Saints Row The Third: a little messed up round here

Sometimes an intersection is jammed with the smoking wreckage of cars and swarming with cops and gang members just because. Shots were fired, things got out of hand, chaos descended. Any good urban open-world game works this way. Stuff happens and then more stuff happens and then all sorts of crazy stuff has happened.

But sometimes there’s a reason for it all (pictured). And sometimes it happens to the accompaniment of a Finnish chick in a French band called The Do singing a song called Queen Dot Kong that makes me think of rioting clowns taking shotguns to each other.

It’s a little messed up round here, round here, round here…
It’s a little messed up round here, round here, round here…
It’s a little messed up round here, round here, round here…
No one told me to dress up
Well, you, wow, how
This is pretty damn queer
Oh shit, now we’re stuck
We’re stuck together for real

After the jump, well you wow how, indeed

I’m hunting Emus. I didn’t mean to. It just sort of happened.

It’s a little fucked up to be stuck in here with you, don’t you think?
Well, now you’re laughing at me, but you won’t trap me
Cause I know how to dodge your tricks
That’s all right with me
Please do take your time
Please do take your time, take your time
I’m real, I’m cool, on you
[Unintelligible]…fucked up

I was working my way through car theft missions. Different chop shops each have a list of cars they want. Pick the next car on the list, steal it from a designated neighborhood (you can’t just grab one out of your own garage), and get it back to the chop shop before the cops catch you. It’s an Easter egg hunt designed to familiarize you with Steelport’s layout and its various cars. And more so than any previous Saints Row game, these cars feel different. For instance, don’t overlook the snooty regal Justice just because it looks like something boring and safe for monied drivers. She’s a heck of a ride. Smooth, fast, and heavy.

You should know who’s leading the book by now
You should see who’s feeding the wolves by now
Well now it’s time to grab my lipstick and blab till my lips burn red anyways
No you’re not alone in the ring, no you never was
You’re not the only bloke with a sting
Ever heard of a crowned fighter dressed all in white?

So I’m supposed to bring back an Emu for Deiter’s chop shop. Emu’s are basically those tiny little Smartcars you see IRL. I sat in one once. It didn’t feel like a car. It felt like an escape pod. I’m supposed to find an Emu in Brickton, which is where you get your first base in Saints Row 3. It feels like I haven’t been back here in forever. It’s a mostly quiet suburbish sort of area.

When an Emu appears nearby, an indicator pops up on my minimap so I can track it down and steal it. Wait, hold on. All the nearby Emus are lit up on my minimap? Lemme check something real quick.

I’m gonna have the sharpest flow and you’re gonna tremble and go home
Well, no, I’m not going anywhere cause I wanna stay and play, you tell me your secret tips

The Saints Book on my ingame cell phone includes theft missions, assassinations, and the game’s 41 challenges, each sort of like challenges in Call of Duty. Stuff like getting a certain number of kills against certain gangs, driving a certain distance in the ongoing lane, finding all the neighborhoods, and so on. Among the 41 challenges is destroying 50 Emus. The reward is a pittance. A little cash. About as much as I’d make from the properties I own around the city in five minutes. A little respect, which is basically experience points. About as much as I’d make driving daringly to my next mission.

But it’s a challenge to be ticked off the list. I fully intend to do every single challenge in Saints Row 3, including all these car theft missions and all these assassination missions. Just because.

Guess who resurrected
Guess who’s infected
Guess who’s trying to jump out the frame, escape the flames of hell on my path

So now that Emus are lit up on my minimap, why not hunt down 50 of the little guys before appropriating one of them for Deiter’s chop shop? At first, I do this on foot. I can easily pick them off from over a city block away with three or four well-placed bursts from my fully upgraded AR-5. But then I called in a STAG branded Bulldog with a .50 calibre machine gun mounted on the hood that I’d requisitioned for my garage. I can either ram the Emu, or pick it off with the machine gun. I am terror on wheels. And now I can listen to Queen Dot Kong while I do it.

But no you never expected, Mister Inspector
Never expected this to spoil your diagnosis,
Lord knows your hypothesis is whack

Finally, it’s time to take to the skies, Sarah Palin style, picking off Emus from within my Vulture attack helicopter. I spend about ten glorious minutes prowling the skies over Brickton, picking off Emus one by one, playing Queen Dot Kong on a loop from my mixtape channel. Below the police are going crazy, my fellow Saints are showing up just to add to the mayhem, and Emus vanish in perfectly quaint little explosion. These are ten of the most perfect moments I have ever spent in a videogame.

I’ll let you be all cynical, critical, all lyrical, chemical
Well brother, you can do better than that I assure you
Cause you could be all seminal, criminal, liminal, animal, seminal, criminal, liminal, animal, biblical, and god knows, analytical

Up next: So how much does the PC version suck this time?
(Click here for the previous Saints Row The Third entry.)