I’m pretty torn on the Downloadable content for Saints Row the Third here. On one hand, I really love this game, and more is good. On the other hand, a load of it is costumes that SHOULD have been built into the game to start with. At the very least they should run closer to a buck each and not the standard $2-$3. Yeah, yeah, $3 is not much but consider that at this point, buying all of the DLC will cost you MORE than the game itself. It adds up.
I did get some of the DLC off of a recent sale through GamersGate though, so I’ve been hitting the streets of Steelport once again. Specifically I picked up the Season Pass, which includes all three of the main mission based DLCs, the Explosive Pack, which was basically a spiffy Grenade launcher, and the real winner of all so far, the Shark Gun, which is a gun that summons a shark to obliterate your enemies.
… and then I was all BAM! SHARK!
I mean seriously, that one is awesome, I really can’t get enough of it.
Anyway, the meat here is the Season Pass, which includes extra missions from the three DLC packs, Genki Bowl VII, Ganstas in Space, and The Trouble with Clones. You can buy these individually but it’ll cost you about the same as the Season Pass and you won’t get the pretty neat looking NyteBlade car. Let’s see how they all stack up here…
Genkie Bowl VII
Murder Time Fun Time! Genki is basically a game show sort of mascot of the Saints Row series. He is a lime green and pink cat who gets off on slaughtering people. There are some Genki related missions in the main story, and Genki Bowl VII adds some additional missions of a similar nature. These missions are somewhat similar to some of the existing missions in the game but only the Apocalypse Genki is an EXACT replica, contrary to popular opinion. Apocalypse Genki is essentially just more of the indoor Genki levels where you must battle mascots in a maze, gain a specific level of money and escape alive. It does twist things up a bit, there are less fire and electrical traps and the environments are more jungle themed and nicer looking.
Sexy Kitten Yarngasm is comparable to the Tank Mayhem missions though it kind of feels more like a rampaging Katamari round that anything. The Tank missions are more focused on shooting than running things over, The Yarnball is a more designed to chase down the Genki trucks. Also, the yarnball has an area attack that works sort of like a Tank shot, except you only get so many of them and they have to be earned. These sort of seem like nitpicky differences but they are enough to make it feel like a different mission. Similarly, there’s the Super Ethical PR Opportunity, which is similar to the escort missions, though you gain score by fueling Genki’s desire for murder.
The most unique is the Sad Panda Skydiving events, which involved skydiving between buildings to take out swarms of Mascots. It’s actually a little confusing at first but it’s not too bad once you get the hang of it.
Of the three DLCs I’d still have to rank Genki Bowl the weakest depending on how much you enjoy Genki missions. I prefer the more story driven missions. The real benefit to this is probably the end prizes. You get three useless Homies, (Homies being useless in general), but you also get the Yarnball vehicle and Genki’s car, which still functions as it does during the escort missions and lets you drive around spewing fire all over the place.
