A blend of Red Faction: Guerrilla, Assassin's Creed and GTA, The Saboteur follows the adventures of Sean Devlin, an Irish guy who assists the French Resistance in WWII Paris by blowing stuff up gratuitously. The gameplay is fun, with the ability to disguise yourself, sneak around, climb rooftops and be as stealthy or forceful as you like. Areas that are German held are black-and-white, turning colourful when liberated. BY FAR the best bit is the sabotage. You can plant dynamite on anything and you can delay the explosions. You can even turn your car into a bomb. If what's written so far appeals to you, get it. However, there are some grating issues. The game is marred by tone and realism problems and this translates to both the story and arcade-y gameplay too. Like AC, it's a power fantasy rather than a balanced game. On "Hard" difficulty, Sean can survive being shot by the entire Wehrmacht for a good 40 seconds. Secondly, the sheer scale of destruction Sean unleashes ruins suspension of disbelief. He single handedly wins WWII...! Expect to kill 500,000 soldiers on the streets, destroy entire tank battalions with dynamite and escape capture every time. In the capital of Vichy France! The game also adds silly fictional aspects that damage the authentic atmosphere. You'll see super soldiers with miniguns (uhh?), tanks that look like they came out of C&C and the Gestapo drive huge black sinister racing cars with machineguns attached. Finally, the story is so cliched and cartoonishly Hollywood it's painful. Sean is pretty unlikable. They made him maximum OIRISH, complete with every single possible stereotype. Alcoholic, violent, criminal, womaniser, hates England, flatcap. Every woman he meets is a buxom, feisty sex symbol and instantly wants to bed him despite his insanely abrasive personality. They tried to establish a plausible villain and then make his bodyguard a leather-clad, huge-breasted dominatrix. WTF? Overall a fair game, let down by the silly tone.
I first played this as a demo when I was a kid. Picked it up on GoG and it's pretty much as I remember it, though a little dated now. The demo was the "Land Train" level, which is probably one of the coolest levels in the game. Set on board an enormous behemoth of a vehicle, think a train-length monster truck, you have to sneak through the hallways and climb around on the roof. Definitely a neat idea for a level and it's nice to see a game doing something different. The gameplay in general mixes stealth, action and adventure gameplay mechanics. Unfortunately, while each aspect is solid and reliable, none of the three truly excels above any specialised game. The combat is a passable case of just shooting things with a pistol, the stealth consists of punching guys in the back of the head and pressing "hack" on a wristwatch a few times and the adventure gameplay consists of talking to people for a few sentences and solving some simple puzzles. The two main irritants lie with the adventure gameplay aspect. Not only are the conversations pretty shallow (perhaps the only cool feature is you can pull a gun on some people to threaten them) but there is some "adventure game logic" going on too, with slightly weird puzzles. Then there are some rather annoying instances throughout the levels of what feels like deliberate length-padding, with silly backtracking back and forth between rooms to perform simple tasks. Sometimes the two are combined. One level asks you to find a ladder to a control room. The ladder to this vital room is...in a prison cell? Why the heck would you put a vital entrance to a vehicle's control centre in the middle of a prisoner's cell? It's literally the last place that makes sense o_0 This same puzzle requires that you push a button on a computer to unlock the cell, go into the cell, try to climb a ladder, go back to the computer to open the ladder and THEN climb the ladder. Needless busywork. Finally, pre-rendered backgrounds look nice, RE-like.
What happens if you take Skyrim, X-Com, Game of Thrones and Mount & Blade and shove them in a blender? You'd get a delicious slurry that tasted a lot like Battle Brothers. Commanding of a band of mercenaries in a low-fantasy "Germanic" Middle Ages setting, Battle Brothers nails a fantastic atmosphere right from the start. Missions, random events and other flavour text are randomised, modular and feature surprising detail. No playthrough feels identical. While you face some fantasy threats (Orcs, Goblins, Undead), the majority of conflict is with human enemies. This varies from the GoT-like Noble Houses, other mercenaries, or bands of organised thugs. The flow of cash, contracts, the loss of your men and the mix of dark humour, triumph and bleak sadness really makes you feel like you're managing a motley group of tough men living a hard and dangerous life. Soldiers often interact with each other depending on their backgrounds. I had a Farmer and Fisherman arguing over which craft was superior, ending with an arm wrestle which lead to them becoming friends. I had a superstitious soldier become terrified after an encounter with walking corpses. And so on. If a town likes you, you'll have introductions that reference villagers buying you drinks, or cheering your arrival. For simple text, it all does an awful lot to make it feel like you're in a living world. The music is memorable and catchy (play "Mercenary's Rest" on YouTube if you want a taste) combat itself is also very good. While the art style initially didn't convince me, the combat is surprisingly vicious. Men scream, heads fly, blood pools, gruesome injuries occur and the way your men all look unique gels really well with the setting. The game is BRUTALLY hard, but once you learn a lot of the secrets behind it, it is actually fair. Many of the "OP" enemies simply require different tactics, and you must specialise your men to adaptable. All in all, 5/5. If you like strategy or tactical games. Buy it!
