The next DLC pack for Saints Row: The Third has been announced, and this one is all about the mayhem!

GenkiBowl VII introduces more Professor Genki game types and missions, including Sexy Kitten Yarngasm, Sad Panda Skyblazing, Apocalypse Genki and Super Ethical PR Opportunity. Also expect to encounter new traps, costumes and vehicles for this go-round.

If you have a Season Pass this download is free, for everyone else it’s paid DLC on PS3, 360 and PC.

The name of the game is FUN and where Saints Row: The Third is concerned fun is delivered twenty-fold. As the third title in the sandbox-based Saints Row action series that many have cited as a Grand Theft Auto clone, Saints Row: The Third comes out the gates pushing boundaries, dropping jaws and separating itself in every comparison from Grand Theft Auto.

The Third Street Saints take their game outside of Stillwater (setting for the previous two titles) and hit the streets of Steelport. The series of events that lands our heroes (?) in Steelport is comical and utter madness at best, but once the guys and gals hit Steelport, one thing is clear: Get to the top of the food chain.

Once you hit the streets of Steelport, you get a chance to create your character by way of the customization system. Pay close attention because the customization system is pretty integral to the game as one of the major ways to earn respect (the equivalent of XP in Saints Row) overall. You may have already gotten a taste of this if you managed to download and try out the Saints Row: The Third Initiation Station. The level of customization and creation for your character is pretty in-depth (possibly rivaling that of Mass Effect) and it’s easy to see that virtually no two characters will turn out the same. Using the Initiation Station ahead of time, you can easily access characters that you created and plug them straight into the game, forgoing losing any time in the attempt to get your feet wet with the story mode of the game.

Steelport is under seige by three different gangs that are actually a united front calling themselves ‘The Syndicate’ and are controlling the entire city. The only way for the Saints to survive is to knock off the competition and take over Steelport. Getting through that means taking on the likes of cyber-terrorists the Deckers led by hacker extraordinaire Matt Miller, the masked paramilitary group the Luchadores led by wrestling sensation Eddie Killbane and the financial muscle of the Syndicate, the Morning Star, led by Phillipe Loren. Loren winds up being the primary target of the Saints’ wrath thanks, once again, to the events that led to the Saints arriving in Steelport. If having three unified gangs on your tail isn’t already bad enough, after gang war shenanigans come to a head during an important ceremony in the city, a US Senator calls in a government sanctioned military unit known as STAG who ultimately declare martial law on the city.

What does all this lead up to? The unleashing of unbridled mayhem on the township of Steelport itself. There’s no other way around it when you consider that the game gives you so many opportunities to do so and the results are downright hilarious (if not spectacular).

The main campaign for Saints Row: The Third will see you doing everything from breaking into military installations and stealing blockbuster bombs and UAV drones, to taking tigers on joyrides in convertibles, enduring a TRON-inspired computer environment, avoiding paparazzi while letting hookers do their thing in your backseats with their johns, and even selling yourself as a drugged out sex slave just to smash up the local prostitution ring in Steelport. You earn money and/or respect as you handle the missions which all pay off for boosters such as more territorial control of the map, new weapons, upgrades, and even clothing (which plays into more respect). Respect unlocks new abilities to you such as the ability to have multiple gang members for a small posse, increased ammo which will ultimately lead to infinite ammo as well as complete fluff abilities like “infinite sprint” and “no fall damage.”

The game gives you license to do anything and everything to net yourself more money and respect with challenges and side missions that sees players participating in streaking events to shock the public to participating in a run and gun game show killing human targets to jacking cars and delivering them to chop shops. As you move through the game, you get rewarded with more insane items such as a military VTOL hover jet and experimental weaponry, outlandish cribs (one being an actual nuclear reactor plant) and some of the most colorful allies that Steelport has to offer. Don’t believe me? Wait until you meet up with Zimos, a super pimp in Steelport that talks his talk through an autotune voicebox…

The notion that sex and violence sells is very thick in Saints Row: The Third and the antics that the developers cooked up for players to get into is downright artistic in the approach. It may mean that I’m shallow or easily amused by even saying this, but Saints Row: The Third gave me the diversion I have been looking for this year with its in your face humor, juvenile sexuality and twisted mayhem. While the story is zany and sometimes completely nonsensical at some parts (miniature zombie apocalypse?), it is definitely entertaining and pushes itself at a very good pace. There’s enough twists and turns to keep you wanting to move on, and major acts and in the decision to go one way or the other leading to some decent replay potential. The campaign mode will set you back a good 15-20 hours and even allows for online co-op for the actual story mode.

Featuring two endings, the fun doesn’t stop once you’ve beaten it as there’s also enough DLC (scheduled to run through a good part of 2012) to help maintain some more longevity after you’ve had your fill of the game.

Saints Row: The Third is a solid enough title with good graphics and some solid gameplay. There are a handful of glitches that’ll at times leave you scratching your head, but there’s nothing in there that’ll break the game or make you hurl your controllers across the room in disgust. The voice cast includes some big names such as Daniel Dae Kim (Hawaii Five-O, Lost), Yuri  Lowenthal (Ben 10: Ultimate Alien), Sasha Grey and Hulk Hogan who lend their talents well to the over-the-top appeal of the dialogue and the game has a very diverse soundtrack that keeps with the edge and tone of a present day action crime drama.

The game does not take itself seriously and once you realize that much, what you have is a very exciting adventure that doesn’t disappoint. Proving to break the norm of typical sandbox games of its type, Saints Row: The Third does its job of entertaining the masses by taking the known rule book and slinging it out the nearest window.

Don’t forget, if you have been wasting time on the Initiation Station demo like I have, make sure to link it to the game (using your THQ ID) so you can download your creation – or someone else’s.

THQ gave word today that players using the Initiation Station DEMO  have created and submitted over a million unique characters.

The Saints Row Initiation Station is a fun and surprisingly rewarding way to create your own character for use in Saints Row: The Third when the game launches next week (Nov. 15 for North America, Nov. 17 in Japan and Nov. 18 for Europe). Available for free download on XBLA, PSN and Steam, there’s still plenty of time to get in and get started.

The publisher informed everyone that 1.2 million people have used the Initiation Station, with the most popular “nontraditional skin colors” being green, red and silver metallic. Also, there have been 24 characters tagged as “God.” (shrugs)

Everything’s better when you add some awesome to it. You can always add more awesome to make it even more awesome. Case in point, Saint’s Row: The Third has what developers Volition, Inc. are describing as the Awesome Button. Just like it sounds, the Awesome Button will let you do everything with some added awesome to it. Saints Row: The Third keeps the hits coming with their off-the-wall wacky antics and nothing brings it all home like this.

Check out this video and witness how the Awesome Button will improve your life.

Volition’s upcoming super-ambitious project Saints Row: The Third is heading for us fast and keeps throwing more and more off the wall trailers at us. The newest trailer is just as crazy as their Shock and Awesome and Initiation Station trailers. As you’ll see, when faced with a zombie apocalypse, there’s only one way a guy in bunny slippers and a bathrobe can defend himself on the streets.

Saint’s Row: The Third hits shelves out November 15 in the US and November 18 in the UK. By the way, consider this trailer NSFW (look it up if you don’t know what that means before watching).

Special thanks to Ve3tro for this trailer!

The latest Saints Row: The Third trailer has us walking away feeling that we’ve seen all of this somewhere before. Maybe it’s just us here at PopCultureshock, but does this feel like a jab at Battlefield 3? How about Modern Warfare 3? Could it be (gasp) both Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3?!

It’s obvious that THQ and Volition have great senses of humor with this harmless (and hilarious) trailer that’s absolutely a mashup of the best parts of both the Battlefield 3 and the Modern Warfare 3 trailers. But, all joking aside, the new trailer shows off the Special Tactical Anti-Gang unit (STAG) the in-game military force that’s specifically designed to handle exactly what the 3rd Street Saints represent.

Outfitted with hover jets, speeder bikes, laser tanks, and a flying aircraft carrier, STAG is after both the Syndicate and the Saints. Check out the trailer and check out all of the over-the-top action planned for release this coming November for PS3, 360, and PC.

The writer and director of Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth will serve as a creative director with Saint’s Row developer Volition to create the inSANE trilogy of titles. The first title in the original IP is slated for release in 2013 as of now.

“With this new series of video games, I want to take players to a place they have never seen before, where every single action makes them question their own senses of morality and reality,” said del Toro. “THQ and Volition, Inc. are equally excited to make this vision of a completely new game universe into a reality.”

Though THQ will own the rights to the games, del Toro holds rights to any filmed products that come from the franchise.

We’ll have more details of the inSANE trilogy as they break.

Of course, if you have no idea what we’re talking about and you’re curious about the big mid-season 3rd person shooter that’s on everyone’s lips, check out the trailer for the game right here on PopCultureShock.com.