In 1940 the French army was considered to be the strongest in Europe. Between France and Germany the French built a complex defensive line consisting of concrete structures, barbwire and machine gun nests. This defensive line was more than enough to keep the whole German army out. So a smaller division of the German army punched a small corridor through the defensive line and ‘TA-DA’ the rest of the Germans followed. The mighty French army collapsed in a matter of weeks.
French morale was crushed. With all hope gone, most of the French resigned to the fact that they were going to be ruled by ze Germans. A peace treaty was quickly signed and the Nazis occupied France. While most of the French accepted this, some of them said they would rather die than be ruled by Nazis.
The rebellious acts started small, cutting of phone lines or small scale sabotage. Soon the resistance became more daring and the operations grew in size and scale. The French’s daring exploits became the stuff of legends.
In Saboteur you play as Irish character Sean Devlin, a man that has somehow become caught up in the French Resistance. Sean is loosely based on real life French Resistance hero and racecar driver William Grover-Williams.
So it begins…
The Saboteur starts in Paris, finding the protagonist dangerously depressed and fond of a little too much whiskey. Sean is asked to participate in a small sabotage mission and he discovers that there is something he likes more than drinking – blowing stuff up.
The Saboteur is an open world / sandbox type game set in Paris and the surrounding country side. Early in the development of this game the developers decided not to add extra cities and instead focus all their resources on Paris. It is a decision that paid off – the environment is rendered beautifully.
Not only are the graphics impressive but the sound supports the atmosphere well. Music recreates the feeling of what it must have felt like to live in Paris in the early 40’s.
Game play is intuitive and easy. Mission objectives are clearly stated and the instructions are easy to follow. Never during a mission does a player have to stop and wonder “where to now?
Another thing that makes this game easy is the fact that Sean is super hero tough and can survive falling from great heights and absorb a lot of bullets before he dies and if he gets hurt, his health regenerates very quickly.
The focus of the game is squarely on having fun and not on wandering around looking for medical supplies and ammo. Some people might say this is not very realistic, buy hey, this is a video game, if you want realism – go do some algebra or something.
What is wrong with it?
Obviously there are some problems with the game, these include several graphical glitches. For example; people periodically disappear into walls later to come out the same wall. Some people will walk over a car instead of around it.
Stealth is a huge part of the game but somehow Pandemic studios did not get it right. Germans spot you from a mile away. Even in a crowd. One wrong move, no matter how small, they are on to you like white on rice. Disguising yourself as a German soldier is no better. The easiest thing to do is brute force your way through missions. Need to kill the base commander? Just kill everyone in the base.
Another small thing Pandemic could have tweaked is the navigation menu. Paris is big and it is necessary to check you map often but you have to go through a few menu items before you get to the full map.
Conclusion
So who should buy this game? If you are artistic, love music and have a sociopathic streak, this is definitely your game. The world is very large and there are literally hundreds of things to blow up. Each time you blow up something, hilarity ensues as the Germans freak out. They scream and they shoot and they drive over people as they try to catch you. Bonus fun: hijack the vehicles they use to chase you. That makes them mad, listen to them curse as you kick them out their own car.
Saboteur is a lot of fun, the graphics are spectacular and the music is great. However they did not really do anything new. They just made already existing concepts look really good. The story is also nothing new, we regularly see similar WWII ‘out for revenge’ stories.
Since the world in Saboteur is so large and there are so many things to do (blow up) you can play this game for a loooong time, but, it gets repetitive soon and you might get bored with it.
Since Sean is so hard to kill, the gameplay is not the challenge; the real challenge in this game is to systematically break down the Nazis with acts of sabotage, in the process restoring hope to France. Sounds like a challenge you would take on? Then definitely get this game.
Reviewed on Xbox 360
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