Pandemic, what happened? Or, "LET'S PLAY THE SABOTEUR"

[chronovore]

Copied from the venerable thread of "WAT ARE YOU PLAYIN'?"

Super sad to hear more crap about The Saboteur. I'm such a fan of open world games that I was ready to throw down in Nazi-occupied France for days on end. Then I heard about the black-and-white/color mechanic, which has interested me for years, and I was hovering over play-asia's "PLACE ORDER" button, only to be plagued by doubts. PANDEMIC. C'mon, Mercenaries 2 was the buggiest piece of crap I've played in a long time. Hearing more bad stuff about it supports my decision to not buy, but still makes me blue.

It's probably better than Mercenaries, but it's also probably more frustrating. Sneaking around is fun but once you're detected it's like the worst game ever.

Rrrrr. Man, so sad. Wanted open world nazi hunting. :-(

To be fair it is an ok game, but pilonv is spot on about how aggravating the alert phase is and about how it takes ideas from other games and makes them worse.  The game is enjoyable enough in some of the linear missions; the open world stuff is when the game becomes a mess.  Because it takes ideas from different games, it's hard to really describe what type of open world game it is.  It's not the GTA/Saints Row style or the Mercenaries/Just Cause style, but the game still tries to have missions from both styles and the mechanics can't keep up. 

Just another example of how it takes what GTA does and makes it worse:  In GTA4 there were toll bridges, or really a single toll bridge, and you knew that it was coming up because it was only on a bridge.  In the Saboteur, it feels like every few streets there is a nazi gate up blocking your path.  You could stop and show a fake passport to the officer to open the gate, but often it would glitch out and only the first gate would open, forcing you to ram the second gate anyway.  For some reason there are two gates that need to open  anyway, if you run through a gate, you get into the terrible alert phase.  The game doesn't have any fast travel either, so if you have to drive a distance of half the map, which they make you do, you're expected to go through this gate nonsense several times.

I mean, if you're going to copy something, at least try and learn from their mistakes.  It's a big reason why the Saints Row series is so great.

So, yeah, this game is definitely in the "promising, but not living up to that promise" category, but The Saboteur is not nearly as annoying as I'd expected. It's definitely less janky than Mercenaries 2, a game which needs to be burned as an offering to the Jerkin le Merkin, the God of Disappointment, whose patron saints number in the tens of thousands just due to OK Cupid profile "inaccuracies." Let's review where Pandemic screwed the pooch on M2:

• co-op missions fundamental to gameplay, included in several Achievements, some of which are races.
• BUT the game will reset the mission if the players separate too much, even where separation is, you know, desirable.
• co-op missions' difficulty is scaled by doubling the number of enemies; sometimes their spawn points were identical, causing trucks and helicopters and soldiers to spawn inside each other, like a freak Star Trek transporter accident.
• Side-missions based on insanely sloppy Havok implementations; I recall one mission where I had to transport a pickup full of containers to a location, but before I even got in the truck, a Havok bug was causing the containers to FOUNTAIN out of the truck bed.
• Random explosions. Twice I crossed a bridge and a NUCLEAR EXPLOSION went off somewhere nearby,
• Abandoning many things which made Mercenaries 1 great: Dramatic critical state handling, both on foot and in-car, true faction reputation mechanics, and FOOKING UP NORF KOREANS.

But enough about my bitter, bitter tears over Mercs 2.

The game starts with a tutorial which stops short of "use the left analog stick to walk," but outlines everything else for you in a pretty straightforward way. "Get in the car with Y Button. Use LT to brake, RT to accelerate." Your tutorial partner gets out of the car and gets in a throwdown with some Nazis. "Hold LT to enter Brawling Mode." OK, cool. Then finally they spell out a mission for you:

• Climb that wall to the roof
• From the roof, use that cable as a zipline to get into the fuel compound
• Within the compound, set the dynamite on this icon-marked container
• ...

That's it. The partner tells you what to do. The tutorial text says the same thing, step by step... and then you're standing next to a Nazi fuel depot with a bunch of dynamite about to go off. No further instructions.

I run across to a small building which looks like cover, but as I get closer I realize there are fuel containers on either side of it. CUE CUTSCENE of explosion. The place goes up like kindling. Another cutscene plays of the surrounding area turning from Nazi black-white-and-red to fully technicolor beauty. The 'cheev for the first mission completion pops.

Then things go wrong. The fuel cannisters right next to me catch fire after the initial explosion, and explode in turn. I AM ON FIRE. I AM ON FIRE. Oh, sweet Jesus. "MISSION FAILED. Retry mission?"

The second time, I run deeper into the complex, away from cannisters. When the explosions stop, I look around and the Nazis have returned to their posts. Guarding... nothing now, I guess. There are cars which didn't explode inside the compound. I get in one, hoping it will disguise me like Mercenaries' did. As I pull forward, this turns out not to be the case. They open fire, so I light out of there like a madman. I see the GTA-IV-like WANTED circle appear around my car, and I immediately accelerate to get beyond it. "MISSION FAILED. You abandoned your partner. Retry?" FFFFUUUUU.... Frenchy can't leg it back to the bar on his own while the Nazis are chasing me? How about jumping in a car and driving after me?

The third time, I notice there are boxes to climb near the wall, so I clamber up, drag myself willingly over some barbed wire, which every other game has taught me is impossible, but is apparently only mildly painful, hop in the car, and pick up my partner.

It was really strange: I felt like the game held my hand RIGHT UP UNTIL IT COUNTED.

The camera is also weird. Pandemic has created a Paris which is about as hilly as San Francisco, but there is no look-ahead for the camera in a car. So mostly it gives you a view of the next 50 meters or so of road.

Well, I can't say you guys didn't warn me. I'll see how long I can hold out.

[maxy]

I didn't hold out long and i love open world games 

Played it a long time ago though,maybe i should give it a second try

[demi]

I'd like to play this, but ah, no

[chronovore]

But if you buy it used, you won't get the code for the topless "midnight show" dancers. 

[Cravis]

I didn't hold out long and i love open world games 

Same here. I enjoyed the flashback mission moreso than the normal missions. Once I did the flashback and came back to the main storyline I quit.

Maybe one day I'll play it again. I enjoyed Mercenaries 2 and actually completed it. It felt too much like Just cause 1.5, though. The one thing that really pissed me off was the DLC for that. I want to play as Palin and Obama in the main game, not just some shitty minigames. That was really crappy. Probably the only DLC I regret buying.

[Stoney Mason]

I've always wanted to rent this game because the premise sounds really interesting but I always forgot about it.

[dicklaurent]

really great game. loved this. pretty much 100%'ed it as well. hehe

[Bebpo]

Really want to play this.  Probably the next sandbox game I play after RDR (since it's either that or Mercs 1/2 or GTAIV/DLCs)

[dicklaurent]

damn, going to reinstall this later. really feel like blowing up some nazi installations again

[cool breeze]

I came to say that I've been meaning to play this...


...but it seems I have and already forgot about it

spoiler (click to show/hide)

In retrospect, I would have liked a Saboteur 2.  There was an underlying good idea here that had some execution problems because they just looked at other games' and borrowed ideas, good with the bad, without much consideration in how they'd work together.

Plus I like racial stereotypes and radical World War 2

[close]

[chronovore]

Had some fun last night doing the first Contraband mission which opens the black market dealers. It's high-larious that everything they need destroyed is within a single city block, which neighbors the Spanish marketeer's HQ. Yeah, yeah, it's a tutorial mission for the Free Play gameplay, but WOW, I've already had to go all over town in the very first mission, why are they throwing me low-hanging fruit here?

Blow up a tower, sure.
Kill a General with a suspicion region? Good thing I'm on the roof and have a hunting rifle already.
Blow up that armored car? No problem, I just... wait. Why can't I place dynamite on it? Wait, why can't I get IN it? Great, EVERYONE is shooting at me... Put the dynamite on a neighboring wall and RUN AWAY.

Plus, man, these Nazis have THE SHORTEST MEMORY EVER. "OMG, someone is trying to free the prisoners!" (run away, come back) "OMG, someone is trying to free the prisoners!"

It's still fun, but all the game framework is so clearly visible. I am amazed how great Mercenaries 1 was for its time.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

The Saboteur started off great but the numerous flaws quickly dragged the game down.

[chronovore]

I can kind of say the same for Mercs 2; I was so, so, SO ready to have at least the same level of fun as the original.

[pilonv1]

The Saboteur started off great but the numerous flaws quickly dragged the game down.

Exactly how I felt. Loved it for one day, enjoyed it the second and by the third I was tearing my hear out in frustration at how shitty parts of it were.

Anyway I doubt anything can top the zepplin fight.

[chronovore]

So, here's a question: The High Value Targets or whatever the term is for things you blow up to get "contraband" -- sometimes there are turret-equipped tanks with wheels. I know they're a vehicle. They have wheels. I'm supposed to collect them. But there is no prompt to let me in one. Every other vehicle, just standing near it says "Y Button to enter. Corrado EX Sport. Not Collected." - a wealth of useful information. These tanks, are they just decorations? They blow up just fine...

[chronovore]

You guys mentioned enjoying the game for the first few hours, then it becomes unbearable. I played for several hours, and was about to recant my previous criticisms, and compare the game to the beloved original Mercenaries.

I was hiding in the terrain, avoiding suspicion. I was proceeding tactically, taking out a General's personal guard through distraction, and creeping up on the general to unleash a stealth kill. I disguised myself in his own trench coat afterward, and used that to stealth kill even more Nazis. I was running across rooftops, a scene of which I can never tire.

Bliss.

And then I was given a mission by the ex-Legionnaire, "Le Crochet," which is French for "Time Consuming Knotting Hobby with Tacky Results." This should have been a clue for what was to come.

The mission is to infiltrate the Palais Royale and destroy an airship and several support zeppelin, fuel and ammo dumps. I've spent about 3 hours on it. Two hours on Saturday night, an hour or more on Sunday... all because the game didn't think the support zeppelin, you know, large bags of hydrogen, should be subject to damage from an  anti-aircraft gun emplacement. The first time I died during the mission, it kept my damage progress, which I thought was weird; why not re-do the whole mission? Then when I couldn't pop an oversized balloon with guns specifically placed in the game to destroy oversized balloons, I realized the game must be buggy. Without restarting the game, I tried several options, none of which seemed to work.

I restarted the game and progressed to the AA guns without dying, so there would be no glitch. Still, they were unaffected by AA fire.

Finally, I looked online and found that they're susceptible to shotgun and machinegun fire, but not sniper shots. My load-out of silenced pistol and sniper rifle were ineffective. I restarted the mission a final time, unloaded a carbine into them, they exploded just fine. What's WEIRD is, the first time I did the mission, I took two of them out by AA gun, but the remaining two were not. The targeting reticle even stayed neutral over them, as opposed to red or green for enemy or ally. Nothing.

So, yeah, I can probably clear the mission in fifteen minutes or less now, with all attempts I made over the course of the weekend.

Oh, and that hot minx, Skylar, invited me all the way out to West Bumfuck for a date, except that the map's navigation says to go through checkpoints which aren't even open yet. So I try anyway and the Nazis check my papers, find out the game doesn't want me there yet, open fire and nearly kill me. I end up taking all the back roads, which is incidentally what I plan to do to Skylar when I get there.

There is some cross country driving as well. While off-road, I encounter what appears to be an invisible wall my car can't cross. I keep backing up and trying to hit it at different angles. No luck. Maybe I'm not supposed to be here yet. Maybe the mission notice was a bug? Are there trains? There are train stations... I get out of the car, walk normally across where the car is stopped. Walk to a nearby road. Call my Ray-sees-tahns support to deliver a new car. It comes. I leave the old car behind the mysterious wall, and carry on my merry way.

BROKEN. GAME.

Incidentally, Skylar drugged my drink, introduced me to her Special Branch handler, THEN LEFT ME IN WEST BUMFUCK. Jesus. And I hear that there's no automatic travel ability in the game, so this probably won't be the last time I encounter this "You can't get there from here" gameplay bug.

[chronovore]

That zeppelin mission nearly destroyed my willingness to play the game.

The idea that I might be at some point in a mission where stuff just quits making sense -- if I wanted that, I'd be playing stuff from some Eastern European dev where "jank is considered our best feature."

Last night and this morning I blew up some more targets, even picked up a Perk for blowing up five Nazis at once, making all explosive half price. Parisian black market dealers apparently like to give you a break if you're doing the advertising for them.

There's a terraced park going up a hill, at the top of which is a massive church with substantial Nazi assets to blow up. As I fled down the park, there turned out to be a series of Secret Jumps to hit, so just barreled down the center of the park, enjoying the swervy-cam, slow-motion depiction of each of the three jumps. On the last one, the camera swung to show my car stylishly hitting its apex, and then slo-mo descending onto a nun, who was directly in my landing path, frozen in pose of abject terror.

WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?

I'm having fun again.

[pilonv1]

sup Stockholm syndrome

[chronovore]

sup Stockholm syndrome

"Pandemic isn't a bad dev! They were just misunderstood! I miss them now that they're dead..."

Played some more last night, still enjoying my holiday in Stockholm. Did a mission in a graveyard which had some permanent

pyres. I threw a grenade to distract the guards, which put everyone on alert. One Nazi crept cautiously toward me, straight

into a burning pile of debris, caught fire, struggled briefly, and died.

From the loading screen help text, "Dead Nazis attract attention (...)"

Nearby, one of his co-horts noticed his still burning corpse and moved to investigate. He crouched near the body, caught fire,

struggled briefly, and died.

No more Nazis were nearby to investigate, but I suspect I could have cleared the entire area by throwing grenades into the

pyre, then waiting for Nazis to "investigate" the noise.

Pandemic AI

[chronovore]

Definitely in the throes of Stockholm Syndrome, because I'm having a lot of fun.

There are times when this game is as good or better than the original Mercs. Hell, that's as it should be; so many of the same gameplay systems used, so much water under the bridge since then, but look how Mercs 2 turned out.  :'(

I did the Zeppelin fight. It was OK; just a bunch of heavily telegraphed pseudo-platforming moments, and absolutely no interaction with the actual mission target, "Dierker." The castle infiltration prior to it, as a set-piece, was a lot more engaging.

What's got me excited again is the original-Mercs-like gameplay of being given a situation, and a set of gameplay tools to make it work. The stealth stuff is touchy; there are a number of overlapping conditions which can make Stealth a much more difficult option than just run-n-gun. There's player's choice of movement, the enemy's level of awareness, the enemy's line-of-sight, and all this is modified by being in a Restricted Area, a  Suspicion Zone, and whether or not I'm in a Nazi disguise. Encountering a General, who is always suspicious, with line-of-site while I'm in a Restricted area -- well, the Suspicion Gauge goes up pretty darned quickly.

But that's part of what made Mercs 1 fun as well. I always had a choice of running in and being brazen and letting them know who was calling in the airstrike to level their base... or sniping the outpost guards and leaving no trace, and no way for the victimized Faction to blame me. And I had the choice between a live capture and a dead evidence grab for the High Value Targets. Here, trying the stealth is the "live capture" equivalent. When I can pull it off, I feel like I've done something amazing.

They gave me a mission to blow up a truck caravan, stopped for repairs. They've set up a temporary fuel station and there are three trucks to destroy, and an open-topped jeep.

Checking my Perks menu, I see that if I can blow up 5 Nazi vehicles with dynamite in 300 seconds, I'll get the tier-3 Perk for Demolition. I go steal ONE MORE jeep, and a Nazi uniform, drive up and park bumper to bumper with the supply truck. Getting out of sight behind my own vehicle, I set dynamite and moved to a safe distance. BANG-- BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG! The trucks went off in a row, and two perks popped: the one I wanted, and another for killing 10 Nazis with one dynamite.

And my disguise is still intact. That would have been an Achievement if I hadn't already popped it.

[chronovore]

OK, done. 1000/1000 gamerscore. I blew up everything, and to escape, I've hidden in holes, kissed 50 French women, visited several whorehouses, pissed in the street, and out-run the Nazis on the streets of Paris with the power of a nitro-powered race car.

An open world game combining GTA and Assassin's Creed, plus DYNAMITE to blow up enemy structures, which not only gets you money, it influences the main missions as well by reducing the amount of enemy support they can bring to bear. THIS GAME SHOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT. Instead, it's just really good.

Yeah, the climbing is janky, the AI is brain-dead, and the stealth is pretty touchy. However, instead of taking it to be an open-world Nazi-killing simulator, if I just take it as a game and let each system do what it is trying to do, it's pretty impressive.

The only really sad thing about this game is that Pandemic brought so much originality to the first Mercenaries game, in how they took the GTA formula, applied it to a war zone, and even brought back the faction loyalties and camouflage present in GTA prior to III. It was appropriated, but they made it even more "appropriate" to the setting they wanted to convey.

In The Saboteur, it's more like they wanted to take the advances they'd made in Mercenaries, wanted to bring in as much of Assassin's Creed as possible, then tried to figure out what kind of setting they could do. Instead of Nazi-occupied Paris, if Pandemic had instead made this some kind of genetically enhanced soldier against hordes of dimwitted robot oppressors, the game would have been more believable and immersive.

I'm sad to see Pandemic was disassembled by EA, but I am happy they seemed to get their crap together for their swan song.