World War II is just about the most overused setting in the gaming world. I've despatched a near infinite number of Nazis in my day, rescued countless innocent villagers from the Third Reich, and been a proverbial thorn in the side of Hitler's Germany more times than I care to mention. With that in mind, it is especially surprising that The Saboteur is not just a captivating action game, but a genuinely interesting take on the subject matter.
On its surface, The Saboteur is all about revenge - a plot line which is almost as worn out as the historical setting the game finds itself in. Our man Sean Devlin, a whiskey swigging Irishman, got himself in a bit of a situation which ended in tears, and now he's out for retribution. Nothing new there. The key thing here though is that The Saboteur does it in such a charming manner, you pretty much forgive the cliched narrative.
Sean's story starts off rather slowly in a dark and moody Paris, a city heavily oppressed by the occupying Nazi army. We are introduced to the basic play mechanics, we get a feel for the city, and then Sean is whisked off to flashback land, to a time just before the outbreak of the war. This is where the game kicks into gear, and the story gains momentum steadily from this point. Our protagonist is in France with plans to become a race driver, and when his first big race is sabotaged by nemesis Kurt Dierker, things get a little hairy. Without getting into too much detail, Sean and his best mate Jules decide to play a prank on Kurt the Kraut, only to find themselves gagged and bound in a Nazi stronghold, with Kurt emerging as some sort of Josef Mengele/Angel of Death character. Obviously things go sour from there, with Jules being tortured and killed, and Sean managing to escape, only to discover that ze Germans are about to invade France. Cue the foul-mouthed Celt and his focused plan to find and kill Dierker at any cost, and take out as many other bloody Nazis as he can manage on his way.
Showing a natural aptitude for destruction, it isn't long before both the French Resistance and British Intelligence are banging at Sean's door to get him to help them further their respective causes. This takes Sean along a number of roller coaster rides across the city of love, blowing things up, assassinating naughty Nazis, and really just sabotaging the German war machine wherever possible. There is something about the way the story is put together that makes it a most endearing tale, reminiscent of those old action movies filled with charming characters, fast cars, expensive women and cheap one-liners. Granted, Sean is not the most likeable chap at first, but you will soon warm to him if you can get past his sometimes questionable Irish accent. Maybe the Irish people I know are from a different part of the Emerald Isle, but Sean sounds more like the lad from those old Cadburys adverts, the 'glass and a half' guy. The other characters range from saucy Brit heroines to French Resistance fighters with an axe to grind, and they add a lot of depth and colour to the story.
Just as important as the characters themselves is the city of Paris, a 'film noir'-like metropolis, shrouded in the inky gloom of Nazi oppression. Now defunct Pandemic Studios did a truly brilliant job of portraying occupied Paris as a dark and downtrodden place to live, but with pockets of life bubbling under the surface. The stark contrast between the grayscale cityscape and the vivid red Nazi livery creates the perfect atmosphere for a city just dying to be liberated.
Through acts of sabotage, Sean can help to inspire the civilians to rise up against the invaders, activating their "Will to Fight". When the locals see that someone is standing up to the Nazis, their spirits are lifted, and eventually the neighbourhood itself takes on a new splash of colour. This is the most obvious indication of your progress through the game, as it's easy to see how much of the city is rising up against the Germans just by seeing how much colour is pouring through the streets. There is a downside to all this frivolity, though, even if it is purely aesthetical. See, when everything is in moody black, white and red, The Saboteur looks unique and quite handsome, but in full happy colour suddenly the limitations of the game engine are magnified. There are texture quality inconsistencies, distance clipping is more pronounced and some item models look less detailed. Don't get me wrong, even in full colour there are still many pleasant visual touches, but the noir ambience is thrown out of the window, taking a lot of The Saboteur's flair along with it.
Getting around the city is also a mixed affair. To get from A to B you can either leg it on foot on the streets, steal a car, or get vertical and move along rooftops, Assassin's Creed style. Doing things on foot is simple enough, but the distances you need to cover sometimes mean that it's often not practical. Driving is obviously a lot quicker, but don't expect a deep driving experience. All the vehicles feel stiff, and don't handle quite how you would expect them to. The climbing aspect is not as smooth or intuitive as Assassin's Creed, but it works well enough for the job on hand, offering a scaled down version of the popular free-running concept. It is a welcome addition, though. Once you've shimmied down a drain pipe, dropped behind a Nazi and snapped his neck without anyone noticing, you suddenly get a new found love for climbing. There are also a number of historical landmarks scattered around the city, just begging to be climbed and explored in a very similar way to the vantage points in Assassin's Creed. In fact, there are many similarities between the two games, enough so that you could call The Saboteur the slightly less attractive cousin of Ubisoft's excellent series.
The mission types do require that you use all the methods of transport available to you, often asking you to drive to a location and then scale a building to take out a target in a quad. This can be done stealthily, avoiding bloodshed, but you need Dalai Llama-esque levels of patience to pull that off. To make things easier Sean can sneak up on a Kraut, pop him in the back of the neck, and then slip into the fallen soldiers uniform, effectively disguising himself from other Germans. This works like a bomb on paper, but the detection mechanic is somewhat flawed and it becomes tedious. Besides, it isn't long before you will realise that bursting in there with your guns a'blazing is the much simpler option. "Yes, but ze Germans will kill you!" I hear you exclaim. Yes, except that they wont. Not unless you stand just about dead still for a couple of minutes. See, it's really difficult to die in The Saboteur. I don't know if Sean has some sort of magical armour or perhaps a force field, but he is able to withstand a barrage of gunfire that would put a small army in the ground. In most instances the easiest thing to do is run in, shoot a few bad guys, push through to your objective, and then run like hell once you've done what you came to do. Just try not to get into a fist fight, because the melee controls are sketchy at best. Then all that's left is to escape the pursuing Nazis, which equates to Sean running or driving in just about a straight line until they lose interest. And they will. The catch there is that by that time you may be miles away in the countryside, so you have to make your way back to civilisation. Luckily the countryside is pretty.
In a similar vein to the open world genre defining the GTA series, you are offered missions from a number of sources, either as part of the central story or as a side quest which will earn you contraband to trade for weapons, ammunition and other upgrades. The missions are also varied enough to keep your interest. If you tire of busting people out of prison, blowing up military installations and assassinating the occasional high ranking Nazi, there's always sabotage targets scattered around the city. Things like gun turrets, lookout posts and light armoured vehicles, all neatly pointed out on your map, and once you blow them to smithereens you are rewarded with more contraband to go shopping. You'll soon find you have more 'cash' than you know what to do with, but the obsessive compulsive among you will relish the chance to take out every Nazi structure on the sizeable map.
Considering you will be spending quite some time buzzing around the capital of France, you will be grateful for the quality of the music which plays either in the background or in the cars you hijack. The music feels true to the period and adds a lot to the atmosphere. Elsewhere the sound is of less consistent quality, with some vehicle effects fading in strange ways, and a few rare instances of below average voice work. The dialogue is decidedly tongue-in-cheek, especially the banter between Sean and British Intelligence agent, Skylar. Much of the dialogue is strictly for adult gamers, though, so if your little one fancies a bit of WWII fun, then be sure to point him or her elsewhere. The adult theme follows through to other parts of the game too, with Sean being quite the ladies man. You will spend quite a bit of time in the presence of women of questionable moral virtue, and if you hit the DLC code which is packaged free with every copy of The Saboteur then there is even more polygonal eye candy for those who go for that sort of thing.
The Saboteur is a game which has a lot of potential, but it also cries out for a little more polish. Some of the potential goes unfulfilled purely because it feels it needs to be tweaked or tightened just that little bit more. Other aspects are just so much fun, even with the flaws, that you forget that it's not perfect. A lot of that is down to the undeniable charm which Pandemic Studios somehow managed to inject into the ageing subject matter. This game has personality, and personality goes a long way. I found myself unexpectedly enthralled by The Saboteur, and it is sad that this is an IP which will probably never receive the acclaim it deserves.
Pros:
- Charming characters and story
- Brilliant depiction of occupied France
- Blowing things up is always cool
Cons:
- Visuals are inconsistent
Rating: 
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