The Saboteur

I love this game, even with its flaws that prevent me from giving it a perfect score, there's just too much for me to recommend to anyone interested in its premise.

I guess the biggest problem I have is that it's prone to bugs and glitches, specifically whenever you alter the games difficulty (which you can do at any time) as the ai becomes unstable due to being reprogrammed in real time rather than the game making these changes after a load screen which could've fixed this issue. This is also apparent when entering a new location in the sandbox as the npcs obviously need to be loaded in which of course is a recipe for further glitches in game. Thankfully it doesn't affect the missions too much as once the game has adjusted the Ai, they behave how they should, however I advised only beginning a mission when you're sure of what difficulty setting you want to use. There's also the issue of the games premise, specifically how we’re an Irish race car driver who unwillingly joins the French resistance in taking out nazi officers, one of which murdered a close friend of his. It heavily reminds me of allo allo (a British sitcom from the 80s for the uninitiated) except where that was satirising historical dramas which looked over the events of WWII, this tries to be a story we’re meant to take seriously that includes some rather nonsensical missions. These range from assassinating a German spy while he receives penance from a priest (at the priests request I might add) assisting a Chinese psychiatrist in reducing Nazi propaganda in the heart of Paris (complete with casual toxic masculinity from our hero for no good reason, which he is thankfully called out for) and rescuing another friend of his from execution at Notre dame. At least allo allo only went as far as mocking wartime dramas that were merely based on WWII (and thus not as offensive as it could've been) this on the other hand does feel like it's in poor taste at points which can rub people the wrong way.

So why do I love this game so much if the Ai is clunky and storytelling problematic? Well first off, the former can easily be fixed in a patch and the latter was unintentional and merely needs a rewrite here and there to be fixed. Secondly, it's because the game is so much fun outside of these two elements, heavily borrowing from assassins creed of all games as it uses the climbing mechanic in that franchise to allow our hero to scale the buildings of Paris as he slowly but surely liberates France from nazi propaganda and the dreaded Gestapo who patrol the streets. It's like Wolfenstein 3d I'd it was a sandbox platformer rather than an fps, and if it had the sense of humour that made the first two destroy all humans games so iconic. The story and the set-up for some of the missions may be problematic, however the humour certainly isn't as we have fun interactions with Sean and the citizens if France he encounters. The game wisely avoids using stereotypes and presents these characters as people rather than caricatures as Irish, French, German and even Spanish people of the 40s, there is also a clear love for Irish culture sprinkled in here and there, particularly in the perks which are all names after common Irish terminology to justify why our hero is such race. There's also many racing minigames to break up the flow of liberating Paris from the nazi, some of them even being part of the main story to justify why our hero is a race car enthusiast, further adding to the attention to detail this game has in every aspect.

It's got problems sure, however it's clear the developers meant no harm to those who suffered through WWII, that's not to say nobody shouldn't find this game offensive, rather it was a game with good intentions that I'm sure most people will recognise while playing it. I hope it gets a remaster soon, because I would love to see another game in the franchise which I feel a remaster can encourage to happen.