The Initiation Station

Thinking about Saints Row 2 reminded me that I’d tried out the Initiation Station too..

The Initiation Station is the character creation suite for Saints Row: The Third, available to all, regardless of whether you’ve got a pre-order in for the game or not.  I played around with this rather a lot, with tears running down my face at some of the options, before settling on a normal-looking character to upload..

Purple overload?  Of course!  I have a great excuse for this game too, because purple is the Saints’ colour 😀

The Initiation Station has improved a great deal on the customisation available in Saints Row 2, with more individual sliders rather than categories for body size and shape.. including the “sex-appeal” setting which basically just enlarges boobs or crotch.  There are loads of hair colours and styles, make-up, tattoos, and of course clothes.. including some weird-looking bondage gear, furry and superhero outfits.. and the option to go without clothes if you should wish.. though things will be blurred 😉

Unlike in Saints Row 2, you start off with your choice of clothes rather than the prison jumpsuit.. as in Saints Row: The Third, your character and the Saints have the run of the city.. you start at the top.  I better get there first, and complete Saints Row 2!

Saints Row 2: Gentlemen of the Row

I came across IdolNinja’s Gentlemen of the Row mod for Saints Row 2 by chance, while reading the comments on the end of an article for the latest installment in the Saints Row series, Saints Row: The Third..

I grabbed Saints Row 2 for the PC almost two years ago, and quickly found a gamepad essential.  While running around with my purple-haired freak was passable, driving without the gamepad consisted of crashing left and right across the road with virtually no forward progress.  I know I’m not the best driver in games, but I can usually keep the car in my own lane!  With the gamepad, I made some progress.. till I got to a mission that required a lot of driving, and got stuck slightly.  Around the same time, I met a certain friend who started inviting me to lots of Left 4 Dead.. and Saints Row 2 ended up accidentally abandoned.

Not only does the Gentlemen of the Row mod fix some of the bugs and performance issues in the PC version, it also adds new content, from clothes and tattoos to extra weapons and missions!  A friend also tried out the mod.. and came back with rather a lot of praise for it!

I had a slight technical hitch getting started.. the game doesn’t like me having two monitors, so I had to disable one, start up the game and put it into windowed mode, before getting my second monitor back on again.  After that though.. I went with a new game.

Having proper controller keymapping made the tutorial much less hit and miss, and when I got out of jail, driving was passable, though still not great.  I can’t honestly say whether the game is running more smoothly now due to the mod, or the upgrade on my PC.

I attempted some streaking, though as I’d not yet been to rescue Johnny Gat from the court, I think that prevented me clocking anything up in terms of respect, or stats on people having seen me streak.  I went to put some clothes on before carrying on with the story.. as crazy as this game is, having a blur-censored character running around in the cut-scene would feel really silly.  Where would she keep all those guns?!

I also had a go at the Crowd Control activity.. I don’t think I came across it last time round.. not that I got all that far with the story either!  I aim to get this game completed before picking up Saints Row: The Third 😉

Pirates’ Day

So, it’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day.. yarrrr!

My attempt to join a multiplayer game in Saints Row 2 failed spectacularly, as I couldn’t actually join a game 🙁

Instead I went to Booty Bay and joined the Dread Captain DeMeza as a pirate 🙂