By Richard Cobbett on January 16th, 2012 at 4:00 pm.

Celebrated crazy-em-up Saints Row: The Third is handing out a freebie to all Steam players tomorrow, and going a teeny-tiny bit further than most. You know how Team Fortress 2 likes to gives you hats from other games? Saints Row 3 gives you the TF2 gang’s entire heads, to wear and do with as you will. Fight, dance, love, laugh. The first and the last ones at least.
But you know what else can you expect from this TF2 intrusion?

YOU CAN EXPECT TO NEVER GET THIS OUT OF YOUR BRAIN
Ahem. That’s not even the only release of the day. You’ll also be able to snag the first DLC mission pack, Genkibowl VII and a free Homie. The first you’ll have to pay $6.99 (or real-money equivalent) to unlock, while the second should be automatically patched in tomorrow.
Yet to be tempted into the madness? Check out Wot John Thought of it right here.


If you bought the game direct from THQ, then you get Genkibowl and the next two ‘episodes’ of DLC for free.
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Good its free but the heads don’t even seem to have the same art style as the rest of Saints Row: The Third or is that just the picture?
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Is that a photoshop or the actual head though?
And either way: Saints Row 3 doesn’t even always have the same art style as the rest of Saints Row 3. If anything, that looks sufficiently messed up that it fits in perfectly.
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It’s a (very quick) Photoshop, as in the tag.
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Yeah that ones been done by RPS the one on their site looks ok afterall.
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Yeah but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was not photoshopped. Saints Row 3 doesn’t have a coherent art style.
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All of my deep sighs for them still not releasing the pre-order pack as paid DLC for the ones of us whose orders were screwed up or worse. :c
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Sounds like Valve lost their heads a bit on this decision.
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You know where comments like this lead.
.
Perhaps its better to stop while we’re, um, ahead…..
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Really, if you don’t behave yourselves, heads will roll.
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Swapping heads could be a great way to take the weight off your shoulders.
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So… This is a retailer exclusive post-purchase bonus? Isn’t this sort of nonsense generally frowned upon? I don’t mind it much myself, when I bother to concern myself with it, but I thought this would be the sort of thing to garner (at least a few words of stern criticism), rather casual jocularity.
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It uses Steamworks, so everyone who plays it on PC* should be getting it whoever they bought it from, as opposed to some of the pre-order bonuses they released which were for Steam customers only.
(* Probable exception: OnLive)
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Not really. Saints Row 3 is a Steamworks game, so whatever source you may have purchased it from, you -have- to play it on Steam. Ergo, everyone gets it.
Edit: Beaten.
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THQ realise that the PC version most likely sold the most on Steam so anything to encourage more sales is good for them. However their other customers may feel left out for example console players.
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My mistake then, do forgive. I wasn’t aware that it was a Steamworks game… So everyone (who hasn’t bypassed the Steam activation) will get this then. I was sure I asked someone about this last week, if it was Steamworks or not, and was told it wasn’t.
Edit: I suppose the article here also through me a little… “Saints Row: The Third is handing out a freebie to all Steam players tomorrow” sort of implies that there are players other than the Steam players, that Steam players have to be singled out. Just a small misunderstanding.
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Added because of OnLive, really, who may or may not get it.
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@King Toko: Platform exclusive content isn’t something new, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the other console platforms gets a similar treatment. In typical Saints Row humour they add content from one of the most widely recognized games to the platform.
So I wouldn’t be surprised if the consoles gets their own exclusive treatment catering to those specific players. For example a bunch of heads from Uncharted or something for PS3 owners, and a bunch of heads from Halo or similar for Xbox 360 owners.
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Well everyone got the Cheapy D Homie DLC for free.
In regard to the heads “After a fair amount of back and forth with us and Valve, we’re now ready to present the final chapter in our cross-promotion with Team Fortress 2.” Which shows THQ leveraging the popularity of Team Fortress 2 to encourage sales.
One final point these heads are only available to people who bought the game on Steam even thought it’s a Steamworks title which requires Steam to run. If you bought the game on some other digital site I’m not sure if you would get them.
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Where did they say that? All I see on the site is “all Steam players”. Will update the post if there’s official word from them that you have to buy it on there to get hold of it, but not seeing anything ATM.
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Maybe I miss understood but it says on the site “Remember, these are exclusive to the Steam version of Saints Row: The Third.” Thinking about it maybe they said that to mean not console players.
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I’m completely certain that I’m going to completely forget that forever before today ends. Shame on you for insulting the forgetting abilities of all your readers.
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You’ve already linked it to the Heavy in your head though, so it’s going to creep in there every time you see the Heavy. Even just the name Sasha might do it.
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This … is … madnesss …
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So… no giant purple dildo bat for the scout?
:(
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I…sigh… I’ve… I’ve got you covered.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1yL9U3f-GE
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Well… can’t say I’m too surprised.
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Now I want a portal gun too…
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And a companion cube…
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…
SR3 with portals?! Oh yes please. Volition, make this happen. Somehow, make this happen.
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“YOU CAN EXPECT TO NEVER GET THIS OUT OF YOUR BRAIN”, huh? Sorry, but i don’t think it’s going in there in the first place.
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IT IS ALREADY THERE.
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What is seen cannot be unseen. I would gouge out my eyes but the image now resides in my memory.
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That photo has inspired me to write some heavy/zombie gat slash fiction.
“You can touch my gun, puny zombie man…” Try and get that out of your head before the damage is done.
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You can’t even begin to compete with G-mod videos.
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Volition completely lost the plot now.
Red Faction just plain sucks now, it wasn’t even that good to begin with – Even the first game got criticized rather heavily and the recent games just got blown out of the water by BF3, which while technically less competent in the physics department is much more fun to actually play around with.
Saint’s Row went from being a GTA rip-off with neat story to a bug ridden mess with stonking great atmosphere (horrible console port that i will gladly play on the PC) to a game that completely forgot what it’s about.
Lets not mention the lack of Freespace.
Saint’s Row 2 had an absolutely perfect atmosphere, tone and setting. An utterly brilliant mix of madness, gangsta, cliches and just fun. SR3 is… bland and pretentious at the same time. It tries to be one thing and completely fails at it, aswell as everything else. A sequel to SR2 would have been good, instead we got Teletubbies Unplugged, DLC’s like these aren’t making things any better…
Seriously though, SR3 isn’t bad but it’s a significant step, design wise, from SR2 in almost every aspect – gameplay, story, design, tone, setting. The engine might run better and it might look slightly nicer but that doesn’t make up for what the series lost.
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Wat.
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SR2 was a pile of unplayable nonoptimized boring desolated crap. It was on par with GTA3 in gameplay and amount fun stuff to do which is not a good thing. SR3 is clearly million times better.
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My own (flawed and biased) experience:
SR2:
Sunday morning. I start the game. I park my car in some random crossroad, while I am making a sandwich(IRL).
A car run over a peasant.
Comes a ambulance.
The ambulance collide with other car.
Some police comes.
The police run over one peasant, and push a young 80 years old lady.
The lady start a firefight with the police.
The ambulance explode, burning half the people around.
I finish my sandwitch, and start eating it.
SR3:
Nothing happens for 30 minutes.
Nothings happens for 3 hours and 30 minutes.
I try to play coop, but the game don’t find any.
I try to play the “activities”. The activities are not very fun, feel more like work than joy.
I do some missions to unlock stuff.
I run fast avoiding collisions to get points.
Some dude connect with my game. I start a history mission. Some epic fun.
I start the next missions in quick progression. We have some absolutely epic and hilarious 6 hours of gaming.
I grind to 50 to unlock the rest of stuff.
I archive the game.
I think SR3 got a better graphical simulation of the world, but less simulated beaviors (ambulances comming to revive people, etc). The “best” graphics are really pretty, but looks somewhat bland, because are mostly generic urban gray areas and because the things that are not generic urban gray buildings look out of place, like mere puns.
The “campaing” of SR3 is over the top and very fun if you play with more people, but I was very bored playing alone.
The activities in SR2 where very fun, for the most part, but in SR3 are a chore to do. So playing SR3, I have avoid almost all activities.
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To be honest, I like SR3 much better. It doesn’t take itself so seriously, and in not doing so, it wins. You’re obviously playing an arsehole who’s going crazy in a ridiculous world – and a lot of it is so ridiculous that it’s pretty funny. I must also admit to having much love for Genki and everything Genki-related. Anything without Genki is somehow so much less.
@Tei – So… SR2 was more of an outright murder simulator and you had more fun with that rather than the silliness of SR3? Okay then! See, I’m the opposite of that. I felt that SR2 was still too much like GTA, barring its funny moments. It was still too much about just the killing. SR3 is about being completely, unashamedly, stupidly silly. I love it for that.
I love it for making everyone so obviously superhuman, too. This is clearly no earth, as everyone can do things that no human of this earth ever could, so it’s great in that regard. It’s sort of like a glimpse into a world where everyone is superpowered, and I like it. It’s a world where you can accidentally shoot someone a few times and they can get up, walk off, and forget it ever happened.
It’s a game where you can put on a mascot suit and jump out of a jet, to land on a car, surf on it, jump off, and then clothesline a nearby enemy gang member. I don’t know. I just don’t hate fun.
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SR3 is the game which made me really laugh out loud more than any other, at least this year.
And that is a very good thing.
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Hahahahahahahaha. The rest of the Internet needs to learn how to troll like these guys. They are exceptional.
(And by that, I mean light-hearted trolling which is actually funny. Rather than boring shit that just goes for shock value.)
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Two options here right now:
a) this (TF2 heads in SR3) isn’t trolling
OR
b) I have become too old and/or the meaning of trolling has changed from “intentionally stating very provocative statements for the sake of provocation” to “for the lulz”.
[E] Or maybe
c) I was just meta-trolled by Wulf.
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I think he’s talking about getting dick rolled with the heavy photo….
(sorry but the pun demands I make it, despite being crude)
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@Kaira: Its b) trolling doesn’t mean to kids what it used to mean to us. Trolling is now just used by everybody as a general insult and to describe everything that happens in some way or the other, when ever.
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Nice troll attempt, zeroskill. 7/10.
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But are they just novelty masks, or are they actually rigged and expressive?
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Heh, who says I want to get that out of my brain?
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PIMP IS CREDIT TO TEAM!
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