Saboteur

[Flawless]

Re: Saboteur

CVG Preview

Saboteur isn't your average World War 2 shooter. If anything, it's the antidote to the WW2 malaise that has been setting in since Call of Duty 3 highlighted how generic the genre has become. How so?

Saboteur puts a new spin on old themes, making them feel fresh and different. It's something that's threaded through everything from the game's stylish art-direction to the genuinely deep and interesting lead character and backstory.

It all starts at the concept stage. During our exclusive look at the game, Pandemic lead designer Tom French explained that instead of looking to the usual suspects like Call of Duty and Saving Private Ryan the team found inspiration in quirky French film Amelie, the Indiana Jones movies, and the Parkour-lead game Assassin's Creed.

The action itself is a pleasing mish-mash of Freedom Fighters, GTA and Assassin's Creed. For the most part, Saboteur is a shooter, and Pandemic has confirmed there will be 24 weapons in the finished game, including run-of-the-mill armaments like MP40s and Lugers, through to more unusual items like flamethrowers and specialist sabotage explosives.

Where Saboteur lifts itself above the common shooter is in the freedom it hands you. Although this is a Pandemic game, it doesn't run on the same engine as Mercs 2 - the emphasis is on using the environment instead of detonating it, so the up-close detail is more impressive.

When you're in Paris, you can climb any building and race across the rooftops. You can even scale the Eiffel Tower. Climbable ledges are highlighted in yellow (very Mirror's Edge), and the animations, as Devlin scales brick-faces like an Irish spider, are seriously impressive.

The mission structure's more focused than most open-world games too. We were shown a demo of Devlin escaping from the Doppelsieg factory. It started off linear - Devlin shooting guards from cover and running down corridors.

Then he was outside, with miles of countryside between him and safety. Legging it is an option, but Devlin opts to dive into a car, Mercenaries 2 style. During the explosive chase he's forced to change cars and shoot his way through barricades, but he finally makes it to the French border.

In terms of extras, Saboteur again takes cues from Rockstar's behemoth. There are stunt jumps to find, additional targets to destroy (like towers and tanks), and other goodies to find.

No multi-player? No endless brown fields? No battle-chatter? Saboteur certainly won't be welcome in the WW2 shooter Gentleman's Club. No. This is the kind of shooter you'd find smoking a Gallois cigarette in a stylish Parisiene cabaret, and that's precisely why it looks so promising.

[55]

Re: Saboteur

So pumped for this one!

[Salhus]

Re: Saboteur

Wow. Can't wait. Might be a first day buy for me.

[jmood88]

Re: Saboteur

I'm really excited about this game.

[Flawless]

Re: Saboteur

Footage of Saboteur to be shown on GTTV this week (Thursday).

[55]

Re: Saboteur

Hell yeah, bro! This game is so freaking sweet looking. I've already "word-of-mouthed" this game to a lot of my friends and they all seem at least slightly interested or better.

[Flawless]

Re: Saboteur

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[55]

Re: Saboteur

That looks so awesome... I cannot wait!

[Flawless]

Re: Saboteur

Pre-E3 2009: The Saboteur Hands-On

That's right, there are disguises aplenty in The Saboteur. You can approach most any mission either using subterfuge or with guns blazing. Changing into a uniform is as simple as holding the appropriate button. A suspicion meter circles the radar on your HUD. And if you run, do odd things or let anyone get a good long look at you, suspicion grows until your disguise becomes useless and you're attacked. So long as you use a stealth or hand-to-hand attack to kill an enemy, you can take up their guise.

Here's the unexpected aspect of cover in The Saboteur: There's no button to enter cover. If you have your weapon out and you are near a wall, crate or anything else that would work as cover, you automatically use it for protection. It's easy to use and it works surprisingly well. Because there's no delayed "snap off" from cover, even if you "accidentally" enter cover it doesn't become a pain. It's easy enough to keep moving forward. Don't think of cover as a hindrance or even something that necessarily has to slow you down.

The scaling elements are similarly easy to use. It works a lot like in Assassin's Creed. Hold down the "acrobatic" button and you can hop your way up ledges. It has a slightly more arcadey feel to it than Assassin's Creed, but it works well. And you can climb just about anything in the game, which allows for a lot of freedom when tackling missions.

Like Pandemic's last game, Mercenaries 2, there's a lot of things to do in the open world. There are numerous AA gun towers and Nazi outposts to destroy through heavy ordinance. And with the ability to scale every building, there are plenty of nooks and crannies to explore.

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[jmood88]

Re: Saboteur

This is one of the best trailers I've seen:

http://www.gamersyde.com/stream_11104_en.html

[Flawless]

Re: Saboteur

Pandemic Studios's The Saboteur Explodes Onto Retail Shelves in December

Los Angeles, Calif. - Enter the seedy underground world of The Saboteur, where the women are sexy, the action is epic and revenge is sweet. Today Pandemic Studios, a studio of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS), announced that its open-world sandbox action game The Saboteur will be available worldwide on December 8, 2009. The Saboteur has been recognized by critics everywhere for beautifully integrating a unique artistic style with a dramatic storyline and intense action to deliver a truly engaging gaming experience. The Saboteur has recently won various art awards, including Best of E3 2009 for Artistic Design for Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system by IGN.com.

Inspired by a true story, The Saboteur stars Sean Devlin, a street-tough Irish race car driver trapped behind enemy lines in 1940s Nazi-occupied France. Motivated by personal revenge, Sean fights, climbs, and races through open-world Paris, sneaking into the heart of the Nazi operations and sabotaging their every move. With the help of the French Resistance, the British intelligence, an arsenal of weaponry, street smarts and brawn, players will exact revenge on those who aim to destroy Sean's life. From derailing trains and blowing up zeppelins to scaling famous Parisian landmarks and more, this action hero uses a broad range of weapons, explosives and vehicles to get the job done.

"The Saboteur is an entirely new take on WWII action gaming. Instead of putting players in the role of a soldier, they'll experience one man's quest for vengeance through an incredible story and an epic range of explosive action. Every street of Paris is alive with options, every block is teeming with action," said Josh Resnick, President of Pandemic Studios. "We're extremely proud of The Saboteur. The art style, intense story, and grand acts of defiance against the Nazis will deliver the one-of-a-kind experience that Pandemic fans have been waiting for."

As Sean takes down enemies, the citizens of Paris are empowered to resist the tyrannical Third Reich and their eyes open to the colorful world around them. This innovative mechanic, called the 'Will to Fight,' will change the way Paris is seen and felt – from a dark and oppressed policed state to a bright and inspired world where the citizens fight back. As the player executes acts of sabotage against the occupying force, color returns to the stylized black and white world – both figuratively and literally. The 'Will to Fight' spawns an underground resistance that takes players not only through Paris, but across various parts of France.

The Saboteur will be available for the PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system, the Xbox360, and the PC and has not yet been rated by the ESRB or PEGI. For more information on The Saboteur, please visit http://www.thesaboteurgame.com or get the latest news from the production team on www.twitter.com/pandemicstudios. Visitors of the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con International, July 23 – 26, will be able to experience The Saboteur for the first time at EA's show booth, stall #5213 in the San Diego Convention Center.

[55]

Re: Saboteur

This game is going to rule and virtually nobody is talking about it. Oh well, more fun for the rest of us!

[Flawless]

Re: Saboteur

New trailer:

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[Flawless]

Re: Saboteur

TeamXbox Hands-on

If you've been following the title or even read our First-Look preview, you already know The Saboteur is grossly misrepresented by the medium's restrictive genre tags. Yes, it's technically set during WWII, and, yes, it is an open-world-style game. However, Pandemic's stylized action/adventure is a far cry from all of those Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto rip-offs that have sullied their respective genre's reputations. In fact, a few minutes behind the ***-kicking and attitude of Sean Devlin, the title's Irish everyman hero, and you just might re-embrace these growing-stale genres all over again.

Until recently, The Saboteur's primarily received attention for its ambitious artistic style, which sees a mostly black-and-white Nazi-occupied France bloom with color once areas are liberated of the Third Reich. But, upon getting an intimate demo of a mission Pandemic recently showed off at GamesCom and PAX, it appears the gameplay deserves as much attention as the Sin City-like presentation. In a mission that lead designer Tom French simply referred to as “Train,” Devlin is tasked with a tri-tiered objective: First, he must set explosives on a railroad bridge, then he's to rescue a scientist from a train, then, you guessed it, he must blow the bridge and train to hell, all in fiery screen-filling fashion. The underlying objective—because amidst all the dead Nazis, The Saboteur also packs a compelling storyline—is to trick the Germans into believing the rescued hostage perished in the disaster.

In addition to displaying Devlin's skill at stacking baddies like cord wood, this staggered mission structure offered some perspective into the game's freedom-granting gameplay. As Devlin rammed the butt of his rifle into an unsuspecting a-hole, French pointed out that a stealthy approach could be adopted over a bullet-whizzing solution. And, sure enough, with the clueless Nazi now a lifeless heap on the railroad tracks, Devlin disguised himself in the Nazi’s uniform—very Indiana Jones-like—and began discreetly setting charges on the bridge.

While things appeared to be going smoothly, the gameplay soon revealed a wrinkle that made it far more interesting than the expected “stealthy vs. run-’n ’-gun” mechanics we've seen in so many other titles. You see, Devlin's disguises don't work like get-outta-jail-free cards; while he'll go unnoticed if he minds his business, setting ticking time bombs on a bridge's support structures will eventually raise some red flags no matter how many Nazi armbands he's wearing on his bicep. So, with charges planted, things quickly got hot and Devlin soon found himself retreating while exchanging hot lead with evildoers.

With a not-so-clean escape behind him, Devlin made it to the trainyard, where he hopped atop one of the cars and began his search for the kidnapped scientist, as the locomotive raced towards its doomed fate. What unfolded next were several minutes of breathless action that saw Devlin desperately trying to advance on top of the speeding train while Nazis, on both sides of the tracks and on the train itself, tried to thwart his progress.

While the exchange of gunfire hogged the screen, this mid-mission point also gave us an accurate taste of Devlin's nimble climbing and evading skills. French expressed the importance of enabling the player to feel like an “action hero,” so Devlin's moves forgo some realism in favor of fun. He scurried over cover, shimmied on edges and climbed train cars with Lara Croft-like seamlessness. He also entered and exited cover without the need of player inputs—simply position him near a cover spot and he'll dig right in; then just move away from it when you want him upright again.

French repeatedly cited the influence of everyman cinematic heroes, such as John McClane and Indiana Jones, in creating The Saboteur's protagonist, and watching an against-all-odds Devlin pop Nazis from all sides atop a train headed for a bridge rigged to explode, we totally got that vibe. Of course, it didn't hurt that, just as in a Hollywood blockbuster, Devlin saved the day by unhitching the car occupied by the scientist, hopping off the train and detonating the explosives—mission accomplished.

Every time we come away from a demo of this promising title, we're a bit frustrated by the fact it could become a victim of its own genre descriptors. Despite its so-called sandbox style, The Saboteur, complemented by action-heavy gameplay, an engaging protagonist and an ambitious visual style, seems far more intimate and narratively focused than the usual do-what-you-want entry. Additionally, its WWII setting has more in common with Quentin Tarantino's recent revenge fantasy ”Inglourious Basterds” than another historically accurate storming of Normandy Beach. Hopefully, gamers will recognize The Saboteur's genre redefining direction, and allow it to infiltrate their X360s during the upcoming sequel and spin-off-soaked holiday season.

[55]

Re: Saboteur

Sleeper hit of the year right here... I'm calling it now.