Review: The Saboteur (PS3)

The concept of The Saboteur is sound; you play as Sean Devlin, a member of the French Resistance, simultaneously liberating Paris from Nazi occupation while on a destructive path of vengeance. After a brief recount of how the execution of Devlin's closest friend sets him on a path of revenge, you are free to wander the streets of 1940's Paris and scale its buildings and monuments. You must select prospective targets to destroy, and plan how to complete the jobs undetected. To aid you, black market traders will equip you with all manner of weapons and tools, garage owners will give you cars, and Parisians will give you helpful notes, and attack the odd German soldiers here and there.
 
It's easy to compare The Saboteur to Grand Theft Auto IV; you are free to explore the city, jacking cars, and trying to shake off the chasing authorities once the alarm's been raised. There is more to the game, however, and it's more appropriate to liken it to THQ's recent Red Faction: Guerrilla, in which you have to liberate Mars by taking out key installations. In both games, the population and environment react differently the more areas you set free. In The Saboteur, this is vibrantly demonstrated with colour. Much like Sony's superhero game, Infamous, where areas are dark and bleak until electricity is restored, light and colour play an important role in The Saboteur. Areas of Paris that are under Nazi control are portrayed in black and white, with the odd dash of colour, similar to the style of film "Sin City". Once an area is liberated, full colour is returned, and life comes back to that part of the city. It's very effective, and although the dark colours can make things hard to see at times, key elements (such as the red Nazi arm bands, or major characters' clothing) stand out, ensuring that you are always alert to your objectives and, more importantly, danger.
 
Paris itself is vast and detailed, although traversing through the city isn't particularly interesting. The streets are largely the same, with similar architecture and personnel, and getting from A to B tends to be a dull experience. The handling on the vehicles is dreadful, and keeping the variety of cars, vans, and motorbikes off the pavements and away from innocent pedestrians is a challenge. All buildings and monuments are scalable, and you can travel this way, if you chose. Again, similarities are drawn with Infamous, but unlike the urban exploration extravaganza, climbing in The Saboteur is awkward and clunky, and fails to impress. The same can also be said about the game's setting. One would think that climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower would be awe-inspiring, for example, but even this left Gamestyle feeling numb. Although there are changes in scenery in The Saboteur, such as villages and rural areas, there's nothing to make you stop and stare.
 
The environment would probably not be such an important issue for Gamestyle, if the basic gameplay was decent. Stealth is an key element of The Saboteur, and unfortunately it's poorly implemented. The main aspect is a "suspicion meter", which lets you know how alert the Nazis are to your actions. If you can be seen by a German soldier, an exclamation mark appears, and if you do anything suspicious when this happens (such as climbing, revealing a weapon, fighting, or sneaking), the suspicion meter fills. Once full, you have a certain amount of time to disable the guard in question, before he blows his whistle and raises the alarm. The system asks you to suspend your belief, and Gamestyle found themselves constantly questioning the Nazi's reasoning. For example, why is it suspicious for Devlin to climb up a building, but fine for him to walk around a watch tower when he's made it up to the roof? Why does a sentry guard stop being suspicious when Devlin hides his weapon, when he has only just had it pointed at his head? It's hard to get past this, and as a result you never get truly immersed into the game.
 
This aside, the stealth system has some flaws that make missions unnecessarily harder to complete. As being seen is an integral aspect of this system, it's frustrating not being able to easily identify which guard has caught sight of you and how. The exclamation mark pops up, and you can see guards on your mini-map, but without actually having a view of their faces, its near impossible to sneak around undetected, especially in the two-tone areas that are yet to be liberated. When you enter certain "Trespass Zones", where the alarm is raised the instant a guard spies you, it would be useful to have some idea of where guards are looking. As a result, there are far too many occasions where the alarm will be raised, and you have no idea as to why.
 
To combat this, you can use a disguise, and you can wear the uniform of any guard you've knocked unconscious. Get too close to a guard, however, and they slowly start to see through your disguise, and the suspicion meter rises. You can make Devlin walk like a Nazi, which means you can get closer to guards without them noticing, and this system works well. A bit too well, in fact, and Gamestyle found adopting a disguise was an easy way to complete most missions. Another area of concern was the game's cover system, whereby you can regenerate health by crouching or hiding around corners. On one mission, Gamestyle found themselves atop of a guard tower being shot at. Damage was being registered, and yet we didn't die. We could quite happily shoot the Nazis from a far, until the coast was clear, and continue with the mission. Not particularly stealthy, and we're sure it's not what the designers intended.
 
It adds to the fact that The Saboteur has an particularly unfinished feel to it. The animations and cut scenes certainly appear rough around the edges, and the controls are sometimes unresponsive and fiddly. When a car takes a certain amount of damage, it explodes, and yet you are unharmed. There are long loading times, and the game never runs completely smoothly. Gamestyle experienced a system crash on more than one occasion, and have had reports that they are not the only ones that this has happened to.
 
If the story that drove The Saboteur was engaging, then these problems could be overlooked. It's not, however, and with an unlikable hero, and stereotypical characters with no individuality or personality, there's no incentive to play through. The voice acting is poor, especially Devlin's, who's constant quips and commentary really do start to annoy. There is a decent amount of variety, and the occasionally impressive set-piece, but the action is slow-paced, with little in the way of twists and turns. The are enough military targets around Paris to keep you occupied, if you fancy a break from the story missions, and collecting cars kept Gamestyle amused for some time.
 
Gamestyle can't help feeling disappointed with their time spent in Paris. The Saboteur held much promise, which unfortunately never materialises whilst playing. It lacks the story of Grand Theft Auto IV, the destructive fun of Red Faction: Guerrilla, and the entertaining exploration of Infamous. Exploring Paris offers some entertainment, but the frustrating controls and questionable stealth system mean that liberating it is comme ci, comme ça.

Rating: 5 / 10

Words by Chris Thornton