A funny thing happened in the last week or so with The Saboteur, for me personally. As the mad rush of 2009 holiday wonder games  grinded to a slow, the excess of the holiday rush Avatar, Rogue Warrior, and the Saboteur were next in line. I’ll admit I definitely didn’t expect much as I geared up for another stinker in The Saboteur. The setting is used up, the open world game type, been there… done that. Yet, what started out as task turned out to be a pleasure, as I soon began to feel less obligated to finish it for the review, and more engrossed in the game. Putting down my favorites right now to get a little further into the game and ultimately finish it. Now I am not saying this game is as good as some of the recent masterpieces that have dropped but I had to make some serious judgement calls in dividing my personal game time away from L4D2 and CODMW2.

The Good

Blockbuster Action - From the opening credits The Saboteur does a great job of recreating superb action sequences. With plenty of explosions and gunplay to back it up. Many sequences feel like an Indiana Jones movie or something similar. The action is fun and a tad chaotic but this makes it all the better, as a tactical shooter this is not. Devlin feels like a superhero without a cape in most firefight and beat em up sequences, as well as some other unrealistic yet thrilling action sequenced such as an airborne zeppelin escape mission.

Oppression has never looked so beautiful - The game uses a interesting way to show areas of the city that have been liberated by Sean. When the game starts all of Paris is colored as Black and White, and as each section is liberated color comes back into the city. The black and white artistry does a great job at what it attempts to capture, which is the essence of Nazi oppression in an area.

The Irishman - Sean Devlin is an instantly likeable character, who doesn’t like a protagonist who’s a drunk and willing to risk it all to get payback for his best friend? The ballsy Irishman with a knack for getting the job done, that always gets the girl. Whats not to like. If you weren’t playing him as the main character he’s definitely the guy you would be rooting for if it were a movie.

Free Play - There are alot of  objectives that can be accomplished outside of your main quests in the Saboteur. If you like collecting them all, the Saboteur has a lot to offer. The free play objectives are many, and fun. Blowing up armories, AA guns, Sniper Towers, Assassination Missions, Driving Objectives, there is a ton to do in the Saboteur outside of the main quests.

Perks - You are able to unlock combat perks for Sean as objectives are completed. Perks add another layer to the gameplay as most of them include doing things that you might not do in the experience if not for the reward. Like the free play features, Perks are just another layer on the onion. Level 5 Alert and escape was a fun one, but there are numerous challenges that you might not think of other than to get your reward.

The Bad

Some elements feel under developed - There are many things that The Saboteur does right, some things that they don’t, and some things that just feel out of place and tacked on. Stealth for example, feels out of place with the action as frantic as it gets at times. Regardless of whether you pull of a stealth kill or not, you’re more than likely better off shooting your way out of any hairy situations that you encounter.

Mission Structure - From the way that your map is situated and the icons that direct you to your targets, the line maps and markers, The Saboteur and its structured missions could have easily just been named GTA WWII : Paris. It looks and feels strikingly similar to the GTA series. While there is plenty of good in there. There are only two speeds mindless and boring, or full throttle shoot your way out action. I preferred the latter, but sadly with some of the tacked on elements like stealth some missions were quite boring.

Tedious Climbing Mechanics - If you played AC2 recently, and then the Saboteur, you’re gonna get bored with the climbing in this game. You are constantly pressing the A button to continue on you climb. And very rarely will you run into a section that you can’t traverse by pressing one direction or another. It just ends up being a button mash to the top. Leaving out the element that makes climbing fun, the puzzle of it. The rewards are good however when you do get to the top A) Your thumb gets a rest B) The views are phenomenal.

Gameplay - While the Saboteur is a fun experience, it can be a little frustrating with some very sloppy fighting, shooting, driving, and climbing controls. The hand to hand combat in The Saboteur is somewhat choppy and pretty much bad, unless you happen to sneak up on someone and end it one shot. Lacking a targeting system when shooting is something that adds to the already chaotic mess that is the gunplay in the game, you will find yourself emptying entire clips into the air before aligning a shot on target. It does help that the AI is stupid enough to just stand there at times so that you get your target lined up. Driving is no different, it feels just inaccurate for lack of a better word. Turning is almost always a crash waiting to happen and it takes away from some of the missions when you are trying to keep a low profile yet are smashing into every car and building on the way.

While it may look that the good outweighs the bad in The Saboteur, it really is one of those rare cases when a game is greater than the sum of its parts. The things that the game does well make it fun enough to want to go back and play. This fun also foreshadows the bad elements and makes the game enjoyable.
We liken it to a comic book experience minus the superpowers, set in WWII. A good time, and at the very least worth a rental to take a closer look. Eventhough a rental may not be enough time with the title.

The Saboteur Acheivements