Lawrence.com

The premise of The Saboteur is intriguing. It’s one part Grand Theft Auto with a dash of Uncharted and Assassin’s Creed whisked back in time to 1940s Paris. In execution, though, this attempt to blend sandbox, adventure and stealth genres results in each element feeling incomplete and the player feeling somewhat disappointed.

You play as Sean Devlin, an expat Irish auto racer with a mouth fouler than a pub restroom. After having a close friend killed by Kurt Dierker, an infamous German driver, Devlin retreats to the Nazi-occupied City of Lights to drink his guilt and anger away. Instead, there he is recruited into the French resistance, and much carnage ensues.

For 80% of the game, the plot is essentially an afterthought. Go meet this person. Find out a bit of exposition on the state of Paris or a snippet of character background. Proceed on the obligatory suicide mission. There are no real surprises to anyone who has ever seen a spy movie or played a video game in the last 10 years, as it contains the typical love triangles, double-crosses and corny dialogue. The characters represent the whole spectrum of European stereotypes — the drunk Irishman, the naughty British blueblood, the slightly effeminate Frenchman, the evil German that sounds like a bad guy from Beerfest. Each is a one-dimensional parody that hardly even dares you to care about them.

While the plot is standard fare, portions of the graphical and gameplay elements do set the game apart from its sandbox brethren, although not enough to make it truly standout. Unlike Grand Theft Auto, where you are frequently limited to street-level movement, The Saboteur puts emphasis on climbing buildings and rooftop acrobatics, as well as a small amount of stealth. This allows for more creative ways to evade alarms and patrols — unfortunately the climbing is clunky and not as fluid as in other climbing-heavy games.

The stealth mechanic should have been a much better addition — but bizarrely the gameplay actually discourages its use. You have the ability to stealthily kill Nazi soldiers and steal their uniforms. But wearing their uniforms actually increases the amount of attention enemy forces pay to you. Compounding the problem, the weapons leave you little room for error when attempting to avoid detection, as most are loud and easy to spot.

As the game’s name implies, there is also an enormous amount of sabotage to be accomplished, mainly by blowing things up. Sniper towers, anti-aircraft guns, and Nazi vehicles are scattered throughout the city and practically begging to be demolished. Typically guarded by one or more soldiers, Devlin must figure out the best way to avoid or assassinate the guards and quietly set up the charge. This was easily the most enjoyable part of the game, although plot-wise it’s seldom more than a distraction. Overall, the controls are competent, but switching between the fighting and shooting mechanics in the middle of a heated brawl can be frustrating.

Initially, the graphics are design are great. At the start of the game, Paris is rendered almost extirely in black and white, with just bits of color like eye color, scarves, lit windows and Nazi armbands — it looks very similar to Frank Miller’s Sin City. It’s an effective representation of the oppression of the city’s soul. As you defeat Nazi strongholds throughout the city, the spirit of its citizens improves and the color is incrementally brought back. Unfortunately, the visuals are much less interesting in color. Not to say that Technicolor Paris doesn’t look nice, but there is significant texture pop-in and the realistic rendering of the city goes against the unrealistic plot and gameplay components. Had the game been completely rendered in the film noir style, the clumsy conversations and over-the-top performances would have felt more at home. The music is primarily comprised of generic ’40s-sounding music and a basic orchestral score which neither adds nor subtracts from the experience.

In terms of replay value, it depends on your willingness to hunt down every stray Nazi, “sweet jump” ramp and monument. The game’s length is relatively short in comparison to similar games, coming in at roughly 20 hours to complete main quest and a decent number of side missions. If you are the type to hunt down every stray item to get 100%, there is probably another 10 to 15 hours in the game. There is no multiplayer component, and no real benefit to a second play through.

Overall, The Saboteur is a decent game that, despite bringing some interesting ideas to the table, fails to live-up to the possibilities it poses. For fans of sandbox games, it will likely tide you over for a month or two until the next GTA contender pops up.

Graphics: 8.0

Sound: 7.0

Gameplay: 8.0

First Play: 7.5

Replay Value: 5.0



Overall: 7.5