FGC #094 Saints Row: The Third

So you’ve decided to become immortal? Great!

Yes, more and more people today are choosing to become invincible, ageless perversions of nature. Whether it’s through an excess of wealth, fame, or just doing the same stupid task and over and over again, it’s easier today than ever to become completely invulnerable to the bullets, lasers, and flamethrowers of your enemies.

But new opportunities also present new challenges. Yes, being eternal helps with day to day activities like steering street cleaners off cliffs, but it can get old fast. You’ve achieved the collective goal of your dead ancestors, so what do you do now? Well, follow this handy guide, and you too can be an immortal with things to do.

Dress for Success

It’s a cliché, yes, but it’s a cliché for a reason. Back in the day, man had to dress to accommodate the harsh and biting weather of Mother Nature, whether it be cold enough to require a host of furs, or warm enough to discourage anything but a grass skirt. In time, man moved its huddled masses inside, and invented all sorts of temperature controlled environments, so one could wear pretty much the same thing regardless of season, assuming a spare coat was somewhere in the area. The only limit, thus, was the norms of society.

You’re invincible now, so screw that.

Want to walk around naked? Go for it. If you think someone is going to stop your bare, invulnerable ass, they’ve got another thing coming. But as much fun as waddling around in the buff can be, you’re an immortal now, so why not set some of your own fashion trends? You’re going to be around for a while, and wouldn’t it be nice to be reminded of your younger days by retro fashions emulating your early days? The ageless don’t feel old remembering epochs gone by, just nostalgic.

Our model for this piece is wearing a cheerleader’s skirt, generic gray top, and a purple long coat. A pair of “geek chic” glasses adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the ensemble, and red heels, perfect for stomping on the throats of the pathetic, are the ideal footwear. Was this outfit hastily assembled from random stores about town? Yes. But what’s imperative is that the most important, influential woman in the city is wearing it, so who cares if it’s this or a panda costume? It’s going to catch on.

Home is Where the Heat Is

You’ve got the look, now you need the crib. The average American spends 50% of their day in their home, and, while you’re anything but average, it’s still nice to have a hearth to come home to after a hard day of causing more property damage than Godzilla.

More common fellows have a tendency to focus on the kitchen or bathroom, but there’s no reason for you to think of such things. You defecate on the graves of your enemies and sip coffee from their detached skulls, so you need not worry about petty trifles. Obviously, the central piece of your lifestyle should be the living room. A 3,000” TV should do nicely, and don’t forget to litter a few stripper poles around the area for guests. An amazing bed would likely do well for nighttime activities, but remember, you’re an immortal now, so sleep isn’t strictly necessary. Yes, you could use your bed for other, more interesting activities, but why leave the warming glow of that titanic television. You have all the time in the world, you can multitask.

And it goes without saying, but be sure to purchase as much property around town as you desire. Why lounge in the same crib every day when you can fly across town and crash anywhere you’d like? “If you lived here, you’d be home by now” should be your mantra, no matter where your journey takes you.

Feel the Wind in your Hair

Given your enemies’ predisposition toward owning tanks, you probably want to live in a place that is as high in the sky as possible. This is ideal for our next tip, which boils down to “never use a door as an exit ever again”.

As we’ve already mentioned, you pretty much have to be as popular as possible to achieve the immortality you now possess, which means a lot of unwashed masses at the door. They want to see you, touch you, and, in some cases, lob a molotov cocktail at you. Don’t let that happen! Make it clear that you’ll be using your invulnerability for anything and everything, and dive off the top of your building and land wherever the wind takes you.

Sure, in your old, exposed days, this would have been a death sentence; but now you’re living large, and it’s the person you land on that will become a red smear, not your ageless body. Yes, you may reflexively scream, blackout, or even pull that parachute ripcord, but no matter what happens, you’ll be fine, and the various you-shaped holes around the city will stand as a monument to your magnitude.

Incidentally, if your adoring public is too large to clear with a simple jump off your balcony (or the wind today isn’t cooperating), feel free to take your helicopter, jet, or hoverbike out to a decent distance, and plummet from there. This will have the added effect of leaving a flaming vehicle crashing somewhere into the city, but don’t worry, you’ve got plenty of cash, you can always buy another one.

Think of the Little People

Just because you don’t feel like dealing with the riffraff crushed up against your front door doesn’t mean you shouldn’t interact with the rascals at all. You’re immortal now, and it’s your responsibility to make sure everyone else in your immediate area knows what that feels like.

Let us consider our previous tip: no, the rabble of streets will never know the joys of achieving mach speed diving from the heavens like a human missile, but you can help them feel “the air up there” by hurling anyone and everyone into the air and allowing them to plummet delightfully down to Earth. A few bones may be broken in the process, but that’s a small price to pay to feel, if only for a few seconds, like you.

But that’s not all you can do to help those bottom feeders. Have you considered patronizing local businesses? You could visit any local Friendly Fire retailer, buy their entire inventory, and share it across the streets in generous helpings. Everyone is anxious to see how those futuristic uzis of yours work, and grenades make perfect stocking stuffers for Christmas or any time of year. Make your city a livelier place and share your hobbies at the same time. Everybody wins!

Petal to the Metal

Wandering around on foot is for the pathetic and underprivileged, obviously you need a sweet ride to match your sweet lifestyle. A sports car says you have money, but it’s also available to every other rich jerk out there. You’re rich, yes, but you’re also immortal, so why settle for merely being identified as nouveau riche? You’re nouveau immortel.

In this case, the most obvious choice is a vehicle emblazoned with your dead friend’s bulbous head smoking an equally enormous cigar capable of detonating other drivers. If that is not immediately available, perhaps try souping up a more mundane vehicle with less than mundane improvements. A school bus with a custom paintjob is a great start, but add in a nitrous feed, and you’ll be tearing up the school zones even on snow days. A garbage truck will be chic when it’s loaded with gold bars and shredding around a mountain pass at 90 miles per hour.

And if you’re an immortal, that already means the public loves you, and believes your opinion is nothing less than the Word of God. As such, it is your power, nay, your duty to judge other cars on the road, and, if you find them wanting, launch them into the heavens. The method isn’t important (a nitrous bump if you’re on the road, utilizing your trusty rocket launcher if you’re walking around like a poor), but the message is clear, “This vehicle displeases me, and it should be banished from my sight.” You’re doing your city a favor.

Dance

In the end, what’s most important is that you relish your money, fame, power, and immortality. Take the time to enjoy yourself in any way you can, because, as the saying goes, who knows when a malevolent space alien may come and take it all away from you. In the meanwhile, though, just have fun with it, and damn anyone that disagrees.

Note: Please do not do anything outlined in this article. Not anything, not ever.

FGC #94 Saints Row: The Third

• System: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and I’m betting there’s a PC version out there somewhere.
• Number of Players: 2, with the odd caveat that I have played hours upon hours of this game, but never actually played any of the multiplayer modes. That is an extreme rarity, and as I have almost a compulsive need to share games I enjoy with my friends, but I guess I never thought too much of it for this one, as I was burned by GTA multiplayer in the past so badly, I never tried anything like it again.
• Maybe actually talk about the game for a second: Didn’t I? Oh, fine, yes, I unabashedly love this game, and mainly because it’s everything I enjoyed about GTA: San Andreas turned up to eleven. No, I’m not disparaging this game for being “yet another GTA clone”, I am praising it for noticing exactly what was fun in that game, and building an entire universe around that. At a time when Rockstar seemed to believe what the public wanted was to go on bowling dates with its most annoying uncle, Volition pumped out a game where you can run around naked save for your rocket launcher. And, oh yeah, they built a pretty amusing plot around the whole experience, too.
• Immortality? If you’ve never played the game, or never played it to completion, the EXP system in SR3 allows you to, eventually, unlock invulnerability against all possible damage, and unlimited ammo for all your weapons. You would think this would make the game boring, but it’s only really available after everything else is completed, and it basically allows you to find new and interesting ways to turn the world into your playpen… or at least see which structures your Saint can bounce off of commendably.
• Favorite Radio Station: Is it weird that I listen to the Adult Swim network the most? No it’s not, because Tim & Eric’s “Sports” song should be playing over 90% of the events of the game.
• Favorite Rival Gang: There are a group of vindictive luchadores named The Luchadores. How could there be another choice? While The Deckers, a group of neon, Tron-esque hackers, do their best to steal the limelight, they’re just angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night. Or something.
• Did you know? There is a weapon in the game that is… a dildo. In America, the weapon is called “The Penetrator”, but in Japan, the weapon is simply referred to as “Suspicious Bat”. This is so delightfully puritan (in a game that is anything but) that I must now refer to all remotely sexually items as “suspicious”. Suspicious websites. Suspicious magazines. Suspicious Sears Catalogue.
• Would I play again: This would be a lock if it wasn’t for Saints Row 4. Even just replaying the game for this article, I was reminded how boringly slow and pointless it can be to wind up in some rocky area with no road access for a quick ride out. Walking is slow and stupid! SR4 improves this with the advent of amazing super powers, so that’s inevitably going to be my go-to for clowning around Steelport. If I ever get an impulse to play entirely through the single player campaign again, though, SR3 is my choice.

What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… Demon’s Crest for the SNES. Criminy, ROB, you’re on a roll here with games I actually want to play. Keep it up! In the meanwhile, let us fly into the Demon Realm once more. Please look forward to it!