Are all your friends playing Saints Row IV and you're not? Me too. Are you going to wait for it to go on sale? Me too. In the meantime, fellow budget-conscious gamer, join me in wringing a bit more ridiculous, violent fun from Saints Row: The Third. We'll do it with cheats! Not just some cheats. ALL of the cheats, compiled into a single mod (by master SR modder IdolNinja) called Sandbox+ v1.2. It maps dozens of cheats to simple key combinations, allowing you easily teleport to different locations, give yourself superpowers, and turn all the citizens of Steelport into zombies or mascots.
With the mod installed, I naturally begin by turning all the pedestrians into zombies. This is a cheat from the original game, but instead of having to take out my in-game phone and enter a code, I can just hold down 7 and press the INSERT key. PRECIOUS SECONDS ARE SAVED! See, I want to pretend the zombie apocalypse has hit Steelport, and fight my way across the city on foot through scores of zombies, armed only with a spiked bat and a shotgun.


Zombies. Does this mean Chris Hardwick will talk excitedly about my column? God, I hope not.
Zombies slowly begin to appear on the sidewalk and chase the remaining, uninfected citizens around, trying to bite them. Within a minute there are no citizens left, only shambling flesh-eaters, and they have my scent. WilI make it through this grim version of Steelport alive?


The TF2 Scout couldn't dream of doing this with his puny bat.
Well, uh, yeah. Quite easily, in fact. I can run faster than the zombies, and I never get tired, so just straight-up fleeing isn't a a problem. Plus, they still spawn like citizens, on the sidewalk, leaving me a clear path down the middle of the street, and they only really get aggro if I get close to them. So, my desperate run through Steelport isn't quite as fraught with peril as I'd expected. I switch to my bat to make things harder, but my bat is actually a lot better than my shotgun at wiping out crowds of zombies. Huh.


Christina Hendricks is NOT impressed.
Well! My plan of spending the entire column describing Steelport's zombie apocalypse isn't going to pan out, so I'm forced to turn to other activities. One thing will always remain fresh and fun: killing mascots. Another key combo (7 and HOME) turns everyone in the city from zombies into costumed characters. The city becomes an instant cosplay convention, with walking bottles, rabbits, and monkeys, all strolling around or driving those little carts and scooters.


Suddenly, I'm the weird one.
They don’t attack me like zombies, of course, but I won't let that stop me from treating them as hostile targets. What could be more offensive to humanity than some sweaty idiot stuffed into a giant foam suit? They must die. They ALL must die, and as it happens, they're all here, so that works out pretty well.


Running down mascots. It's just good clean fun.
If you’re looking for a seedier experience, another key combo will let you transform the city into one big brothel, where every citizen is turned into a pimp or a prostitute.


Now, at least, I don't feel like the weird one.
Along with transforming (and murdering) the populace, there are roughly 1 million other cheats, all accessible with a simple two-key combo. Teleportation keys can be punched to whisk you anywhere in the city, to the roof of the tallest building in Steelport, the top of the steelworker statue, and even to Mars. No more trying to remember where you parked your helicopter: just press the right keys and you're whisked to your destination. Another key combo lets you cycle through the various times of day in the blink of an eye.


Teleport + clock control = no more waiting around to take attractive daytime screenshots.
There are plenty of standard cheats, like turning off police notoriety, so the cops don’t chase you because you just ran over seventy-five mascots. On the other hand, what's the point of running over seventy-five mascots if it doesn't lead to a massive battle with the fuzz? The superpowers that come with chugging a can of irradiated Saints Flow can be yours with just another couple keystrokes, letting you run through the city with the speed of a sports car for as long as you like.


Running in heels at 60mph. Can't feel good no matter how super you are.
Speaking of super, you can imbue yourself with explosive electrical or pyrotechnical powers that pulse from your body at regular intervals, blasting your enemies (or, you know, whomever happens to be nearby) into jiggling helplessness on the street around you.


I found something better than running over mascots. Watching them deathjiggle as you electrocute them.
Sandbox+ v1.2 is pretty much what it says it is: a sandbox, something to play around in, putting scores of cheats at your fingertips and letting you muck around with whatever you want, whenever you want it. I wouldn’t use this mod if you’re legit playing through the game, but if you’ve finished the game or just want to mess around for a bit, this mod is good for a few hours of chaotic, wish-fulfilling gameplay.
Installation: There are a few important steps, and several files that need to go in separate places, but the readme.txt that comes in the download (this is a direct link to the .rar, and here's a link to the forum with info on the mod) is easy to follow, and includes all the new command key combos. Once you’ve got the files in the right spot and have loaded the game, you’ll need to go to the option screen and reset your key-mapping to the defaults. You can re-customize it after that, but the new key combos won’t work unless you first switch to the default setup. More info on how to do this properly in this post.

With the release of Saints Row IV just around the corner, it seems that publisher Deep Silver wants to set a charitable tone with a Humble Bundle consisting of its more delinquent titles. After all, crime’s perfectly legal if it’s done in the name of sick children.

The Humble Deep Silver Bundle base package consists of Saints Row: The Third, Saints Row 2, Risen 2: Dark Waters, and the Gold Edition of Sacred 2, along with the soundtrack for each game. Chipping in at least $4.70 will get you Dead Island GOTY edition, along with a DLC-laden version of Saints Row: The Third. And finally, if you chip in a whopping $25, you’ll nab yourself a copy of Dead Island: Riptide, though you might want to hold off on that one.

We should also mention that the PC version of Saints Row 2 was a poorly-optimized mess when it first came out, so keep that in mind if you’re nabbing the bundle for that title alone. There’s a chance things have gotten a bit better since we last visited the city of Stilwater, but we still recommend you proceed with caution.

The Saints Row games do not officially support modding - although that's hardly stopped fans from cracking them open and making them the hard way. Well, things are about to get a whole lot easier thanks to developer Volition, who are giving their support to the modding community by proving a package containing "documentation, file formats, tools, and more", which will go towards creating "what is essentially a full sdk" for Saints Row: The Third. Even more exciting is the suggestion that this is a "test run" for a similar set of tools for the upcoming Saints Row IV.

Given how few developers throw their weight behind mod tools these days, this is an excellent turn of events, even if Volition aren't putting together something official. Here's idolninja explaining the situation:

"Jeff Thompson, the Studio Director of Programming at Volition, is putting together a package for us containing documentation, file formats, tools, and more on the Saints Row: The Third engine. Myself, Minimaul, and gibbed will be working closely with Jeff over the coming months to use this information to create a robust set of modding tools to supplement our existing ones and creating what is essentially a full sdk for the game! But, that’s not all! Saints Row: The Third is only the beginning! Jeff has confirmed that he will also be digging up all the Saints Row 2 info that he can so we can do the same for it as well, and that this undertaking is actually a “test run” for Saints Row IV.

"So, what does this actually mean to the average Saints Row player? In simple terms, the modding community will finally be able to create and offer new clothing, new vehicles, new guns, new npcs, new missions, and even new world geometry which will greatly extend the life of the series and enhance the Saints Row games in ways we never even dared to dream of."

It's hard to imagine what mods could possibly add to Saints Row 4, given that it already features superpowers, Inflate-O-Rays and a dubstep gun. But I'm looking forward to finding out.

Thanks, Blues News!

Aliens, superpowers, inflation lasers, a dubstep gun - judging from its short teaser trailer, Saints Row IV looks to be the most ridiculous game in the series yet. Speaking to OXM, Volition senior producer Jim Boon responded to comments made by Cliff Bleszinski - who suggested the game should tone down its more juvenile elements - saying, "I think our tone is an element of our success."

"Ultimately I don't think that SR's tone gets in the way of bigger sales. If anything, I think our tone is an element of our success. SR is quite unlike anything else out there, and I think gamers crave unique experiences - I know I do. We have a lot of passionate fans that love SR, so I think we are striking the right chord."

Despite this, Boon says the team doesn't feel pressure to outdo the ridiculousness of previous games - even though they clearly have. "If anything it is liberating to be able to come up with any idea we think gamers will enjoy with no restrictions. Ultimately the pressure comes from trying to keep things fun in SR4. We have a very creative team that comes up with some fairly crazy ideas - that is almost the easy part for the team.

"The challenge is to make sure these ideas have a purpose and are fun," Boon continues. "We don't want to do crazy just for the sake of being over the top, so it is important that our crazy ideas actually add to the game. The pressure comes from having the time to really hone our idea into something that feels awesome for the player. We have had to cut any number of ideas if we thought we couldn't get the fun factor where it needs to be."

All fine and well, but would fans really miss the giant purple dildos? Boon thinks yes. "I think our fans would miss what might considered juvenile elements of previous SR games. Based on the overall reception and sales of SR3, I strongly suspect many people enjoy this aspect of SR, even if some may not want to admit feeling that way. Thinking of a movie series like The Hangover - people love the humor but you might not want to discuss some of the finer moments of those movies with your mom, for example.

"I think the same might be true for SR. We do get an awful lot of feedback from fans telling us much they love our juvenile tone - with some asking us to go even further! Ultimately SR4 doesn't try to take itself too seriously and we even have a lot of fun at our own expense."

Read the full interview to learn how superpowers have been integrated into the game, and how the team coped during THQ's bankruptcy.

Saints Row 4 is due out August 23rd.

Saints Row 4 debuted last week with all the subtlety one might expect from a game with dubstep guns and rocket-launching guitars, and it's eyeballing an August 20 release. That sets up a scant month-long gap between it and Grand Theft Auto 5's planned September launch, and Rockstar's titan has both years of success and a heavy fanbase to bring to bear. Speaking to Eurogamer, Volition Producer Jim Boone says the team isn't worried in the slightest and feels Saints Row is unique enough to stack up to its giant competitor.

"Obviously, when announced its date and it was so close to us, that was an interesting phenomenon," Boone says. "But the thing we feel good about in general is that we're such a different game to what they are. If we were stylistically similar to the first Saints Row, I'd be horrified right now. Saints Row: The Third came out the same time as Assassin's Creed, but the games are so different in terms of what they do."

Saints Row 4 certainly departs heavily from its original predecessor (remember when you were fighting gangs?), adopting a chaotic grab-bag of wacky antics such as superpowers, alien invasions, and pedestrian-firing cat cannons. Grand Theft Auto 5 is much more narrative-focused by comparison, weaving a more serious tale of crime and redemption connected across multiple main characters.

For Boone, open world games have come along far enough for both styles to co-exist peacefully. "The genre's matured enough where you can have all these different styles and still be an open world game and be different," he states. "So I look at GTA 5 and think there's this massive game coming out, but I don't think that with our superpowers and alien invasions, no one will compare us to them."

It isn't often we see the words "Origin" and "sale" next to each other, but this week is the exception: EA is running a week-long Player Appreciation Sale which discounts some pretty hefty games in the publisher's lineup—titans such as Mass Effect 3, Crysis 3, and Battlefield 3.

Here's the full list of games on sale and their prices:

Battlefield 3 Premium—$25
Battlefield 3—$12
Battlefield 3 Premium Edition—$30
Crysis 3—$30
Crysis 3 Digital Deluxe Edition—$40
Crysis 3 Digital Deluxe Upgrade—$10
The Sims 3 Seasons—$20
The Sims 3 University Life—$28
The Sims 3 Supernatural—$15
Dead Space—$6
Dead Space 2—$6
Dead Space 3—$30
Resident Evil 5—$10
Mass Effect 3—$10
The Walking Dead—$10
Batman: Arkham City GOTY Edition—$12
FIFA Soccer 13—$20
Command & Conquer Ultimate Collection—$15
Hitman: Absolution—$15
Saints Row: The Third Full Package—$25
Assassin's Creed 3—$35
Assassin's Creed 3 Deluxe Edition—$56
Darksiders 2—$18
Dead Island GOTY Edition—$10
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City—$25


Normal and special editions on sale? And they're big games? I don't want to spoil this rare opportunity to enjoy a good Origin sale with cynicism, but it's hard not to chortle lightly at the convenient devaluing of nearly half the games EA offered SimCity players for free earlier this week.

How silly is Saints Row IV going to be. Well, let's look at what's inside its announcement trailer.

A guitar-shaped rocket launcher. This is quite silly.
Superpowers. This is very silly.
A head-expanding laser beam. Positively batshit.
A skyward launching nutshot. Just... ouch.
A giant, mutated, rampaging mascot. I think I'm becoming desensitised.
An announcement date of August 20th for the US, and August 23rd for the UK. More informative than silly, really.

There's a definite pattern emerging.

Frankly, I'm delighted. Saint Row: The Third was one of those games so unapologetically ridiculous that it snapped back on itself and became a uniquely warped kind of genius. It's nice to see Volition and Deep Silver really test how far they can push that.

Farewell then, THQ. Yesterday saw the publisher’s final assets sold off to a variety of buyers, and while many good people (and franchises) managed to find a new home, our thoughts and well-wishes are with those that didn’t. As we’re in a reflective mood, we thought it only appropriate to commemorate the loss of this fine company with a look back at ten of the best games it’s delighted us with over the years.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War (September 2004)

Tempting though it is to bang on about Relic Entertainment’s wonderful sci-fi RTS Homeworld, it wasn’t until 2004 that THQ took the Vancouver-based studio under its wing. Dawn of War represented the first fruits of that union, and it remains one of the most successful digital adaptations of the tabletop favourite, capturing the appeal of the series in a smart, refined package.

Full Spectrum Warrior (October 2004)

The most satisfying triumphs come from conquering the greatest adversity. Pandemic’s squad-based military shooter was an incredibly demanding game in its day, its punishing authenticity a result of its origins as a US Army-affiliated training simulation. Persistently tense and claustrophobic, it may not have been the dictionary definition of ‘fun’, but it was a sweaty-palmed experience we’ll never forget.

Titan Quest (June 2006)

Time for a lesson in ancient history - well, 2006 does seem a fair while ago these days. THQ managed to temporarily sate appetites for a new Diablo by releasing this gloriously entertaining action-RPG that proves you don’t need an awful lot more than an enormous world and hordes of colossal monsters to biff for a good time. Titan Quest may not have been anything particularly new, but there’s an art to making hacking and slashing as fun as this.

Company of Heroes (September 2006)

Just as the world and his dog was heartily sick of WWII settings, Relic’s blistering RTS managed to make us all care again. ‘Visceral’ may be horribly overused in games criticism, but rarely has the word been applied more accurately than to CoH’s shudderingly intense combat. Tough, gritty and oddly beautiful, it elevated its creator among the giants of the strategy genre.

Supreme Commander (February 2007)

Chris Taylor and Gas Powered Games might be in the headlines for very different reasons at the moment, but back in 2007 this talented studio was making waves with a truly brilliant RTS. Supreme Commander was grand-scale warfare at its most exhaustive and exhausting – with some of the best AI in the business putting up a heck of a fight, every hard-earned victory was worthy of a triumphant air-punch.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R (March 2007)

Frightening, surprising, intense and ambitious? Or scrappy, buggy, overwhelming and confusing? S.T.A.L.K.E.R was all of the above and more, a sandbox-survival horror-RPG-FPS-adventure that cast you as a scavenger around the ruins of Chernobyl. Everyone’s experience was different: ours involved a lot of nervy creeping around in the dark, punctuated by terrified shrieks whenever a mutant spotted us. And we loved (almost) every minute of it.

Red Faction: Guerrilla (September 2009)

God bless Geo-Mod 2.0. It’s rare we’re minded to salute a physics engine, but the unparalleled destruction it enabled is what made Volition’s game such a giddy joy to play. After all, why just shoot an enemy when you can topple a multi-storey building onto him? Expertly paced, with a campaign that escalated into hysterical carnage, Guerrilla may have been unrefined at times but boy was it fun.

Metro 2033 (March 2010)

A rare thing: a great shooter with shooting that isn’t that great. Metro’s gunplay is lacking in feedback, but it’s hard to care too much in a world this rich and enveloping. Every inch of 4A Games’ subterranean nightmare is permeated with an atmosphere so thick you could slice it. This is the FPS as survival horror, and as appropriately brutal and hard-edged as that suggests.

Darksiders (September 2010)

A tilt of the hat to its sequel, too, but we’ve got rather a soft spot for Vigil’s original, even if ‘original’ is hardly a word you’d use to describe Darksiders’ unholy blend of Zelda and God of War. If you’re going to steal, though, then be sure to pinch from the best, and this post-apocalyptic tale did just that, marrying puzzly exploration with thrillingly weighty scraps, topped off nicely by some fine Joe Mad artwork.

Saints Row: The Third (November 2011)

What started out as a poor man’s GTA began to find its own identity in the follow-up, but it wasn’t until the third game that Saints Row realised its true potential. It was a monument to excess, a crude, coarse, tawdry descent into debauchery that was almost operatic in its tastelessness. Some remained immune to its charms (if that’s the right word) but there was genuine sophistication behind the silliness. Dumb, then, but artfully so.

 
 

THQ
1989-2013
RIP
This is no place for a horse.

 
 
 

THQ is no more: the bankrupt publisher and developer auctioned off its assets in U.S. Bankruptcy Court today. Though the court must still approve the sales, a letter from THQ's CEO (which was passed to Kotaku by an employee) reveals the bidders, which include Sega, Ubisoft, Deep Silver, Crytek, and Take-Two, and the THQ franchises and studios they'll acquire. Below is a breakdown of who's getting what, and what led to today's sale.

Who's getting what? Based on what we know right now...

Company of Heroes and Warhammer 40,000 developer Relic Entertainment is going to Sega.

Saints Row developer Volition, Inc. and the Metro series are going to Koch Media (Deep Silver).

The Homefront franchise is going to Crytek.

THQ Montreal and the South Park license are going to Ubisoft.

Evolve, a game in development by Turtle Rock Studios (which worked on Left 4 Dead), is going to Take-Two Interactive.
THQ will "make every effort to find appropriate buyers" for its remaining assets, such as Darksiders developer Vigil Games.


What happened?

On November 13, 2012, THQ announced that it had defaulted on a $50 million loan. Its subsequent Humble THQ Bundle raised about $5 million for THQ, charities, and the Humble Bundle organizers, but it wasn't enough: the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on December 19th.

Bankruptcy isn't necessarily the end—Chapter 11 allows the debtor to stay in control of the company under court oversight—but things didn't go as planned. THQ expected to sell itself in whole to a private equity firm called Clearlake Capital Group, but THQ's creditors and the bankruptcy court rejected that proposal earlier this month, which led to today's piece by piece auction.

We're heading towards the conclusion of THQ's ongoing bankruptcy saga. After the publisher's creditors raised objections over its hoped-for quick sale - objections which were upheld by a US judge - details are emerging about how that sale will eventually go down.

THQ had hoped to sell themselves as a whole, ensuring the company could exist as-is under a new owner. That's now not going to happen, after it was decided that a wholesale attempt would fetch less money than dividing the company up and selling each franchise separately. A tweet by the Distressed Debt Investing blog confirms this move, saying "The auction will allow for piecemeal ("title by title") sales of THQ assets"

DDI's latest blog update on the THQ case explains how the sale will work. THQ's properties will be auctioned off on January 22nd, with both titles and studios up for grabs. So far EA and Warner Brothers have been revealed as interested parties, although it's not known which titles they're eyeing up.

Also unclear is how this arrangement will affect THQ's upcoming games. Company of Heroes 2, Metro: Last Light and South Park: The Stick of Truth all seem close enough to completion that a prospective buyer would almost certainly want them released and making money. The status of their other projects - like Volition's Saints Row 4 - may be less secure. This is assuming the auction will keep each developer with their respective games, which itself is far from certain.

We should start to finally get some solid details come the sale hearing on January 23rd. In the meantime, wild speculation! Where would you like to see THQ's many great franchises end up?

Thanks, Polygon.