mission, http://deckers.die, has you taking on the Deckers in cyberspace. As the Deckers screw with the system, your avatar takes on various shapes, particularly that of a blow-up doll, a hybrid of Mega Man and TRON, a giant dragon warrior, and a toilet. Yep, actualToilet Humour in a Saints Row game. Who've thought? Once you complete the game, you can play as the blow-up doll and the toilet.
Disc One Nuke: The entire city is available from the start, and after a couple easy missions you have all the activities available to play. Feel free to go through them and unlock all sorts of powerful weapons and ability upgrades (not to mention money) before really getting into the story, and become a nigh-unstoppable killing machine.
Divided States of America: One of the possible endings has the Boss Take Over the City and declare Steelport's independence from the United States of America as a sovereign city-state. Whether this actually works will presumably be the topic of Saints Row 4.
Downer Ending: BOTH endings. If you choose to kill Killbane rather than rescue Shaundi, she dies, and the Boss can't answer whether the sacrifice was worth it. The Saints hold a memorial for her and other fallen friends. If you choose to save Shaundi, the Saints' resurgent publicity means they go through with the Recycled In Space movie shoot. This is after both the start of "Three Way" (the mission where this Sadistic Choice has to be made) where the Boss says the Saints are "done with being corporate whores" and Johnny Gat's worries about the same thing at the start of the game.
Downloadable Content: The game comes with multiple weapon, vehicle and cheat packs already on the disc, which only require a specific code, or a cracked executable file, to unlock. Volition aims to keep releasing several DLCs over the next 40 weeks. Time will tell how well will this strategy hold.
Dragon Ascendant: You kill off Phillipe Loren surprisingly early into the game, and Killbane takes over the Syndicate by virtue of "he can kill anyone in the room with his bare hands."
Driving Stick: Johnny can't drive stick, according to Shaundi in the second mission.
Easter Egg: Literally. If you go a little bit out of your way and check on one of the boats north of the Three Count Casino, you can find a giant, inflatable Easter Bunny held on the boat by nets.
The bunny first appeared in the second game as an easter egg found in the ocean. It apparently has been captured.
Elite Mooks: All three gangs have their own; Morningstar just has guys with Sniper Rifles appear in helicopters and at roadblocks they set up, the Luchadores have guys with huge multi-shot grenade launchers, and the Deckers have women with rollerblades that grants them super speed who keep zipping around, shooting at you or smashing you with their shockwave hammers. Any of the three sides may also deploy a Brute armed with miniguns or flamethrowers. The cops have their own Elite Mooks: SWAT teams with tactical shields, coming in squads via SWAT vans or helicopters. The National Guard, backed up by attack helicopters, HUMVE Es and tanks will come to aid if the SWAT still don't put you down.
Enforced Method Acting: Director Zhen uses live ammunition and real actors inside the planes instead of drones just to get cinema veritie. He's not filming people pretending to kill you, he's filming people actually trying to kill you.
Even Evil Has Standards: Matt Miller is shocked when Killbane snaps the neck of Kiki DeWynter.
Free Fall Fight: Just in case you thought the first instance of this wasn't insane enough, the second time around you and your opponents are in tanks.
Forbidden Chekhov's Gun: The Daedalus. Throughout the story, Cyrus Temple presses Monica Hughes to get him authorisation for its use, but even she is against it as she considers it overkill. If the Magarac Island monument gets blown up, she will reluctantly get Cyrus authorisation to use it.
Foreshadowing: The news ticker in the intro of the Genkibowl DLC hints at several things, ranging from a director shooting Gangstas in Space to Monica Hughes running for president and even rumors that Johnny is still alive.
During the first level, the helicopter pilot tells the Boss that the controls aren't working. The same thing happens later in the game when Shaundi tries to shoot Killbane.
Frickin' Laser Beams: The F-69 V.T.O.L. Jet and the Specter hoverbike both feature laser weapons, and the new Professor Genki activity features lasers as an obstacle. A majority of STAG's arsenal also utilises lasers as ammunition rather than the typical bullets.
Full Frontal Assault: Oleg, when you rescue him. He politely refuses to put clothes on (much to Pierce's discomfort) claiming there is no time for that. Considering he's a musclebound, overweight giant, it could qualifies as Naked People Are Funny.
Naturally, this is also an option for The Boss, who may also perform streaking runs when undressed.
Also features prominently in a mission, where you run around naked while doped to the gills with a shotgun raiding a Morningstar prostitution operation.
Fun T-Shirt: In addition to the usual clothing options, Pierce founds the "Planet Saints" clothing chain just to sell off a warehouse of shirts with the gang's catch phrase "Saints Row, Bitches!".
Fun with Acronyms: S.T.A.G. (Special Tactical Anti-Gang) For clarification, "Stag" was slang for illegally produced pornography in the early 20th century. Zimos even lampshades this.
Gainaxing: With 80 or more sex-appeal, it's a miracle (or a technical limit) that the Boss' boobs don't smash her in the face or pop out of her clothing.
Gag Penis: The Penetrator dildo bat. You can also get this effect if you turn the sex appeal slider all the way up to 100 on the male boss.
Gameplay and Story Integration: The mission I Am Cyrus Temple is made possible by the Magic Plastic Surgery offered by Image as Designed. The Boss is surgically altered to exactly resembled Knight Templar Cyrus Temple, down to the voice. In a particularly well-done element, the Boss's voice selection influences "Commander Temple's" mannerisms when he breaks character, such as condescendingly calling underlings "Sweetie," if Female Voice 1 is used.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: A few instances. Angel never wears his Luchador mask when called for help even after he gets it back. Most notably though, you get access to all of your unlocked homies after completing the final mission twice to see both endings, which can create the paradox of the monument being destroyed while Shaundi, Viola, and Mayor Reynolds are all still alive.
Genius Bruiser: Oleg Kirrlov. Eight feet tall, built like a sumo wrestler, and plays chess when he's not out kicking ass. He's also shown to perfectly understands Kinzie's Techno Babble.
To a much lesser extent (largely by comparison), Killbane. Far less intelligent than Oleg, but still clever at times ; keeping a high PR with his casino, his intervienws and radio shows and trying to framing the Saints for the destruction of the Hughes bridge.
Genre Savvy: Loren captures Boss, Gat and Shaundi and offers them membership in the Syndicate. They turn him down. He immediately tells his men to kill them. What's more, he doesn't stop even after the Saints jump out of the airplane they were in. As a matter of fact, he kills Johnny Gat and uses this information to enrage the Saints, possibly to get at their emotions and make them slip up. It works, especially with Shaundi.
Matt Miller is noticeably afraid of the Saints, and is well aware of what they're capable of, to the point where he wisely considers just paying the Saints off instead of fighting them in one mission.
The Saints as well, they often Lampshade and Discuss tropes such as help arriving after two waves of SWAT teams and mentioning how they think Loren wouldn't be so cliche as to hide on the top floor of the tallest building of the city "like a criminal mastermind".
Giant Mook: The gangs in Steelport now have access to Brutes, eight-foot towers of walking muscle that can effortlessly upend cars and take a ton of lead to bring down, some of who are armored and given miniguns or flamethrowers. If you see one in the back of a truck, blow up the truck.
Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Philippe Loren is depicted smoking in official artwork, in one of the trailers, and at least one point in the game. One of your allies, Zimos, also smokes but it had damaged his voice. Boss can't smoke in the third game, and Shaundi has given up the habit.
Grandpa, What Massive Hotness You Have: Phillipe Loren, despite looking 60+ years old in game, looks like he's held up pretty well. And as always, it's up to you whether or not this applies to the Boss.
G-Rated Drug: The trafficking missions involve the Saints selling their merchandise in a typical drug dealer fashion, however, it turns to be nothing but promotional T-Shirts and Saints action figures. Deliberately left vague as to whether they actually contain some illicit substance... or people are just that addicted to Saints' brand merchandise.
Gratuitous Japanese: Pierce's Japanese commercial, the bonuses in Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax, and the Mollusk Launcher.
Grenade Spam: The Luchadores have mooks that use grenade launchers. The amount they shoot out at one time is about half as many as Modern Warfare uses in a minute (a lot).
Groin Attack: The "melee bash" button almost exclusively involves the Boss destroying someone's nards, and each weapon has its own animation for them and to top it all off there's also an Achievement/Trophy called "Oww, my balls".
Also notable with the rarely-appearing Professor Genki - if he isn't using a weapon when he shows up, he is going to be punching everybody in the balls.
Hammerspace: The Boss's arsenal while drugged and naked.
Heel Face Turn: A more literal example with Angel, Killbane's former wrestling partner. After being unmasked in the ring, Angel severed all ties with Killbane. He now plays a role helping the Boss get used to Steelport (and he's obsessed with revenge on Killbane).
Viola also turns to the Saints after Killbane kills her sister Kiki.
Hero Antagonist: Cyrus Temple, and his second-in-command Kia are this at the start of the game: they're trying to stop a deranged, psychopathic mass-murderer, who just happens to be the Player Character. But as the game progresses, their methods grow progressively more and more extreme, culminating in him declaring martial law in Steelport.
He Who Fights Monsters: By the end of the game, STAG has declared martial law, and Kia attempts to frame the Saints for terrorism by blowing up a landmark and leaving kidnapped members of the Saints to die in the blast. Lampshaded by Monica Hughes if you stop the bombing, when she calls off STAG.
Hoist by His Own Petard: One of your contacts for Assassinations is a Morning Star going by the name "Rasputin", who sets you up for a(n incredibly obvious) trap after taking out another rogue Morning Star by impersonating his personal chauffeur. After escaping said trap, an anonymous contact puts a hit on Rasputin (whose real name is Barry, he feels the need to point out). How do you lure him out and kill him? By impersonating his personal helicopter pilot.
Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Oleg is a Russian (hinted) genetic experiment who is bigger than most doorways, can bodycheck a truck and, if Zimos can be trusted, has nothing to be ashamed of down there. Kinzie is a really inexperienced shut-in nerd who is noticably shorter than the Boss and is explictly stated to be a virgin. Oleg says he wanted to confess his love for her before they die.
Interactive Fiction: Part of http://deckers.die is this, a RPG where Boss has to kill a unicorn. Unique dialogue can be heard by choosing the wrong option, from telling the game fuck you upon Have a Nice Death to complaining about the ending.
Invincible Hero: Once you get to around level 50, you can buy immunity to bullets, explosions, fire, and vehicles...which is basically everything the game can throw at you. You can still be hurt by Brutes and other melee attackers, though. Also, being in a vehicle when it explodes will still kill you, regardless of explosion immunity.
Jiggle Physics: Applied in full force to The Female Boss if you turned her "Sex Appeal" slider all the way up. Also with Shaundi as well.
The Juggernaut: Oleg, a new Saints lieutenant, is capable of body checking cars and can throw mooks about like ping pong balls.
Then there are his clones, which show up packing miniguns and flamethrowers. It's a good thing this game lets you upgrade your maximum ammo, because you are going to need it for these guys.
Lampshade Hanging: When selecting your character's voice one of the sample clips for Female One is that she tells her therapist that she's not responsible for the terrible things she's done, because she feels like someone is controlling her.
A mere lampshading at the start of Act 2 - Kinzie is helping the Saints bring together people who hate the Syndicate just as much as they do, and at the moment there's only Kinzie herself and Zimos. The Boss mentions that he's used to running with three people, as s/he did in the first two games.
Lodged Blade Recycling: Early on, Gat gets stabbed by Loren during a tussle, but being a Made of IronBadass, he just pulls the knife out and throws it at a guard with a machine gun so the others can escape.
Lost Forever: The ability to replay any missions like in Saints Row 1 and 2 is absent due to the way the missions expect certain world map states, which you alter through the course of the game.
It is possible to completely wipe the three enemy gangs off the map once you take control of their neighborhoods. If you also completed the auxillary survival, assassination and car theft missions and reached 100% Completion, the only way for you to see gang members again is to answer a phone call to a survival mission (which will cycle randomly after you've completed them all) or redo an activity.
This can be extremely frustrating, as several of the Saintsbook items explicitly require gangs. Makes it even worse for one in particular, requiring you have non-violent opposing gang members.
STAG is also gone from the city after the final mission. Those who enjoyed taking on someone more competent than your average policemen (and the Steelport National Guard with regular tanks, helicopters, and weaponry, which shows up at high wanted ratings) should take notice.
Averted with cars though; all gang and STAG vehicles are permanently added to your garage once you complete the main plot.
Loveable Rogue: Averted. The public certainly admires the Saints, thinking them as Robin Hood-esque celebrities. In reality, YMMV.
Ludicrous Gibs: Anybody hit by the Apoco-Fists (a giant pair of fists unlocked by choosing not to unmask Killbane in the mission "Murderbrawl XXXI") or shot at medium range with the Sonic Boom immediately explodes into a pile of these.
Magic Plastic Surgery: Image as Designed. The surgeons are capable of changing any aspect of the Boss's physical body, down to skin color (including bizarre shades like green and fire engine red) or gender. This is even used as a plot point in the mission I Am Cyrus Temple.
Mascot: There's an inordinate quantity of people in oversized animal, beverage and hot dog costumes running about the town, and nobody is sure why or what are they doing. Apparently the local population is mentally scarred by them to such an extent that many people explicitly tell you to exterminate them before they take over the town.
"Mascots! They're gathering at the costume shop! It's... it's how they make more of their kind!"
Professor Genki serves as the game's unofficial mascot.
Mean Brit: Matt Miller, and the Boss if you choose the Cockney voice option.
Boss (after the gang drops the giant sphere to go after Loren's elevator : Ever heard of Agincourt, you prick?
Mêlée à Trois: While standard for the series as a whole (Saints vs. rival gangs vs. police), The Third takes it Up to Eleven with the penultimate mission, "Three Way", where Steelport has turned into a warzone as the Luchadores and STAG fight it out, and the Saints attempt to clean up the mess by killing off both sides. On top of this, you also have double maxed notoriety to deal with, and at the end, a Sadistic Choice...
The Mentally Disturbed: Tom, the other DJ from the Adult Swin radio station, is apparently quite off his gourd. To boot:
He apparently doesn't know what a boner is.
He disguises himself as a waiter and plays one just because Jon (the main DJ) asked him if they could go out for a bite ; Tom took it as Jon calling him a waiter. He only snaps out of it because Jon plays the act and indirectly calls him a smartass.
Jon: And I'm taking the check right now, I'm in a hurry. I gotta go meet my friend Tom at the Smartass Convention. No, I don't have another friend named Tom, I'm talking about you!
He enters a Indigo Prophecy trance-like state (complete with chest scarifications and incantations) live on air because Jon misunderstood something about how phone lines work.
Jon: OK, now he's pulling out a knife! He's ripping his shirt off! He is ripped!!! Jesus, Tom! He's... He's carving antic symbols on his chest while muttering his crazy, pre-human language! OH MY GOD, he just hurled himself against the booth glass! Holy SHIT!!! Alright, folks, it is official: things are getting weird here.
Money for Nothing: The developers went out of their way to avert this; you always have something to spend money on, and never enough at one time. Every single new ability you get must be paid for, often with ludicrous amounts of money; ditto with the guns and their upgrades.
Multicolored Hair: The Decker specialists as well as yourself, if you so desire.
Multiple Endings: Certain missions can have different outcomes. For example, one mission's outcome determines the fate of the largest building in Steelport. The Boss can either: A: blow up the building, giving them a truckload of respect at the expense of the building staying that for the rest of the game and pedestrians' comments on the Saints changing, (and an ongoing respect bonus as well) or B: spare it and use it as a safehouse for the Saints, which gives you an additional 10% on any cash you earn.
The end presents players with with a choice: sacrifice Shaundi to go after Killbane, or rescue her and allow Killbane to escape. The former allows you to confront both Killbane and Cyrus (and by extension, STAG) and Take Over the City. The Latter? You save Shaundi and in doing so prevent a plot to portray The Saints as terrorists. Monica Hughes calls off STAG and the Saints are seen as heroes because of the extreme lengths that were used against them.Then they make a movie.
One mid-mission choice that may as well represent the essence of Saints Row: will you keep samples of a zombie virus, allowing you to summon a horde of zombies to unleash on your foes? Or destroy the virus and earn the active help of Mayor Burt Reynolds.
Mushroom Samba: One mission has Boss infiltrating a BDSM club as a sex slave. It begins when s\he is dumped into a room after a combination of drugs and who knows what done to him\her. Boss stumbles about, falls over, throws up and cannot aim well throughout the mission.
When a character voiced by Hulk Hogan is named "The Angel of Death" you should probably be very glad he's on your side.
According to the commentators in the Prof. Genki activities, mentioning Johnny Gat by name is a good way to make the mascots and hunters break down in tears.
Turns out that the Boss has a media nickname/wrestling identity: the Butcher of Stilwater.
It's also how you kill most (all?) of the hostages you take when you hit the melee key.
Never Mess with Granny: Applies to the Boss if you make her old. As a matter of fact, you can even give put curlers in her hair and put her in a bath robe and bunny slippers.
Never Trust a Trailer: The "Power" trailer showed off Loren with a lot of build up to him being the big bad of the game. He dies no later than the end of Act 1.
Johnny Gat was also depicted in the trailer fighting alongside the player, even taking a bullet and just getting back up to fight. He gets killed off-screen during the second mission.
In the same trailer, the Morning Star are shown crashing the Saints' party. In the actual game, it's the Saints who crash a Morning Star party.
The trailer also implies the Saints might form an Enemy Mine with Loren against STAG. Again, in-game Loren is long dead by the time STAG shows up in Steelport. Only Viola defects from the Syndicate to the Saints.
The second one also comes up Played for Laughs when the player is trying to rescue Shaundi from STAG by pretending to be Cyrus Temple - if you've taken the Cockney male voice, he'll use the word "bloke", hastily cover it up by saying he picked it up when he was stationed in Britain, then cover that up by saying he's "probably said too much" when Kia mentions there's no record of Cyrus having ever been stationed there.
Angel De La Muerte, despite being Hispanic, pronounces his name the Anglophone way like everyone else. The only person who pronounces his name the Hispanic way is news reporter Jane Valderama—who habitually mis-pronounces everyone else's names.
Not so Different: The boss says this to Kia when when the Boss hears Kia is an Aisha fan and that the reason she joined S.T.A.G. was to take down crooks like the ones that killed Aisha.
Kia also shows to be just as ruthless as the Saints by staging a terrorist attack. In the serious ending Temple and STAG prove to be even worse by trying to destroy the city, not realizing that it was Kia who staged the attack and framed the Saints.
The Boss him/herself if s/he decides to, instead of destroying everything in sight, take over and/or buy out every major building or area in Steelport, just like the Syndicate.
If the player opts to stop Killbane's escape, he invokes this with the Boss, and even gives an Ironic Echo of Gat's statements early in the game about the Saints losing touch with their roots.
According to developers, Killbane and the Boss were intended as dark mirrors of each other.
The Other Darrin: Quite a few voice actors, such as Charles Shaugnessy (the Cockney-voiced Boss in 2), were unable to return for the series. This goes for main characters as well, since Eliza Dushku couldn't return to voice Shaundi.
This also goes for the appearances of returning characters - Gat and Pierce are the only two main Saints who even resemble their Saints Row 2 appearances (though this is justifiable in the case of the Boss, who may have already changed appearance, voice, and even gender at some time or another between or during the first two games depending on the player's preference).
Kinzie Kensington (cheerfully): "I think if I could worm into their mainframe, I'd do all sorts of naughty things."
Robbing A Bank Disguised As Myself: When the Saints rob a bank at the start of the game, the Saints all wear Johnny Gat bobblehead masks, including Johnny himself.
Johnny Gat: Hell yeah, who doesn't want to be Johnny Gat?
Really Gets Around: Shaundi's promiscuity is still joked about, though far less than last time.
Recycled IN SPACE!: As part of the Saints' fame, Johnny Gat sold his likeliness to (the Saints-)Ultor (Media Group) and had a comic book named Gangstas In Space made from it. The final mission if the Boss saves Shaundi in the ending features The Movie of this, in which the Saints shoot a ridiculously campy sci-fi film that also happens to be a parody of Red Faction: Guerilla. Also, one of the DLC is also called Gangstas In Space.
Say My Name: Parodied in every single "Nyte Blade" radio commercial. Some may cross over with Skyward Scream, but as it is only audio, we don't know for sure.
Scenery Gorn: A surprising amount for such a light-hearted game. Namely, the massive ship just off shore that is split in two, the remains of a national landmark blown up in a terrorist bombing, and, of course, the zombie filled district.
Sensual Spandex: The Boss is now capable of wearing tight spandex, whether as a Superhero uniform, or a gimp suit.
Serial Escalation: The game gets more and more ridiculous as it goes on. It starts with a freefall fight, ramps up to a virtual reality assault with a text adventure and top-down tank fight, ramps up even more with a wrestling match involving a chainsaw, and at the end, you can run around as a toilet, performing wrestling moves and shooting with guns suspended in midair.
Sequel Escalation: Upgradable weapons. A device that lets you remotely hijack any vehicle on the road. Airstrikes. Volition took all the crazy from the first two Saints games and amplified it by a hundred fold. Proof? Take all the best activities and crazy from the first games and add free-fall gunfighting, tank skydiving, airstrike drive-bys, luchador wrestling, ho' crate capturing, mind control octopus guns, furry costumes, guided bullets, guns that hijack cars, hover bikes, sex appeal sliders, V.T.O.L.s with microwave lasers and dildo bats. And that was just what was previewed. In the words of The Pixel Show, with Kit Harrison summarizing the latest trailerand just barely keeping up:
Kit Harrison: I can't explain this fast enough; they tell Matt Miller to hack [the Saints'] funds, they've got insufficient funds, so they punch the screen, and they go with their guns and cars and their more cars and their jeeps, and their Tron city, and the guns, and the tanks, and the jeeps, and the more shooting, and the more shooting...
A few days before the game was released, Saints Row 4 was announced, and was said that it would be "even wilder than The Third."
Basically, the entire game. It's even been stated that the game opens up with you and the Saints versus the world, no more small town business, or recruiting a gang.
However, not everything is escalated; some things had to be scaled back or removed entirely. The demands of the new graphics engine meant that clothing options had to be simplified (i.e., you can't wear clothing in layers and have different "wear options" for each article). There are no food, music or car stores. Steelport doesn't really have any "secret areas" to explore and there's not quite as much environmental variety like trailer parks or underground malls/caves.
Speaking of Half-Life, the Sonic Boom weapon you get in Act 3 is pretty much the Gravity Gun, though with less grabbing objects and more messily killing people. Furthering the shoutout, the very next mission, which is pretty much dedicated to throwing shit around with your new toy, has you dealing with a Zombie Apocalypse.
The achievements have a few jokes in the as well, one being the Porkchop Sandwiches Achievement for a firefighting related mission later on.
While it isn't an achievement, one mission concerning the Deckers is called Stop All The Downloading.
Almost all of the taunts have some sort of reference in it.
The last Angel mission, wherein you drive around with a tiger in your car, references The Hangover.
It is more likely a reference to Talladega Nights, in which the main character's father attempts to train him to conquer his fear by making him drive a car with a cougar in it.
Matt Miller's avatar seems suspiciously similar to a Balrog
It also bears some similarity to a Mass Produced Eva, and when you get a copy of his avatar, the fight between the two includes a lot of vicious grappling, stabbing and biting typical of the series. May be justified, considering Matt's cyber god complex.
And on hijacking her first VTOL, your character might say "Whoooa, Daaanger Zoooooone!!!
Likewise at least one voice, when jumping out of a jet can be heared shouting "Jester's dead!"
And for the trifecta one of the male voices, after commenting the VTOL is like a chopper that doesn't suck, will go "Wooooo talk to me Goose!"
The midair tank battle where Boss sounds like s\he's having the time of his\her life mirrors that scene in The A-Team. S\he might even lampshade this.
I love it when a plan comes together.
Boss might also growl about the STAG jets not being cleared for a fly by, recalling the Running Gag from Top Gun. As she referenced the film on hijacking her first jet she knows her films.
I'm Free - Free Falling is a homage to the song of the same name.
The airborne shootout portions of that mission was explicitly a homage to Shoot 'Em Up.
One of Killbane's plans with the Saints is a Montreal Screwjob. When you actually fight him, he tries to hit the Killswitch.
If left sitting idle for a while, a Boss with the female Eastern European voice will muse, "I wonder how my cousin Niko is doing. It's been so long since he called."
During the second to last mission, when the Boss is given the choice to stop Killbane or Save Shaundi, regardless of what the player chooses, Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out For A Hero" plays, overriding the radio, while you race to catch the Big Bad or save your friend
S.T.A.G. is basically an Expy of Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D., complete with Helicarrier. One of the achivements even references Nick Fury.
Newsclippings from the Punisher game based on the Tom Jane movie also feature in the game, created by the same developer company. Much of Saints Row's run-and-gun game play mirrors what was created for it, including the human shield, toss, and neck-break.
The Professor Genki announcers are extremely reminiscent of the ones from MadWorld.
Not to mention American Gladiators...which one of the narrators hosted in real life.
Considering the fact that Oleg is a Hulking great Genius Bruiser it's probably no accident he calls one of his failed clones an "Abomination."
In the same mission, the Boss using a stalagmite to kill Killbane is a reference to the infamously bad Star Trek fight against a Gorn.
As well the method of running around shooting "lava crystals" is suspiciously similar to the final boss fight in Uncharted 2.
One of the DLC weapons (a scoped automatic rifle) is known as the Togo-13.
Murderbrawl is one big Shout Out to wrestling. You can even see some wrestling tropes in the mission (like the easily distracted ref).
Uplink can occasionally be seen on some of the ingame computer monitors.
One of the flashier motorcycles is called the "Kaneda".
The other most common motorcycle is the "[[{C Hi Ps} Estrada]]".
When the player is disguised as Cyrus Temple and checking out STAG prototypes with Kia, using one of the female voices causes the player to ask if the Spectre is any good for forest combat.
One of the trophies /achievements inthe Genkibowl VII DLC is called Flame On.
The Cyber Buster weapon is a reference to the Mega Man games.
The goatee in character creation is called the Door Knocker.
A trophy/achievement for completing a certain amount of assassination missions grants the player the "Everything is Permitted" trophy/achievement.
Possibly unintentional, but if you rapidly tap the fire button on the STAG air motorbike the gun sounds like an AT-AT firing.
Whilst storming the Syndicate Tower, Pierce suggests the Brutes be called Bricks, since they are never actually named outside of interface prompts.
The final missions against the Deckers, with it's Mind Screw, fake game crashing and boss fight, mirrors the Scarecrow and Joker battles in Arkham Asylum.
Smart People Play Chess: The chess matches between Pierce and Oleg, which are always ruined by something. One match almost goes to Pierce, but Oleg finds a way to subtly Rage Quit.
Sociopathic Hero: Depending on player action, the emphasis can be either on the 'Heroic' part or the 'Sociopath' part. Either way the Boss is still a noticeably nicer person than he/she was in the second game. There's also the aforementioned Hero Antagonist Cyrus Temple, who falls squarely into this trope.
Conquest. The story of human history. Since time immemorial, great leaders have risen from humble beginnings to . . . do shit. A Saints movie is in development. Johnny Gat and Shaundi are pop-culture icons. And Pierce... Well, who gives a fuck about Pierce?
Soundtrack Dissonance: "You're the Best" begins playing as you tear wrestlers to shreds with a chainsaw during Murderbrawl.
Spoof Aesop: The description for the 'Ow My Balls!' achievement/trophy.
Did your first nutshot and testicle assault, sack tapping is bad news kids!
Stop Helping Me!: In one mission, you have to grab a McGuffin by shooting out the tires on a flatbed truck, and you hijack a tank to do it. One problem: the tank has a laser, and Pierce is way too overenthusiastic with it.
Stripperific: Every single female gang member with the exception of Philippe Loren's personal assistants, as well as the ludicrous amounts of prostitutes on the streets. Men in gimpsuits also feature prominently. And of course, the player character can be stripped down to a G-string and pasties without activating a pixel censor filter that is present in case of Full Frontal Assault.
Lampshaded and mocked when Viola is forced to wear the Bloody Canoness's get-up, a Naughty Nun outfit, in the mission to kidnap Nyteblade's actor.
Squick: An in-universe example. While traversing through the basement of Safeword (the BDSM club which Zimos is held hostage at), the Boss and Pierce comment on their mutual disgust at their current situation with the boss stating that they are going to bathe in hand sanitizer after they leave.
The in-universe series "Nyte Blayde" is a humongous one to numerous vampire shows such as Angel, True Blood and The Vampire Diaries. Dramatically voiced radio commercials for the show attempt to interest the viewers in horrendously trite and cliche plot turns and contain snippets full of unashamed Narm, Wangst and Big "NO!".
Meanwhile, the lead actor is portrayed as an arrogant and ineffectual prettyboy and fails to do as much as kick down a door during the first mission where he's supposed to aid you. He's also a complete idiot.
One scene has Boss refer to Nyte Blayde as a shitty vampire show. Most every scene has their own unique dialogue, but every Boss voice will call it a shitty vampire show.
The "Nobody Loves Me" Emo fashion shop. Complete with a razor with cutting edge dripping with fluorescent paint for a logo and humongous, multi-story advertising billboards spattered with "NOBODY NOBODY NOBODY NOBODY NOBODY LOVES ME"
There are multiple references to the Iraq and Vietnam wars.
There is a reward for killing 200 "mascots" in the game. It's up to debate as to just what is this aimed at - calling out the Furry Fandom, taking a spin on the well documented loathing most sports fans have for mascots, or simply taking a position against consumerism and aggressive advertisement - but it ought to offend someone.
"Mascots make me want to take target practice."
The Bloody Canoness is a take that at the revealing costumes females in comics have. It's Lampshaded by Viola.
There's a commercial for a new text adventure game that's an obvious pot shot at gamers who believe gameplay is more important than graphics. You can play said text game, much to the Boss's bemusement and rage.
The Boss is asked to sign a copy of the comic book Gangstas In Space by a fan. Said fan's nervousness, stuttering, and general social ineptitude are a jab at the stereotypical comic book fan.
When zombies are brought up, Oleg thinks of metaphoric zombies: the celebrity-obsessed, media-drugged masses.
Take That, Audience!: John, DJ of the [adult swim] station, will go on a fourth-wall-breaking rant at the player, telling him to get a job and a girlfriend, and generally expressing his disgust with the player. And by player, he means actual player, not the Player Character.
Tank Goodness: The Challenger is a fairly faithful reproduction of the M1 Abrams (which is odd, considering it shares a name with a real-life British main battle tank), armed with both a cannon, a machine gun, and another machine gun which may be manned by a homie in your group. You get to rampage with it on the streets in the new Mayhem variant: Tank Mayhem.
And, of course, outdone by STAG with their Crusader tank. Inspired by the Israeli Merkava IV (Though flatter, making the rear compartment too narrow for use as a personnel carrier), this mean war machine is armed with anti-infantry laser, a much more powerful microwave laser to be used by the copilot, and, if muzzle electricity discharge is any indicator, a railgun for a main weapon. What firmly establishes it as a vehicular badass is the cutscene in which it drops from ten thousand meters without a parachute and not only keeps the player inside alive, but can also drive away under its own power without suffering more than a couple ignition issues. And THEN it is permanently added to the player's garage.
And all but the ASP tank can, for what seems like the first time in gaming, roll over and crush flat any vehicle beneath them short of another tank or APC. Not cause them to explode, like so many games before it, but actually crush the vehicle into a pile of scrap, have fun.
Tempting Fate: After destroying STAG's aircraft carrier, Viola comments on the Saints needing to still watch STAG, as they're not beaten yet. Pierce, of course, has to say:
Pierce: Why? We just blew up their fucking aircraft carrier! What more could they possibly send at us?
That Thing Is Not My Child: While Oleg wrestles with a Brute (of which he is the genetic model for), we get this exchange.
Brute: Father... Oleg: You are no child of mine, just an abomination.
The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: If you're on a vehicle theft mission and you try to deliver a vehicle that's on fire, i.e. about to explode, you get the message that "the shop doesn't want a burning vehicle".
Theme Song Power Up: The mission "Party Time", in which you take over the Morningstar penthouse is accompanied by "Power". Similarly, the fight with Killbane has "You're The Best Around" playing and the penultimate mission's Sadistic Choice has "Holding Out For A Hero". The music manages to be appropriate to both choices, with one referencing Short Circuit and the other referencing Shrek.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: The person you choose to confront in the penultimate mission gives you one. Considering the Sadistic Choice involved, they're both right. Interestingly, each speech is more directed towards the other choice.
Killbane: You were a fucking clown, selling energy drinks and lunch boxes. You didn’t care about the crowd, just the paycheck. Kia: Lin. Carlos. Aisha. Johnny... all you do is let your friends die.
During one of the intermissions between songs, Jon (the DJ from WDDT GPCG Adult Swin) will kick the fourth wall in the balls and ask the player (not the Boss, the player) how much control does he/she have over his own life and tells him/her to go get a girlfriend and/or a job.
The Syndicate: The main villains are called this, and they walk the walk.
Throw Away Guns: Certain oversized weapons are available exclusively from fallen enemies, such as the Minigun and Incinerator (Carried by gang brutes), the Riot Shield (SWAT and STAG teams), the Shock Hammer (Decker specialists) and the GL G20 multi-grenade launcher (Luchadore specialists). You can't replenish their ammunition or add them to your inventory for later use.
Technically, you can use the Riot Shield forever, as well as the Shock Hammer as its secondary attack doesn't spend charges. It's beyond impractical though, as while wielding any non-standard weapon, you cannot jump or enter vehicles and, in case of the Minigun and Incinerator, are also slowed to a crawl.
Training from Hell: Angel puts the Boss through this to help him/her get ready to face Killbane. Let's just say it involves some... interesting training partners.
Tron Lines: The Deckers have Tron clothing highlights, applies literally when the Boss goes into their cyberspace.
Pierce: What are they wearing? Latina Boss: I dunno, but it kind of turns me on. Pierce:What.
Took a Level in Badass: It took one game, but Pierce has maken a huge leap from the last game. Just as well, Shaundi went from a stoner who got kidnapped by a strung out DJ, to a really angry Action Girl.
Ironically, despite Shaundi having become a lot more bloodthirsty and seemingly competent in the third installment, she is the character who needs to be rescued the most number of times thoroughout the game.
Twenty Minutes into the Future: Most of Steelport looks like a reasonable modern city, and the traffic looks like whatever selection you might see outdoors in any megapolis. However, technology has clearly gotten forward for those with ample resources to spare, given the decisively cyberpunk inspired 200-something floor Syndicate towers that dominate the skyline and dwarf more conventional skyscrapers, the Deckers' virtual reality network, EMP grenades and hyperspeed roller skates, and the genetically engineered Brutes gangs are capable of deploying. The government eventually trumps the gangs' achievements with the STAG initiative, whose operatives come with an impressive array of experimental weapons including laser weaponry, hoverbikes, powered armor, next generation VTOL jets, and a humongous flying aircraft carrier, most of which looks like it would fit comfortably in Red Faction.
Also part Schizo Tech, as plenty of VHS tapes are found inside buildings. The custom radio song list is referred to as a mix-tape and its icon is an audio cassette, suggesting the songs are recorded on one.
Unicorn: In the Deckers Die mission Boss plays through a text adventure that ends with a unicorn. Petting it kills you, killing it wins the game. Boss will comment on it.
Why? Why Mr Unicorn? And my childhood has just been crushed. Wow. Just...wow. Dick move, unicorn. Dick. Move. What does this guy have against unicorns?
Later it might be revealed that Boss collects glass unicorns.
The Unmasking: Killbane unmasking Angel is the reason that Angel works with the Saints. You can choose to unmask Killbane during a wrestling match with him; choosing to unmask him will give you his mask to wear, while giving him mercy will allow you to learn the Apoco-Fist technique from him.
Unspoken Plan Guarantee: The inversion of this trope. When the bank robbery in the first mission goes south the following conversation takes place:
Johnny Gat: "You got a plan or are we just shootin' all these motherfuckers?" Boss: "That is my plan". Gat: "Works for me".
The mission ends with Boss, Shaundi and Gat being arrested and then handed over to The Syndicate.
The mission following it does the samething, Gat tells Boss and Shaundi to get off the plane and he stays behind to fly the plane to Stilwater. doesen't work out too well considering The Big Bad of the game is still on board and in the Cockpit with him.
The Unreveal: Neither the player nor The Boss ever find out what exactly 'feel boss' is.
Kinzie states over the course of one mission that she's used the Internet to learn the Boss's real name, only to have the Boss cut her off before she can say it, saying he/she doesn't know who could be listening in.
Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The "Power" trailer depicts a massive gun battle in a nightclub in the midst of which is FBI-agent-turned-Saint Kinzie Kensington, on her laptop. She looks up once at Boss/Playa firing away right beside her for a moment, smirks and shakes her head, then goes back to whatever she was doing on the computer. Though the Deckers.Die trailer reveals she's the Lieutenant that deals with the Deckers, so she was probably busydealing with them attacking in conjunction with the Morning Star members that are at the club.
Unlike Stilwater, the citizens of Steelport apparently do not care that you're running around with a submachine gun, at least until you start shooting. Even gang members walking by won't attack you unless you pick a fight.
Villain Song: Power works as this, with Kanye West and Boss jockeying to be the biggest asshole.
Villain with Good Publicity: This is a subtle but important theme. The Saints have become pop-culture icons and general superstars to the point that they give autographs while robbing a bank. Police will often ask if the boss can sign his/her mug shot while trying to arrest him/her. Gat evidently dislikes this, and wishes they could go back to just killing people. A possible plot twist would have been him joining the Syndicate to return to his previous lifestyle.
Both Loren and Killbane play this straight as well. Loren's weapons dealing is his legit business practice (the human trafficking being the illegal one); his weapons store "Powder" is a legal gun store and his gun trade is talked about on the radio like any other such business. Killbane is a professional wrestler and casino owner while also dealing in illicit drugs.
Killbane trashes the Saints' name in a news interview while trying to keep up his own good image, to which the Boss will wonder how the Saints' own PR department will handle it. After this, protesters holding up anti-Saints signs can be seen throughout the city. It is also reflected in the commentary during Murderbrawl XXXI. The conclusion of Murderbrawl XXXI is also this as it destroys Killbane's personal reputation enough to end the Luchadores arc.
The endings also get in on this. If you choose to save Shaundi and, by extension, the Magarac Island monument, the Saints now have good publicity. This is in contrast to STAG's tanking approval, which forces them be withdrawn. If you choose to take on Killbane and STAG, you defy this as the Saints return to "screw the publicity, fuck with us at your own risk."
Vocal Dissonance: You can mix and match bodies and voices for the Boss. You can have a male body with a female voice, or the other way around. And then there's the zombie voice...
Warrior Poet: Killbane. Sure, his poetry mostly involves brutality and threats of murder, but at least he puts some friggin' effort into it.
What Could Have Been: Originally, you were going to unlock the Syndicate tower as a crib if you chose to spare it, and it's still presented as one. Also, the storyline changed many times during development, leading to many elements being dropped. Shaundi was originally going to get a big piece of Character Development and deal with survivor's guilt instead of going all Axe Crazy, and Gat was going to be revealed as alive and well, and in need of rescue. Many are hoping that the former will be used as DLC content.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Awesome?: One trailer promises the game to be huge with the release of never before seen footage...of someone being punched in the nuts to truly epic music. As one Youtube comment claims, Grand Theft Auto raises the bar, Saints Row holds it to its crotch and pretends it's a cock.
Wrestler in All of Us: The vast majority of the Boss' new melee moves are pro-wrestling inspired; ranging from flying clotheslines to drop kicks.
Oleg can be seen using wrestling moves on Brutes. Angel, appropriately enough, uses wrestling moves on mooks, he even uses a jumping tornado DDT in the trailer.
X Meets Y: Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax, a new activity that Volition describes as The Running Man meets Japanese Game Show.
Philippe Loren: I am going to cut that disrespectful tongue from your mouth. Johnny Gat: Oh, yeah? You and how many of your... [Beat] Oh. ''That'' many.
You Gotta Have Blue Hair: And Volition knows it. In addition to blue, they give us several others, including purple, teal, turquoise, green, red, yellow, orange, etc. Given the many new eye colors, this may lead to Curtains Match the Window. Not to mention you can change your skin colour to many things. You can actually walk around as the Silver Surfer if you choose to.
Your Head Asplode: An optional way to kill brutes is by doing enough damage to make them fall to their knees, and then do a Quick Time Event that ends in the boss blowing their head off by either shoving a grenade in their mouth, or emptying a pistol into their face at point blank range. (Averted if the player simply unloads enough damage while they kneel will finish them off too)
Your Mind Makes It Real: At the start of the mission "http://deckers.die", Boss states that entering the Deckers' user net will be safer than getting shot at. Kinzie tells him cheerfully that if his mind takes too much of a shock he'll end up brain dead.
Zombie Apocalypse: You accidentally almost cause one, then get hired by Mayor Burt Reynolds to clean it up. You can optionally choose to keep some of The Virus for your own personal zombie army to sic on enemies. Then you discover that the zombies basically control a small area of the city. The final survival mission involves killing no less than 600 of them, compared to regular ones, which involve 40-60 gang members or policemen.
A cheat code allows you to make zombies spawn instead of regular pedestrians everywhere. They're hostile to police and gang members, so Hilarity Ensues.
Regardless of which ending you got, you get Zombie Johnny Gat as a homie in the Playable Epilogue.
was released as a free download shortly before the game came out.Character sheet is found under the series due to continuity reasons.
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