"The SABOTEUR" or "The Game That Kingz Has Been Asking For Since GTA III"

[MrHoatzin]

Holy shit, kids! This looks very fucking rad!

I hope it doesn't suck. Do we know anything more about it?

[Patters]

Yeah this has been on my radar since E3, not looked into much though, other than how cool it looks.

[Roderick]

Stylistically mind-blowing! It starts off more like Assassin's Creed than GTA. I hope it follows a bit more of a dynamic mission structure than that one. I wouldn't want to see endless streams of 'civilian in need' filler missions

[Tobli]

I lost faith in pandemic after mercs 2. So i will remain skeptical until i see reviews.

[brkl]

The GTA style minimap doesn't fit. It needs something, oh I don't know, the Far Cry 2 map.

[Erkki]

  Tobli said:

I lost faith in pandemic after mercs 2. So i will remain skeptical until i see reviews.

Wait, but according to this (article about EA), Pandemic is

  Quote

[one of] two of the most respected "core" game studios in the world

That was quite a surprising statement, I had to look them up to see what games they've made.

[Murdoc]

I went on a giant rant this morning about how dumb I think this game looks from a concept standpoint, so I'll try to keep this as a short version and aybe a little less angry because at the end of the day I'll just ignore it.

Well, it started when I heard this was a franchise and how it might come to EA Montreal after they shut down pandemic(rumor by someone, no idea who) So, I guess they could do different occupations or something, whatever. Anyway, I really don't dig the look of the game, and using the art direction from Schindler’s list is not only fifteen years too late, unoriginal, pseudo-pretentious, but just kind of insulting.

When I say insulting I don't mean to Schindler’s list or WW2 in general, I just mean that if it's a successful marketing ploy to make this game special or "high class" when everything about the gameplay doesn't relate to it and again, stale, stale, concept for direction.

When Gears of War takes the style/feel of Aliens 2, I don't really care (well I do, but in a different way) because their mood fits their game. Trying to give it the visuals that would appeal that looks like it’s for the hipsters and highbrow crowd when your game is about a guy swinging around Nazi occupied paris like king kong taking out the entire German army just frustrates the hell out of me.

The video honestly didn't help; "It’s a personal intimate story" Ok so I guess if you made a game about a saboteur trying to eject nazi regime from his country wasn't enough, you needed to make the main character foreign and after one particular nazi to make it a personal story, super, glad you had the balls to not use the swastika either.

Actually I'm just going to stop there because I'm about to write a big turd post.

To end on a postive note, it has production value feel, thats a plus.

edit: cleaning up the language, probably still fairly incoherent.

Edited November 17, 2009 by Murdoc

[MrHoatzin]

  Murdoc said:

I went on a giant RAWR RAWHRHAGHR RARARHGHGAAEEA GRHRHRHRH ARGH ROWARWGH probably still fairly incoherent.

But but but... GTA in Nazi-occupied Paris... ;( :\

I do agree with your points. I think making the dude Irish is dumb, and it is really not GTA enough for my taste... but it is the closest anything has yet come.

[toblix]

What the hell... I thought you guys were all talking about the game with that hot chick in the bomber jacket that sneaks around and kills people from behind like it was 2002. Are there two games called Saboteur or something? I'm so confused.

[DanJW]

It looks good, but it will never live up to the original Saboteur on the ZX Spectrum:

[ThunderPeel2001]

  Murdoc said:

When I say insulting I don't mean to Schindler’s list or WW2 in general, I just mean that if it's a successful marketing ploy to make this game special or "high class" when everything about the gameplay doesn't relate to it and again, stale, stale, concept for direction.

I totally understand what you mean, I hope they take the interesting elements of the situation to create something exciting and not just... something we've seen 100 times before, but this time in black and white with old cars.

I'd LOVE to spend some time in some historically accurate eras, but I don't think any game has ever done one justice. (I was so excited by the fact that Asses Creed supposedly replicated Jerusalem as closely and accurately as possible -- but then I heard the gameplay itself was pretty generic and uninteresting (is this right?).)

[MrHoatzin]

  ThunderPeel2001 said:

I totally understand what you mean, I hope they take the interesting elements of the situation to create something exciting and not just... something we've seen 100 times before, but this time in black and white with old cars.

I'd LOVE to spend some time in some historically accurate eras, but I don't think any game has ever done one justice. (I was so excited by the fact that Asses Creed supposedly replicated Jerusalem as closely and accurately as possible -- but then I heard the gameplay itself was pretty generic and uninteresting (is this right?).)

I think historical accuracy is a bit of a red herring. GTAs don't map to any one city, bit they feel like the cities they are supposed to represent (I'd say San Andreas and GTAiv most of all). Directorial control over the cities is a must, unfortunately what this often boils down to is the wrong kind of directorial control. The kind of control that takes stupid shortcuts to make things fun (Nazis on dinosaurs!).

In this regard FarCry2 shines like nothing else we've had in a long time...

... and that is basically what I would like this game to be. FarCry2 in Nazi-occupied Paris.

[miffy495]

  toblix said:

What the hell... I thought you guys were all talking about the game with that hot chick in the bomber jacket that sneaks around and kills people from behind like it was 2002. Are there two games called Saboteur or something? I'm so confused.

You're thinking of Velvet Assassin. Like Splinter Cell, but you fight nazis and go on opium benders.

  ThunderPeel2001 said:

(I was so excited by the fact that Asses Creed supposedly replicated Jerusalem as closely and accurately as possible -- but then I heard the gameplay itself was pretty generic and uninteresting (is this right?).)

I really enjoyed the first Assassin's Creed. It wasn't mind-blowing, but it was a hell of a lot of fun. The Cities each had a different feel and were each fairly interesting. As for the gameplay, it got repetitive, but there was always something fun to be doing. Its biggest failing was that its "gamieness" was really transparent. Same sidequests from identical NPCs standing way too close to each other and such like that. If you can put up with that, it's a really fun game.

[ThunderPeel2001]

  Kingzjester said:

I think historical accuracy is a bit of a red herring. GTAs don't map to any one city, bit they feel like the cities they are supposed to represent.

Of course, I just meant that the fact that the city of Jerusalem had supposedly been resurrected, circa 1191, was a pretty intriguing thing that made me want to play the game (and thanks to Miffy's comment, maybe I will). In fact, I'd LOVE to see a 100% historically accurate game from the middle-ages, or some other interesting time period. I'd personally find that really fascinating... but that isn't to say that GTA would be any better if it was based around a real city - it wouldn't, IMHO.

[Freezerr]

I enjoyed Assassin's Creed, but it's not on the level of the best releases out there. The main problems I had with gameplay were repetition and a lack of open-world "feel" to the main missions. The side missions are boringly identical, and when you go to perform a major assassination, it feels very scripted for a stealth game. I was hoping for open-world Hitman: Blood Money, with multiple choices on approach and kill method. What's the point of an open-world stealth game if you can't actually choose different points of attack?

AC is still a very pretty game where you get to be a badass, and at $10 or $20, it's worth it if you're already intrigued by the concept.

As far as Saboteur, I want to like it, but I'm afraid it'll be too much like Mercs 2 - there were so many frustrating design decisions in that game I never even bothered to finish it.

[Lechimp]

So......hopefully this doesn't fuck everything up.

[Tobli]

  LeChimp said:

So......hopefully this doesn't fuck everything up.

I heard that the army of two developer is taking care of it.

Considering how close to release it is. I wouldn't imagine that they couldn't somehow get it out there.

[thorn]

Grrr... The one distinctive thing about this game was the black & white vs. coloured portions of the world. I wanted to see how the differences are handled, but that's the exact moment the video ends.

Also, the transition from black and white to coloured lookes shite. A sudden, pseudo-magical explosion of colour? Would have been much better to subtly increase the palette over time, as your actions take effect over the Nazis and the local citizens - going through stages from B&W, to faded, washed out colours and eventually to bright, realistic colour.

[BaronVonBulkshit]

I played this at PAX and had fun with it, it wasn't that bad and I was actually kind of looking forward to it.

[OssK]

But letting a french taking care of the war ? you gotta be kidding, Let's bring in someone who is not a all suspect by default like…*An Irish man for instance and as at least an english speaking (as in "decent") person solve it.

Now take Pariss, wait, this city sucks, let's add sniper towers everywhere, an Eiffel tower the size of the moon and dirigeables flying around in the sky at ridiculously low altitude. Oh and nazis, but not like one or two, like a billion nazis.

Call of duty 2 meets GTA meets Flower (yeah, colors coming back to the world y'know…)

[MrHoatzin]

Jeez, thanks a lot guys! Way to piss on my parade.

[Murdoc]

Another thought(and more pissing on the parade) Irish Sabateour? Would this be considered mildly racist or just sterotypical or other?

Anyway, if they had balls(they don't, ala no swastika) take the sequel with the irish guy and put him in ireland resisting his own f@#$ing occupation, then at least we have some gta level controversy without doing gta controversy with hookers and sex.

[DanJW]

Hey they could have just made him American. I imagine he started out as an English resistance officer, then became Irish because it's almost the same right?!! and in order to appeal more to the American market and so as not to get him confused with the bad guys, most of whom will have English accents.

I don't have a problem with him being Irish though, except that strictly speaking WW2 exploitation films should have a Scotsman as the demolitions expert.

[Garple]

  miffy495 said:

Its biggest failing was that its "gamieness" was really transparent. Same sidequests from identical NPCs standing way too close to each other and such like that. If you can put up with that, it's a really fun game.

Yeah, I have a really hard time accepting "gameiness" maybe because I wasn't seriously into video games until 2008. I play a lot of games as an experience of a world rather than a set of mechanics, and so I'm usually dissapointed by games that promise to be experiential but can't hide the mechanics. I don't know of any game that really manages what I'm looking for, my expectations are probably too high. Maybe someday... Sometimes, like with Fallout 3, I play the game so much that the mechanics become second nature and are assimilated into my experience of the gameworld, and that's when they're truly transcendant. That's why I think Fallout 3 is probably the best game I've ever played.

[Garple]

  OssK said:

(yeah, colors coming back to the world y'know…)

Meets Prince of Persia too, right?