Old school sandbox greatness....
To begin, I have to say that I absolutely love The Saboteur. I know there are a ton of issues that could be considered when reviewing this title, like some minor gameplay mechanics issues, camera issues, etc, but I will focus on why I personally think this is a great game. First of all, for those complaining about story, who cares? This is a sandbox game, you go around and blow shit up, no need for a great “epic” story. There is a decent enough story going on here with the whole race car driver vs Nazi’s thing for me, so enough about the story. I think the reason I love this game first and foremost is that it brings back memories of one of my all time favorite PS2 titles, which is Rockstar’s The Warriors. Most will compare The Saboteur to GTA games, or the first Godfather game, but for some reason it has more of a feel of The Warriors to me. The Saboteur is a lot like the previously mentioned games, where you can spend hours and hours of basically hanging out in a city and F’ing people up on the streets, or blowing stuff up, and what better of a place to do this in than Paris. The missions are your basic go do this, go do that type of missions, but are interesting enough to keep the user playing until completing the story. There are perks in this game as well, and these are just as fun to try to get 100% on as playing the story missions.
The Saboteur is great for all of you trophy and achievement whores, and I am amongst you, so this is a good thing. There are tons of cool trophies to work towards getting in this game (like jumping off the Eiffel Tower and surviving), and the number of free play targets on the map is mind staggering. Before blowing up the anti-air gun towers though I do suggest taking control of the gun and blowing some stuff up for a bit of fun.
Visually this is a beautiful game. The environments are very well done and the textures are nice and dirty, just like the French! Okay so maybe the French aren’t that dirty, but the game looks great and the whole black and white to color idea they have incorporated in the game makes it look and feel kinda like a Frank Miller project. Audio and SFX are well done and immerse the user in the environment, not to mention the voice acting is surprisingly good and not all that cheesey. If you enjoy sandbox games you will love The Saboteur, even with its flaws, just like you still love your least favorite child.
