Saints Row: The Third – Genkibowl VII (DLC)

If you have to sum up Saints Row: The Third in one word it has to be ‘crazy.’ With the amount of weird and wonderful activities and characters it was hard to imagine that it could get any weirder. The weirdest of them all was the cat-like Professor Genki, and when you hear that the new downloadable content is called Genkibowl VII you know things are about to get pushed up a notch or two.

Genkibowl VII is the most watched show on TV and to get better ratings still he has invited the leader of the Saints (you) to participate in this crazy event. It sees you going through a bunch of arenas where you shoot mascots, collect money and try to avoid diabolical traps, all to the vivid commentary of your game show hosts.

In the vein of a traditional big sports event, everything in Genkibowl is bigger than before. You are treated to three arenas, each one designed by one of Professor Genki’s three Genki Girls. Sad Panda created Skyblazing with a sky themed level. Angry Tiger has a jungle with sharks in the pools and suspension bridges. And finally Sexy Kitten has a level called Yargasm, where riding inside an insanely big ball of yarn your aim is to crush things, kind of like a weird Katamari clone.

Initially you are only invited to the first event, the jungle themed Apocalypse map. This is a version of the Super Ethical Reality Climax where you run through an arena level trying to reach the end while still breathing. After completing that the others will become available. What starts off as being a simple shooter arena soon turns weird.

The escourt mission is next, and here you need to escourt Professor Genki himself while driving a car with flamethrowers. FLAMETHROWERS. This is awesomeness! It gets a bit annoying though as it is easily the hardest of the new missions. Luckily your sweet reward is the car at the end, which can then be used anywhere.

The Yarngasm is a spin-off of the Tank Mayhem mini-game, except you ride a big ball of yarn sewing destruction as far as you go. Not much else to say as long as you understand that destruction is the best type of fun.

Sad Panda sure ups the weird factor. Reminiscent of one of the first levels of the proper game, you play the level in a panda suit, jumping out of an aeroplane and falling onto roofs to slice up mascots with a chainsaw. This is about as weird as it gets and lets you have crazy fun while not caring about wearing a crying panda suit. Not weird at all…

Amazingly the entire download is only a few kilobytes, which means that the downloadable content shipped with the original game and this is only an unlock, or it was part of one of the earlier patches for the game. Regardless, I always feel a little cheated by paying for extra stuff already on my discs.

Genkibowl VII is not very long, and if it takes you two hours it’s a long time. It is over all too quickly, but thanks to the open world nature you can always go back and relive those crazy moments. If you enjoyed the full game then this is a no-brainer, you will love this!

The Good: Crazy as crazy comes!
The Bad: Over too soon!
The Totally Weird: A crying panda suit makes me look good!

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