Review | The Saboteur

It’s difficult to take it at all seriously. As such, there’s one thing that bothers me more than anything in the game itself ever could. On the one hand, I found the whole thing mildly offensive. On the other… well, it’s become something of a guilty pleasure. Sure, the language is gratuitous, there are boobs galore and everyone is a stereotype. But after a while, you begin to take it all with a pinch of salt, and just laugh at it.

//Gardez la détente tirée
After those first few hours, I started to enjoy The Saboteur a whole lot more. The story remains a little hamfisted in places, but it can be overlooked when many games are equally clichéd or utterly bonkers. The reason it gets better, though, is because we all like to make fools of the Nazis, and The Saboteur lets you do that on an increasing number of occasions. The missions can get a little repetitive, with a lot of ‘go here and blow up that’ structures, but they always stay just on the right side of the entertainment line, and most story threads are bookended with elaborate set pieces, ensuring you’re grinning from ear to ear as you make your hasty escape from the Nazi forces.

The action does feel a little confused. The Saboteur is marketed as a game where you can use stealth or go in guns blazing – or “quiet in, loud out” as the promotional material has been stating. This, while technically true, isn’t very well conceived. Yes, you can attempt to beat up a Nazi soldier, steal his uniform and enter a base where you must then dodge everybody else for fear of being recognised, but to be honest it’s a poor attempt at stealth mechanics. When you are dressed as a Nazi, you must constantly keep an eye on the minimap, making sure your suspicion circle that surrounds you doesn’t overlap that of a real soldier, otherwise you’re found out, alarms sound and you’re full of bullet holes.

Not that it matters much. Sean can soak up a lot of damage (surprising, seeing as he gets badly injured from small falls) so you can usually just stand there and spray your enemies with bullets until they all die and you can make your way to the objective point. There is a cover system in place, but again, it doesn’t work all that well. Walking up to a wall with your gun drawn sees you attach to it and peek out from the sides, or you can latch on with the press of a button. It isn’t entirely helpful, though, when your enemies can see you and shoot you from all angles and you can’t see them.

//Appréciez la folie
But play it as a straight-up shooter, try to ignore its shortcomings, and The Saboteur proves to be a bit of mindless fun. The main story takes roughly nine hours to complete, but there’s a few more hours in the side missions, and add on top of that blowing up random Nazi radars, tanks, generals and plenty more in the “ambient missions”, as well as taking part in races around Paris while admiring the wonderful handling of the cars, and The Saboteur has certainly got long legs. The end of the game is abrupt, but is still one of its better moments, finally showing the real heart the beats inside this strangely, unexpectedly enjoyable title.

The Saboteur plays off the visceral emotion of anger to drive you onwards, and it does so well. There’s no denying the game has a lot of issues, and it’s not even close to realising its own big ambitions, but treated as a riotous romp through the streets of Paris it can actually be a great deal of fun. Enjoy the wonderful character models, the explosions, the swearing and the boobs, check your brains at the door, and shoot some Nazis in the face.

7/10

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