Sunday, November 15

Thirsty Preview: The Saboteur



It's hard too believe a year has passed since Pandemic Studios brought us Mercs 2. Despite development pics that always looked excellent, the games graphics and AI didn't quite pan out when it went live. Well now the guys at Pandemic are getting ready to release Saboteur for the PS3 and XBOX360 on December 8th. Saboteur is a different take on the open world sandbox type game, set in France during World War II it seems to mix mechanics of the Mercs series and is reminiscent of Infamous with the ability to scale buildings but with less of a super hero take and more of a Nathan Drake type feel.

Saboteur will be Pandemics second game of the Current Generation and it's looking quite good at this point. The game uses current gen tech for putting more on the screen at one time rather than focusing on Uncharted type graphics. Don't get me wrong, at this point the graphics still look good but not not as polished as some of the current titles. The game-play aspect does however look very interesting and it's nice to see a WWII type title that takes the player out of the First person perspective and gives you a ton of Freedom. From a recent
interview on the Playstaion Blog, Pandemic Studio’s Tom French said "The main story in the game is about 20-25hrs with 5 hours more of side missions". For me this is definitely a bonus especially when most games these days clock in under 10hrs.

In addition to the main game and side missions there will be an enormous level of occupation targets that you can take out. Although the occupation targets are optional activities within the game, it benefits the player to take them out, because once they are gone they can no longer be used against you. Combined with the occupation targets is the black and white tone of the game that indicates heavily occupied sections of the city which you will be tasked with liberating. Throughout your liberation efforts you will be able to call on backup from the resistance which you will have the ability to upgrade so that they become more useful and last longer in battle.

So far it appears Pandemic has a winner on its hand. Not only have they tweaked the open world format by taking it to a time and place we have never seen it in before. First looks of the title to this point tend to indicate they have taken their time and fixed several issues that plagued Mercs 2.
Get ready on December 8th to liberate France in black and white beauty and oh yeah there will be tons of explosives too.

11.15.09 David Allison

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