There was a time when Electronic Arts didn't publish skinner boxes disguised as video games. I know, this seems really hard to believe. The one constant thing in their history was their soulless approach to video games and developers.
One particular example of their dickishness is Pandemic's The Saboteur, a game which borrows elements from Grand Theft Auto, Hitman and Assassin's Creed, throws in a World War II setting and a nice aesthetic based on contrast and calls it a day.
Let me tell you a very abriged version of the story (the rest you will have to uncover yourself if you are curious, by playing the game). You play as Sean Devlin, an Irish racecar driver whose friends are killed by Kurt Dierker (the Hitler stand in) and his nazi pals. Now he has sworn bloody revenge on him, and, with the aid of the French resistance, he will accomplish his goal.
So, the game isn't either great or original, as seen above. So, why do I like it? The answer is the atmosphere. The regions of the map that are controlled by nazis have a black and white filter over them, the only other color that appears being the red of Third Reich flags and armbands. You can feel the opression in these areas. You want to liberate them. Then, there are the free areas, with overly saturated colors and almost no soldiers, which make you feel like there is no worry in the world.
Now, how do you think that the liberation process takes place in the game? I'll give you a hint: it doesn't involve tea and biscuit. You literally blow the hell out of every nazi propaganda trailer, radio antenna, guard tower and whatnot, and also assassinate generals stationed in the area. For these actions you get contraband, the game's currency, to buy new weapons and upgrade old ones. So, you blow shit up to be able to blow even more shit up, more exactly 1000 nazi installations. Just Cause says hi.
Now, lets speak about the individual components of the gameplay: climbing, stealth, combat and driving.
Climbing looks and feels like the clumsy cousin of the same mechanics from Assassin's Creed. You can climb any building by repeatedly pushing the jump button, making the protagonist flop up the side of the building.
Stealth takes cues from Assassin's Creed and Hitman. Climbing a building while guards are present will quickly fill the detection meter, and the only way to escape is to break line of sight and find a hiding spot in an identical way to certain historical parkour masters. Now, if you kill a guard with your bare hands, you can steal their uniform and wear it, as if you were a student of Agent 47. While in disguise, a circle will appear around you on the minimap. If an enemy enters that circle, they will see that you are not Hans, the friendly Kraut, but a spy. At that moment, your disguise will fade and they will try to give you a few ventilation holes, if you catch my drift.
Combat and driving are bog standard for an open world action game. While on foot, you can go and hug a wall and start pouring lead into nazis, and while driving, you can speed along the roads or fields in your old times car.
All in all, when taken apart and examined, the game isn't great, and maybe as a whole it misses a few things to be considered a gem, but the style of the game carries it more than it deserves at times, and for that alone I will continue to cherish having it in my collection.
Now, before you leave, I will say one more funny thing: the first demo of Watch_Dogs kinda reminded me of this game for some reason. Weird, right?
