The Saboteur is a third person action - adventure game set in World War II. The game follows the story of Sean Devlin. Sean is a race car driver, born in Ireland but is in Paris to compete in the race of his life. Sean only cares about his passion for driving until his best friend dies at the hands of the Nazi general Dierker, part time race car driver, part time torture expert for the Nazi’s and now Sean wants revenge. Sean meets a man named Luc, he is a resistance fighter trying to regain his city, they combine forces and after a brief introduction you get a flashback detailing Sean’s cause, this moment was one of the best moments in the game. The story is good but the majority of the cast’s accents don’t mix very well, they also don’t develop some of the characters enough so you don’t really care about them. Sean’s character is the best of the bunch, in terms of physical model but his accent and lines are hit and miss.The game play in the saboteur combines shooting, driving, stealth and climbing and navigation. This year has had a great selection of third person action games that the Saboteur has tried to copy for instance the demolition in Red Faction: Guerrilla, the shooting in Red Faction: Guerrilla and GTA 4 and the navigation and Parkour elements of Assassins Creed 2. Yet the Saboteur fails to match or improve in any of these game play elements, they are not broken but they just are not as fun as those games.
The main story will take between 12 – 18 hours and there a ton of side missions that can be done to get more Contraband, the games currency. You can also destroy a range of Nazi statues, bases and guard towers for more contraband. Contraband is used to buy weapons, cars and upgrades for yourself, including more ammo and more allies to help you. All three of these things are not really required as weapons can be found and can be taken from enemies, the cars can be stolen, and taken to your base so you can use them whenever you like, and the upgrades can be obtained when you progress through the story. The Saboteur has a great system called perks, a lot like Modern Warfare 2 they will upgrade as you do the required objectives for example getting 10 sniper headshots will reduce the recoil of snipers and there are also racing, demolition, stealth perks and more.
One of the main attractions of the game is its art style and its locations. Paris has been recreated expertly and it’s the people in the world make the world come alive, including the burlesque bars and tourist attractions including the Eiffel tower, which you can climb. The art style is different to a lot of other games and has taken inspiration from Sin City with its black, whites and reds of the blood, that is used to show the invasion of the Nazi’s and thier presence brings the city down. Once you have set the city free the colour returns, but I prefer the black and whites of the city.
The music in the game features licensed period piece music including “Feeling good” by Nina Simone that is played in any of the cars radios. The interesting thing about it is that radio is static, like a real radio and then slowly fades into the game completely. The game also has an orchestral score, composed by Chris Young, who created the score for Spiderman 3. These scores are used in set pieces and when the game is trying to convey a certain emotion.On the normal difficulty the game was too easy. I died only once in combat and when I jumped off the Eiffel tower trying to get the achievement, but there are also two more extra difficulties. The games engine does not always keep up with the action and the frame rate dropped a few times during game play but my biggest griefs were with the texture pop in and draw distance. There games arts are style pulls you into the game but you are then taken back out when the houses and roads don’t have any textures even at such short distances away.
Included with a new copy with the game is a download code for “The Midnight Show” which includes new dances from topless girls, unlocks additional hiding spots, and you can play a new bar game to win special prizes. If you don’t buy the game new, you can purchase the content for 240 MSP or around £3 on the PSN, the content can also be turned off if you don’t enjoy virtual nudity.Overall I thought the games ideas and story were great but the game play is just not good enough in comparison to a lot of 2009’s third person action adventure games or any genre for that matter. If you are finished with the rest of this years games and if you are in need of a new game then I would say that you should at least rent The Saboteur.