Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I’ve got to admire Saint’s Row: The Third’s sheer determination to entirely depart the shores of normality, but at some point it’s just going to start frightening people. They’ll back away slowly, hands in the air, trying in too-calm voices with tell-tale quavers to say “Hey guy, hey. Hey. Why don’t we all just take a deep breath and think about this, huh? It’s alright. No-one’s going to hurt you. We’re all friends here, huh? Why don’t you just put that musket down and take the live scorpion off your head? It’s going to be okay. No wait Oh God…”

This trailer for the game’s retail DLC Professor Genki’s Hyper Ordinary Pre-Order Pack makes me think it’s not going to be okay. It makes me think it’s dangerous
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Quick one! LewieP, official RPS MASTER OF PRICES, notes that Saint’s Row 2 is now available for £2.50 from THQ’s own shop, and you can (apparently) add the serial number to Steam for convenience. He’s not sure whether the offer will last until the weekend and the Bargain Bucket. He thought you should know ASAP. We thought you should know ASAP. ASAP, I tell you, ASAP.

EDIT: Oh noes! Not ASAP enough. Offer over. The basts!

By way of beautiful/monstrous coda to today’s (well, yesterday’s. I’m up toooooooooo late) Advent Calendar entry, please enjoy this taste of the Saints Row 2 videogame’s singular madness.

Occasionally, your self-designed character will sing along to what’s playing on the in-game radio. That can be strangled enough by itself, but this… This is what it sounds like when doves die. Or, more accurately, when all six possible main character voices’ howling, babbling versions of A-Ha’s Take On Me are composited together into a freakish but highly chucklesome chorus of mangled Scandinavian pop. Don’t have nightmares.
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Saints Row 2 is out now on PC in the US, both at retail and on Steam. It doesn’t reach Europe until the 30th January. The delay is apparently due to localisation, which seems odd for a months old console game. I’ve had a copy for a while now, and below is Wot I Think of the single player game. We’ll take a look at the multiplayer once the game arrives in Europe.

It had me with the shit-spraying. Of the very many non-story tasks available in the sandbox world, the one that made me realise I love this revolting game was the septic tank challenge. I was tasked to reduce the property prices of an area for a corrupt real estate agent by coating the buildings, the cars and the people in gallons of faeces. The police keep coming, and I kept splattering them in the brown stuff until their cars careered of the road, and the officers lay drowned in the crap. Enough damage racked up, the challenge was complete, and offered me level 2. Then 3, 4, 5 and 6.

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