The Saboteur was and still is a very, very strange game.
The story is about an Irish race car mechanic/driver named Devlin. He and his close friend Jules end up in German captivity after crossing paths with what appears to be a genetically modified hulking mass of a Nazi- Colonel Dierker. After a falling out between the colonel and Devlin ends with Jules being killed, we find ourselves wreaking havoc on Nazi forces in occupied Paris to avenge our friend.
The Good
The gameplay supports the feeling of being a badass resistance fighter. Stealth feels great, you wander up to a nazi base, and the entrance is heavily guarded. Climb up and around the side of the building, knock out a guard, steal his uniform, and start blowing stuff up before running off into the wild blue yonder.
Art design plays into this, the more Nazi bases you destroy, the more liberated Paris becomes. When controlled by the Nazis, neighborhoods of Paris are a monochrome black and white palette. Every base you destroy, every mission you complete bring color back to Paris. A nice visual reminder of your progress in the game and a nice metaphor for removing the authoritarian threat from Paris.
Further liberation of Paris will help protect you from the Gestapo. If you run to a liberated neighborhood resistance fighters will help fight the Nazis with you. It’s also easier to escape danger as they won’t chase you as harshly when you’re in a liberated area.
The bad
The Mission design is so boring. Go here, shoot the bad guy, come back. Go follow the bad guy, shoot him and his guards, come back. Repeat ad infinitum. I find myself wishing for something a little bit more varied. Something where you’re not supposed to just mow down every baddie in your way. Sneak into a base, get a document, plant a hearing device, maybe rescue captured resistance members? I’d like some variety, as it can get monotonous rather quickly.
The tone is also choppy. It begins with losing your best friend, and directly after that you’re seeking a safe haven in a strip club. The biggest emotional beat of the first hour is then immediately undercut by boobs and one liners delivered by the main character. Every quest is some dramatic telling of how this specific Nazi general they want dead is the biggest threat to Paris, and our character is cracking jokes the whole time. The tonal whiplash is outstanding.
Retrospective
I think that this game is an interesting and ambitious project, clouded by the massive culturally relevant releases that dominated 2009 like MW2, AC2, L4D2, and Borderlands. This was a tough time to release a relatively modest budget action game. I think it combines all the right elements for an interesting play but lackluster release. Open world shoot ’em ups, action adventure, stealth games, there were all time greats that year that trounced Saboteur in each category it attempted, but nothing came out that year that really captured all of them at once like Saboteur; let alone did all of them fairly well. It was an ambitious swan song from the publisher, Pandemic Studios. If you can turn your brain off and just blast Nazis for an hour, you’ll have a great time. I’ve yet to see anything like it before or after, it’s GTA Assassins Creed set in 1940s Paris. Who wouldn’t have fun with that?
It’s a classic.