Reviews of The Saboteur

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An Irish dynamiter, blowing up Nazis. In an "open world" Paris of the 1940s. What could go wrong? Well, not much, actually apart from a slight lack of polish in a few places (the enemy A.I. for instance, although on the PC that's fully adjustable at the file level). This PC game is a lot of fun for someone who's never played GTA or Assassin's Creed (both games which The Saboteur borrows from). The art direction is excellent and is consistently imaginative, although the lack of forced PC anti-aliasing and the chunky on-screen interface both detract somewhat from your view of the beautiful game-world. The sharp and funny script is written in the style of a 1940s pulp novel (think Doc Savage), and the black and white graphics and art-deco models certainly help to evoke the period. Period 1940s cabaret and jazz music is used. Dialogue is suitably hammy and over the top, but some of the accents can be strained. The game's "open world" is genuinely large (12 square miles in total, with 1940s Paris recreated in about 3.5 square miles) and genuinely free-roaming. The game installed perfectly and ran perfectly for me on Windows 7, with excellent frame-rates even when all eye-candy was set to maximum. Talking of eye-candy, there's plenty here of the young female variety this is a game that's resolutely targeted at a male audience. Your hero hides out in a classy brothel, venturing out for a wide variety of stealthy "quiet in, noisy out" missions. Hardcore gamers may have seen all The Saboteur's elements before, but for those who have never played GTA or the mass of me-too WWII shooters, and who have been attracted to The Saboteur for its novel premise and unusual visual aesthetic, the game is an engaging and genuinely fun experience.

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Just a quick note for those worried about picking this game up to play with their ATI card. It absolutely DOES work once you download the 1.03 beta patch. In fact, it works so well I've been playing it every waking second since I picked it up last week. It's so immersive and addictive it's actually cutting into my work productivity.

I did have to turn some of the video settings down to run the race portions, and I've had a -veryoccasional crash (once per 48 hours of solid play, on average), but that's better than some recent games with full support.

I'm not usually a fan of sandbox games. The only GTA game I could finish was 4, because the idea of a hoodlum protagonist just didn't appeal to me. I was drawn to the game for the stealth action aspect, which has not disappointed. This game is much more forgiving than Hitman or Death to Spies, but is no less fun. The use of color and environment really adds to the atmosphere.

In short, if you're at all a fan of stealth action or sandbox play, this one is definitely worth checking out. And if you have an ATI card, just google "saboteur beta 1.03 patch." It's a small, fast and easy to find download. One click install.

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This game offers an excellent open environment in occupied Paris. Graphically, the game is very nice (though a little short of Mafia II's excellent graphics), although I love the artistic touch of making the heavily occupied portions of Paris in black and white, and the parts that have been somewhat freed are in color. The gameplay is a mixture of driving (primarily) and shooting, stealth, climbing buildings, etc. It's a lot of fun to drive around the city, kill Nazis and shoot down German Zeppelins.

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This game is a blast. Even after the story line is done with there are still over 1,000 different objectives. You can play for 10 hours just clearing objectives and find that a small portion of the map was actually cleaned of Nazis.

The game play and graphics are quite good and each scene is different from the last. The controls are the same as any first person shooter and fit very nicely into the game. There is an extreme amount of freedom in how you can play each mission. Guns a blazin or clean and quiet, or maybe a combination of both. Think of this game like GTA and Assassins Creed based in Nazi occupied France. Definitely goes into my top 10 games of all time. Have fun with this one.

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The Saboteur was a decent diversion, though not quite what I expected. I'm a big fan of the Hitman series, and I thought that this game would be similar, given the title. While there are a number of stealth missions, the Saboteur is primarily a standard third-person shooter with some stealth elements thrown in. Once you realize this, you can accept the game for what it is and have a bit of fun with it. However, if you are expecting this game to be about something other than firefights and explosion, then you'll be disappointed.

Gameplay: The Saboteur is a mix of various gameplay mechanics. It wants to be a stealth game (like Hitman), an urban sandbox (like GTA3), and a shooter (take your pick). Nonetheless, it does not bring all of these elements together successfully. Sean Devlin, the main character, is interesting and comical enough, and the world in which he lives (WWII Paris) is certainly big and well realized. However, the game does not really let you consistently roleplay Sean as a shadowy saboteur working for the French resistance. Most mission degenerate into a run-and-gun frenzy, even if you try to keep things quiet and secretive. Actually, the game just feels more natural when you are just unloading on Nazis, despite its half-hearted encouragement of the stealth approach. Again, once you get past the hopeless idea of playing this purely as a stealth game, it seems to make more sense, though it hardly distinguishes itself from every other WWII shooter out there.

There are some roleplaying elements in the Saboteur. Sean is more anti-hero than anything else, and his wry humor, gratuitous profanity, and uncanny exploits help to flesh out some of the characters around him. While Sean himself does not noticeably improve over the course of the game, he can unlock various weapons, perks, upgrades, cars, and other things. And there is a good deal of stuff to blow up, from watch towers and fuel depots to tanks and military installations. However, outside of the story missions, just blowing up random things around Paris gets old after a while. The only real payoff is a few dollars here and there and the colorizing of the black-and-white landscape, which is a nice effect. On the PC, the game controls are what you would expect for a shooter and work well. I found the in-game map screen to be a bit wonky, but no big deal.

Graphics: The game looks good. It has a very stylized feel and nicely captures the atmosphere of the time period. Character models and animations are well done, and Paris is beautifully portrayed. There is a lot of attention to detail, and nothing comes off as sloppy in this department. Note: There is some female nudity in the game, but it is not presented in a raunchy way.

Audio: The game has a great soundtrack, and the character accents are very convincing. Also, sound effects--such as gunfire, explosions, and car engines--are all what you would expect. No problems here.

Technical issues: The game comes with a thin manual, though it is functional. There are a lot of in-game tips, so no one should feel at a loss for how to play. I did experience about 5 crashes and freezes during about 30 hours of gameplay (even using the latest beta batch). However, I am not sure whether it was the game's fault or whether it was due to some recent overclocking that I've done to my CPU. Anyhow, the game was largely stable. Also, the DRM system consisted of only a disk check--none of the online authentication foolishness that you find in many PC games today. Finally, I just hated the checkpoint save system, and the game loses a star for this needless frustration.

Value/Replayability: I picked up this game for less than $10, so I feel that I got good value. It might be worth another playthrough in the future, but it is merely a decent game overall. As long as you don't go into this thinking that you are going to play some ultra-smooth character who does all of his work in the shadows, you might otherwise enjoy at least parts of this game. Bottom line, the Saboteur is mostly just a stylized shooter with some limited stealth gameplay.

Pros:

+Graphics and atmosphere

+Music

+Car collecting

+a few of the missions

+Nice selection of weapons

+Reasonable DRM

Cons:

-Not much stealth required or allowed

-Checkpoint save system

-Gratuitous profanity

-Possibly a few bugs

Overall score: 3.5 stars