The Saboteur Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 18th December 2009

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Viva Le resistance!

The Saboteur Details:

	Action
	PC/PlayStation 3/Xbox 360
	Pandemic Games
	EA

16+

Out Now

Pandemic has been responsible for producing some great games over the years, such as the Star Wars: Battlefront and Mercenaries games. But despite producing some strong titles, it seems the world's current financial crisis has caught up with this talented team of developers with EA deciding to close the studio down as part of a cost cutting exercise. But not before Pandemic could give us gamers one last swansong, in the form of gritty WWII based action game, The Saboteur.

The Saboteur is inspired by a true story and puts players into the role of Sean Devlin a proud Irishman and racing driver. Sean gets mixed up with the French resistance after a race goes wrong when a Nazi officer sabotages Sean’s car. As events unfold Sean and his friend Jules are mistaken for British spies and Jules is killed by the Nazi officer. Sean manages to escape and fights his way back to France where in a bid for personal revenge, starts to work with a number of factions to undermine the occupying Nazi forces and help liberate France.

If you’ve ever played Pandemic’s Mercenaries games then The Saboteur will have a very similar feel to it. The game uses a similar mission structure to that of Mercenaries. You travel around Paris and the surrounding small villages such as Le Harve undertaking missions for several different factions, the French Resistance, British Intelligence and Black Market Traders. However, the game is much more story focused and instead of your character simply being out to line his pockets, there’s a more personal agenda on the cards. The games story aspect makes for a more cohesive playing experience, and unlike the Mercenaries games you don’t feel like you’re running around undertaking missions purely for the sake of it. The games actual missions are pretty much standard for a third person shooter, and have you fighting your way through enemy strongholds in order to retrieve objects, kill specific targets and rescue prisoners. Again from these types of missions you can draw comparisons to the Mercenaries games and in this sense the game does lack some originality, but The Saboteur is more than a mere clone of Pandemic’s past achievements! It has a much grittier feel to it and this is reflected in both the games visuals and character dialogue which lacks the humour and features some rather colourful language. Visually, character models don’t have that comic book look about them and are more believable and don’t follow the action movie stereotypes that we saw in Mercenaries 2. The grittiness of the games visuals is also enhanced by the games “Will to Fight” system. Areas in the game world where the populations will to fight is low are shown in stylized black and white with only flashes of colour used, similar to the movie Sin City. Each time you successfully complete a mission that area’s will to fight increases and colour begins to return to the game world. Members of the French resistance will also join you, taking up arms against the occupying German forces. Generally the game looks pretty solid, but there’s something about the games stylised black & white segments that really makes you sit back and appreciate them.

It’s not only missions that help to raise an areas will to fight though, as Sean is able to sabotage Nazi installations, check points, depots and artillery in order to loosen the Third Reich’s hold on the local populous. Sean’s sabotage abilities include being able to plant timed bombs and car bombs to destroy targets that are littered throughout Paris and the surrounding area. Completing such tasks and missions earns Sean contraband which you can then use to expand your arsenal with a range of weaponry from the WWII era. Machine guns, assault rifles, pistols, grenades and so on are all available for you to cause mayhem on the streets of Paris.

Something I often criticised Mercenaries 2 for was how forgiving the enemy A.I was. Enemies would often give up and fail to chase you if caught in restricted areas, this however is not the case in The Saboteur. The Nazi’s don’t mess about and will come after you in large numbers. It’s not uncommon to see red hot bullet traces flying past you as you race through the streets trying to shake your Nazi pursuers. The game features a wanted level system with a bar that fills up around the on screen mini map. The mini map features a radius that if you remain in Nazi’s will continue to send reinforcements to your position, the higher your wanted level the bigger the radius is, and hence the tougher your escape will be. This can make the driving aspect in The Saboteur extremely intense despite the fact you’re driving 1940’s styled vehicles. This for me, was one of the biggest surprises served up by The Saboteur as I was expecting the various vehicles to feel rather slow and sluggish, but instead they move pretty swiftly and are able to corner with relative ease and are even able to perform handbrake turns is you’re inclined to do so. When the going gets really tough there are a number of support options Sean is able to call upon, such as resistance fighters coming to join you in the fight. This system for me though is spoilt by the weak ally A.I as the Nazi’s are more often than not, able to dispose of them with no fuss at all.

The Saboteur however, isn’t all non-stop action and at times stealth will be your best option. For this Sean has a number of moves available to make him less conspicuous such as sneaking, performing stealth attacks and taking the uniforms of Nazi soldiers and officers to disguise his identity. To get around without attracting the attention of the Nazi forces patrolling the city, Sean is also able to scale buildings and move around across the city’s rooftops. Getting spotted performing these actions will obviously rouse the suspicion of any Nazi that spots you, and unless you rapidly get out of sight you will once again be suffering the wrath of the Third Reich. Whilst this may make the stealth elements featured in the game seem a little pointless, it does add a certain level of authenticity as I can’t imagine moving around occupied France was an easy task for members of the resistance.

Despite the many similarities The Saboteur shares with Mercenaries 2 the game does make it in its own right and in some ways improves on what has come before it, providing a much more story driven, gritty and tougher experience. Unfortunately it also shares some of the same weaknesses and it doesn’t really standout much from the crowed third person shooter genre. Overall it’s a solid game which will appeal to fans of Mercenaries 2, but sadly serves as a demonstration of lost talent with Pandemic paying the ultimate price during these difficult times.