Hidden Gems - The Saboteur

Though it does little to revolutionize the already crowded open-world genre, The Saboteur is a fun and engaging game that was sadly overlooked.

The Saboteur is the parting shot of Pandemic Studios, whose track records include the much-beloved Star Wars: Battlefront and the Mercenaries franchise. The Saboteur has it's rough edges and borrows elements from similar titles, but still manages to stand out as an awesome title in it's own right.

You play as Sean Devlin, a rude, stereotypical Irishman and mechanic-turned-racecar driver. After a series of unfortunate incidents break out, Devlin is cheated out of a race, his best friend murdered and World War II breaking out. Devlin then finds himself in Paris, where he becomes involved with the French Resistance against Nazi oppression.

 Sean Devlin is a badass.

The game plays most similarly to Mercenaries, but has elements of Assassin's Creed and Grand Theft Auto thrown in as well. The game has a plethora of story-driven missions, which expand more on the games deep and driving story, but the real-fun lies in the sandbox element. Devlin has a variety of civilian and Nazi vehicles at his disposal which can get him from point A-B, or they can be used as a dynamite-rigged killing machine. Your choice. Devlin has the abilities to effectively scale buildings and landmarks, similar to Assassin's Creed. Both the driving and climbing are implemented well. Paris is also littered with Nazi gun-emplacements, watchtowers and armor divisions, thousands of them in fact. A lot of the fun in the game is seeing how much chaos you can cause by destroying them. Which is a lot, by the way.

The game's biggest draw is the visual style. The world initially starts of dark and colorless, except for the bright red Nazi banners and armbands. As missions are completed and the Nazi element is removed from the various French locales, color returns and the resistance grows even stronger. Paris looks gorgeous in color, but the noir-effect is a lot more interesting. The audio doesn't have as much of an impact unfortunately. The music is fitting for the time period, but it's not that interesting. The voice-acting is even weaker and relies on a lot of stereotypes. A perma-drunk Irishman, a prude Frenchwoman, if you can name it, it's probably here.

In conclusion, the game is a lot of fun. If you're looking for a fun Open-world game that's affordable, then The Saboteur is your game. I managed to find it for $20 new in no less than four separate stores. It's a great buy and it's worth checking out. If you buy it new, it includes a code for free DLC, which isn't a bad thing.

- Kyle K.