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Buckets of bad reviews and a turkey award or two seem to be the thanks to Pandemic studios and their attempts to make their mark in the gaming world.

After mediocre success with Mercenaries 2 Electronic Arts declared disbanding the team already before their swansong to be was finished. The Saboteur was freed Dec. 2009 to not so very anticipating audience and mainstream media proceeded to bash the game to the ground. Granted that the dissimilar versions were riddled with bugs and PC version suffered from crippling compatibility issues with ATi cards but now that the game has been fixed it deserves a looking into and Pandemic deserves a proper obituary if you will.

I started the game with very little expected values isolated from knowing it was a sandbox à la GTA and featured b&w visuals and a heap of Nazi destructing action in WW2 city of lights – Paris. The controls were familiar, graphics (on a heavy obligation gaming rig PC) superb and the soundtrack from the get go something for others to strive for.

The original impression was that of a pleasant surprise. Sean (the protagonist) moved, sounded and behaved in a satisfying manner and was rather a capable hero. The cast and voice acting has been exhaustively bashed, but I had no difficultnesses living with both. In fact, the Inglorious Bastards meets Allo’ Allo’ with a dose of severe to keep things from getting out of hand was good sufficient for me. Maybe the voice acting does not drill one’s ears so much if the person is not a German, Irish, French or British.

Main storyline is a bit bland but lacks repetitiveness that most sandbox games suffer from. The main and side quests are varied and feature checkpoints for the clumsy of hand and I can’t do not forget a quest I would have hated or been exhaustively frustrated with. This is something that seldom is the case with similar open world games and a benediction to us less twitch oriented gamers. As added bonus mouse + keyboard and Xbox pad work flawlessly together, pad commended for driving and mouse for letting the guns do the talking.

Then we get to the beef, the side actions are just marvellous. There are sufficient free play actions to keep even the most hc gamer occupied for weeks. Literally hundreds dots litter the Paris map when you look for stuff to do. Blow up fuel depots, AA stations, train bridges, supply trucks, propaganda speakers, guard towers, assassinate generals and other dignitaries, sneak into bases and silently take out entire platoons of unsuspecting nazies, steal cars, tanks, motorcycles and assault vehicles or run on the rooftops in search of furnishes and viewpoints… and this list only scratches the surface of what you may do in Paris if you so choose. To top things off you get new abilities (touch of death, for those silent takeouts from the front etc.) and gear (guns, cars, explosives etc.) from achieving sure feats.

Stealth mechanics of the game have been critizised for being difficult and less effective method of getting forward in the game but I have to disagree. If you are stealthing I would say it may be expected that you are not going to carry on as quickly through a base of oppositions than if you choose frontal assault and manage to pull it off. I exhaustively enjoyed the brain teaser aspect of attempting to take an entire base without one alarm and the gratification after having accomplished that was just overpowering for me.

And then for the main reputation of any sandbox game, the city and the surroundings. I do not recognise if you have to be older or what is the reason that Paris spoke to me more than Liberty or Vice City or even the wasteland which I antecedently kept unsurpassed as a milieu. Maybe the bleak b&w graphics with red blood and flags with the very atmospheric soundtrack and returning of colour when an area was liberated were the gimmics that got to me but I have to say I do not suppose any sandbox to outdo Paris any time soon. Beautiful, just beautiful.

92 points and a ought to have tag

Magnifique:

Graphics

Atmosphere, milieu and soundtrack

Paris

Abundance of things to do & accomplish

Stealthing & climbing

Cabaret

Donnerwetter:

Shortish, but what’s the rush, there is a great deal to do in Paris after the main storyline

Some bugs remain

A dash of humour could have saved a lot

Go get this game, it is dirt cheap already;)

About the AuthorPeter Buckley has co-authored various bestselling Rough Guide Reference books, including The Rough Guide to iPods & iTunes and The Rough Guide to Mac & OS X. When not writing tech books, Peter pens fiction and has had assorted short stories published. Peter lives in Brighton with his daughter and musician wife

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Most helpful customer reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
A+! Best book about the iphone!!
By mpqtpie
This book was even better than I was expecting. I found it very entertaining to read. It teaches basic principles about the iphone and then goes into a lot of advanced depth, including work arounds and extras. It mentions third-party sites and other things to make using the iphone even more fun. This book is monochromatic–blue and white–with no 4-color photo images. I thought this would bother me, but it doesn’t because the layout is simple and clean. I’m glad they went that route to keep the price around 10 bucks. I found this book more helpful than other books about the iphone and for half the price. For instance, Scott Kelby is really great (I saw him at Photoshop World), but I was quite disappointed when I didn’t really learn anything from his book. Maybe he’ll publish a second edition that will have more info.

I bought this book about 3 weeks ago and I still find myself picking it up every now and then. I always find something new to learn. It’s small size (about 5×6) makes it easy to transport in my bag so I can take it anywhere.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Not as Rough as You Might Think
By Dr. Bojan Tunguz
iPhone is one of the most intuitive electronic gadgets ever created. The simple multitouch interface was revolutionary when it first appeared, and to this day it has been imitated countless times in various other electronic interfaces. iPhone also boasts an extremely straightforward graphical user interface (GUI), and most users are able to instantly start using it without having to invest almost any time in learning all of its features. This GUI has remained largely unchanged over four generations that the iPhone has gone through. This is quite remarkable considering that the power and functionality of iPhone havre increased tremendously over the years. Apple is so confident in the basic ease of use of iPhone that it doesn’t bother including any user guides with it. Nonetheless, it is useful to have an accessible and relatively comprehensive guide that will help users make the most out of their iPhone.

“The Rough Guide to the iPhone” is exactly the kind of guide that most users would enjoy having. It’s small, accessible and to the point in its descriptions. It will help you discover the features of the iPhone that you never knew existed, or make the most of the features that you were already familiar with. It will also help you with better integrating your iPhone with the rest of your digital life – be it though downloading music, sharing pictures with external sites, or downloading many of the wonderful apps that make iPhone such a versatile tool. The book is also quite amusing, and I especially appreciated the last chapter on “the iPhone weirdness.” This is a perfect small guide for what is arguably the best electronic product in the World.

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