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I’ll never understand precisely why, but for some reason no one seems to ever cover The Saboteur. Occasionally you’ll see a blurb about it in a magazine or on a website, but no one has said anything extensive about it. Maybe Pandemic isn’t making much progress on it? I guess that’s possible, but the fucker comes out in like 2 months. Most media outlets seem to be treating it as though it has no mainstream appeal.

For those (probably many) of you who don’t know what The Saboteur is, let me explain to you why the “mainstream appeal” argument is bullshit. Saboteur is a 3rd-person stealth game by Pandemic Studios set for release December 2nd. It’s the story of a raucous Irish race car driver (based on William Grover-Williams, a real person) who is attempt to free Nazi-occupied France in WWII by blowing shit up. WWII, a badass Irishman race car driver, explosions, dead Nazis… how does this not have mainstream appeal?

Despite the fact that it sounds like a generic dumb action movie on paper, in practice it’s a beautiful and artistic game. The most obvious way in which this is represented is the color scheme. Basically, areas still occupied by Germany are primarily monochrome, with the occasional blazing red German flag or armband. In addition to making these elements boldly stand out in an artistic sense, it also helps identify targets from further distances. Upon ending the occupation of a zone, color rushes back to the area. The best example I’ve seen of how this can be used artistically is described in Mike Schramm’s hands-on article on Joystiq. In it, he describes saving a farmer and his daughter from Nazis in a flaming barn, and upon saving them, the father’s eyes suddenly turned blue, then color returned to the rest of the area. Little artistic choices like that are a big reason I’m really looking forward to this game. Also, I hope I’ll be the number 1 Google search result for “Nazis in a flaming barn”.

The Saboteur comes out December 8th. I’m probably going to get it shortly afterward, so look for a review. I’m a fan of Pandemic’s major games, so I’m sure it’s going to be fun as well. At least I won’t be storming the beaches of fucking Normandy again. I get it, designers, Saving Private Ryan was a great movie. Anyway, here’s the trailer from E3 and some gameplay footage. Enjoy.

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