The Saboteur Review

The Saboteur is a third person sandbox action game set during World War II, and is the last project by the recently closed Pandemic Studios. This fact in itself is disappointing, since this is quite probably the best game from the developer in recent years. On the bright side, Saboteur does not feel rushed or otherwise not ready for retail so feel free to give this game a try. It’s an open world action game, and this warrants a lot of comparisons to the current leader of the genre – GTA4. In alot of aspects, The Saboteur is not as deep, polished or well presented as Grand Theft Auto’s latest. However, the game is very fun in its own way due to the setting, characters and some gameplay changes that may not overhaul the genre but certainly open new possibilities for games down the road.

Sean makes for a memorable leading character

Players take on the role of the Saboteur, better known as an Irish man Sean Devlin. Sean is a mechanic and a race car driver who enjoys drinking and cracking jokes at the right time with his funny accent. One day though, Sean loses a big race to a Nazi named Kurt Dierker who sabotages Sean’s car during the race. To get revenge, Sean decides to trash Dierker’s car so that it cannot be displayed on the winners’ podium. This plan leaves his best friend dead and Sean desperately escaping a Nazi compound. A few years pass and Sean never fully recovers from the guilt he feels for his friend’s death, so when a French resistance fighter offers him a few random jobs killing the Nazis, our hero accepts the offer. But, Sean is quite different from your usual “one man army” shooter heroes. The reason for the various explosions and killings he does during the course of the game is a personal one – he knows that he is helping to free the people of France, but at the same time he is primarily concerned with finding Dierker so that he may exact his revenge for killing his friend. Sean plays a great anti-hero, taking no sides other than preserving his friends and personal beliefs. There are alot of characters Sean meets along the way, all needing his help with one task or another, but he never loses the sight of his ultimate goal and this makes him a very strong persona. Through the game, as Sean continues to wreck havoc to the Nazi installations around France, higher Nazi commanders begin taking note of his reputation and so does Dierker who becomes more and more worried to face Sean. Everything eventually goes down the tubes and Nazis begin an offensive against Sean and the resistance, and there is no choice to run anymore. With a somewhat anticlimactic finale, Saboteur is a lengthy game depending on the number of side missions you wish to undertake. The story is more than interesting enough to see it through to the end, though some of the support cast aren’t very good fits for their roles.

2009 has seen quite a few sandbox-style games, so why should Saboteur be different? Well, it is not as different as some may have hoped, but that doesn’t mean you’ve seen it all before. You have the whole city of Paris to roam around in, including a large adjacent countryside area. Apart from the missions, Sean can also locate and destroy the hundreds of German war installations throughout the city. Destroying these earns you “contraband”, the game’s currency. Though it may sound like a chore, each actually acts as a minigame; Sean can simply kill the guards and blow up the installation, or he can sneak up from an angle where the guards do not see him and plant his charges. There were many times just driving around the city that I found myself stopping at an enemy installation, figuring a way to get close to plant the charge, and then speed away and watch the explosion behind me. But of course, this is just a small part of the gameplay. The core story missions are admittedly cliché for an open-world title – you are usually tasked with making a delivery, taking someone out, or helping resistance fighters take control of an area. The missions are usually not very long, and have a checkpoint system so that you do not have to start from scratch if you happen to die mid-way through. The general mechanics of shooting and driving feel a bit stiff but they work fine after the player gets used to them. There is nothing technically wrong with any of the gameplay elements found here.

One of the game’s strong points is the presentation – during the start of the game, the whole city is presented in black and white and this creates a great atmosphere, almost noir-like. The only color comes from the red flashes of blood and the Nazi banners around the city. This visual setup is definitely one of the game’s strongest points and is well worth experiencing. As Sean completes main story missions though, thereby weakening the German presence in an area, the whole section of the city gains color. These areas of the city no longer look as impressive as they did while still black and white, however they still look good, especially at the area transitions between the Nazi occupied and liberated parts of the city. The liberated parts of the city are now presumably helping the resistance, which adds another fun item to the gameplay – running over or otherwise killing too many civilians within a short time period in these areas will cause the safe houses in the area to become “locked” for a short period of time if Sean has caused a German alarm. This is a fun way to keep the player in check and give them a reason to care for the people in the liberated areas. The areas Sean frees also have a lot less concentrated enemy presence.

Things will blow up. A lot. All thanks to you.

As one might suspect, the only enemy in the game are the Nazi soldiers of various types. They all have a field of view, and if they see Sean doing something suspicious (such as climbing, drawing your weapon, fighting or otherwise attracting attention) the alarm meter begins to rise. If Sean stops his current action, the meter will also stop and begin to cool down. There are some areas in the game that are restricted, such as small areas around German military installations that Sean can take out to get paid. If you are seen inside these areas, the meter will continue to fill even if you are not performing any actions. Once the meter fills, the enemy that sees you begins to attempt and blow his whistle to create an alarm – similar to GTA4’s wanted level. However, the fun is that you are given about 2 or 3 seconds to take out that enemy (assuming no other enemies see you) so that he cannot blow the whistle, and no alarm is created. This is yet another fun and quick gameplay addition that benefits the game. Sean can also wear the uniform of any Nazi he killed, though this changes the gameplay as enemies will become alert if Sean is too close to them. There is also optional stealth in the Saboteur, which allows you to perform guaranteed kills if you sneak up on an enemy or use a silenced pistol, though be sure that nobody can see you do so.

One element that the Saboteur presents in addition to stealth and action is platforming. Unfortunately, climbing buildings in the game is not very fun or smooth. Developers tried to present Sean as a very realistic character and they succeeded – but it’s not very fun to play. Sean can climb almost anything, and all of his movements are realistic enough to showcase that he hasn’t done this very much before, and is simply climbing it as a regular person would. While realistic, this makes for very slow and uneven experience. Sean is rather slow and awkward when moving from one ledge to another, though it’s not often that he will miss; so at least there is no trial and error gameplay. What’s even worse though, is that Sean finds it very difficult to drop down to a ledge from the edge of an object such as a roof. Hitting the drop button does not do anything – the only way to begin climbing down from a standing position is to walk off the ledge and watch Sean scramble to grab on – an experience that keeps worrying you that the start of any descent could end in a fall. It’s not all his fault though – the city’s architecture, while beautifully and accurately designed – is simply not meant for smooth platforming. The roofs are very uneven and present difficult slopes and tiny ledges, so it feels as though the world was designed to be realistic, with actual gameplay taking a back seat for this part of the game.

As mentioned before, some of the presentation in Saboteur is stellar. The character voice acting of Sean remains very strong and memorable through the game, though some of the lesser characters are quite below par compared to the lead. The black and white style definitely creates an interesting atmosphere that hasn’t been done this well before. It really puts you in the mood, and sometimes it even feels regretful that you’ve liberated an area and have to play in full color now – though this makes the return to Nazi-occupied parts of the city even more daunting. You even get to live through the initial infiltration of the Nazi forces into France which is quite a rush to play through. Not everything is top-notch though, as some facial and body animations are very odd and do not look realistic. Some character models and textures look a bit low res, and shadows are quite poor in some places in the city. The visuals are of acceptable quality overall, and our test system (Q6600, 8800GTX, 4GB Ram, Win7) had no problems maxing out the settings. Though there were a few framerate issues when a huge firefight got started, but overall the game ran stable and no crashes were experienced. The sound in the game is authentic, much like the city, its cars and pedestrians. You will hear many catchy 30’s tunes as you drive around, and the background music in the game is well presented overall. There was an issue though, with car engine sound sometimes disappearing if you drove for a while without letting go of the gas (which you often have to in pursuits). It was easily restored by letting go of the accelerator, but it is an odd issue.

The unique black & white presentation makes for an engaging experience

The Saboteur is, as some players may call it, “yet another open-world” action game that allows the player to take many paths to and from the objectives. However, it’s not all that repetitive or cliché as you may expect. There is a very good setting in place with an interesting colorless presentation and a character that has the potential to carry a franchise (though this may not happen now). Alot of the gameplay elements are indeed recycled from other titles, but it is done with attention to detail along with little tweaks that arguably make them better and more fun to play. The Saboteur may be rough around the edges, especially concerning some key elements such as climbing. But there is plenty of content to play through and with so many choices for carrying out your objectives, chances are you’ll be having quite a blast.