Know a better ending to a game than this?

[Badnik Mechanic]

If you've not played this game, The Saboteur is a game where you play as an Irishman who gets roped into joining the French Resistance after his friend is murdered in front of him at the hands of a Nazi general.

The guy is looking for the man responsible so he can get some revenge, but with this man being held safe high up the ranks of the Nazi regime the only way he can bring him out of hiding is to undermine the Nazi control/structure until it collapses.

Now you should know a bit about the game, for lack of a better phrase 'it's got some artistic quality to it.' When you first start the game, everything is colour, colour in this game represents hope and optomism for the citizens of Paris. The more damage you do to the Nazi party in certain areas, the more colour returns to that area.

So as I was saying, you start the game with your best friend and following a race in which your rival cheats you decide to pull a prank/destroy his car. However what you don't know is that the racing rival is a very high up commander in the Nazi party, his home is infact a forward military staging post for the invasion of France. You and your friend are captured and subsequently tortured, your friend is killed by the racing rival/nazi commander. The moment he dies, all colour drains from the game, everything becomes black and white, with red symbolising evil/danger.

With me so far?

Well... just prior to the final 'mission/ending' The nazi party is on the verge of collapse in France, people are actively rising up against their oppressors (which you can see happening as you walk around in the game in-between missions). Their 'big race' which was designed to cement their place in power has failed (thanks to you), the war is going badly world wide and the individual nazi soldier is beginning to panic.

Now the ending actually begins as the final mission does, mainly because it's virtually impossible to fail unless you actively go and kill yourself by blowing yourself up, setting yourself on fire or from a high fall.

You've tracked down the man responsible for your friends murder to the Eiffel Tower, as the ending/last mission begins, as your character gets closer to the tower you hear the ghostly piano playing of Nina Simones feeling good. Now lets get this out of the way, this song was written and released years after the second world war... but who the fuck cares? It fits perfectly with whats going on.

As you approach the tower you can see Zeppelins explosing and crashing down, theres the burning remains of a Zeppelin just by the the tower.

When you reach the Eiffel Tower you hear the screams and see Nazi commanders commiting suicide as they throw themselves off the top of it. You see, now, there is only one area of paris which has no colour... thats the area around the Eiffel Tower, it's changed now, Paris has hope, but the Nazi's do not.

When you climb the tower you see a dying solider who begs for help, as you continue on you witness another nazi kill a prostitute before manically laughing and then shooting himself.

As you enter the 'ballroom' of the tower it's quite a shocking sight, the man playing the piano just says "He's upstairs..." he continues to play as you climb, another solider is trying to kill himself and crying with every click of his empty gun.

But the final horror is when you turn around and you see the fate of the higher up memebrs of the Nazi party, they've all killed themselves by hanging, men and women are hanging from the roof of the ballroom. Even your character comments on how shocking the scene is, he's killed so many people up to this point, but this scene is enough to make him react in horror to the scene.

To put it in... semi context. These NPCs represent the most powerful Nazi party memebers in Paris, they know that they've failed and that they're going to be caught and put on trial, to escape justice they've chosen death instead of answering for their crimes or being killed at the hands of the people who they've oppressed for so long who are now reclaiming their city.

But it doesn't end there.

On the final lift climb to the tower you see the man you've been chasing murder someone in his own party, theres then a confrontation and a rather interesting bit of dialogue, the main character admits and comes to the realisation that he's just as evil as the man he's been chasing, that he's just as big a murderer as he is. That theres no such thing as justifiable revenge.

Even the man you've been searching for pauses in his rebuttal. He has a look of horror on his face as he realises what he's done under the name of a political movement. His only responce is...

Your character even agrees, he knows that he's doomed no matter what he does, even if he kills this guy it won't bring his friends back or absolve him from all the crimes that he's commited.

The game then gives you a choice, but doesn't tell you it. The enemy commander is standing right at the edge of the tower, you have a pistol, you can either shoot him... or leave him. But regardless as to what you decide the outcome is the same. Shoot him and he falls. Leave him and the realisation of what he's done fully sets in and he commits suicide.

As the final cut scene kicks in it's one hell of an artistic move. The moment the body his the ground there is an explosion of colour throughout Paris starting from the tower, it symbolises that hope has finally been restored to Paris and that the evil has gone.

The final lines of the main character "No. It's not over.. I'm just getting started!" The moment he finishes that line Nina Simones 'Feeling Good' starts to play in full as you view Paris and the symbols of evil/oppresion burning in full daytime colour.

Now that ending itself is frankly amazing, the whole mission is the games ending as like I say, you cannot fail it unless you deliberately choose not to. It's impossible, as an artistic expression it's fantatic too, how the whole game has been about 'black and white' means theres no hope for the people of Paris suddenly changes to 'there is no hope for our opperssors' and you see how they react when they learn what no hope means for them.

But, when you put the whole game into context and bring in the dev team you kinda realises what it means for them. You see the game was made by Pandemic studios, it was also their last game before the company was liquidated and sold off, they knew this was going to happen whilst they were making the Saboteur, yet they still made a cracking game and it seems somewhat ironic that the main theme of the game is hope, even though they knew that they had no hope as the studio was doomed.

For me, the game isn't the best sandbox title ever, but it's far from the worst, I had tons of fun playing it and I love the artistic direction that they took with it. But the ending... I know people will say OMIGOD PORTAL 2!!! Or something else that made them laugh or that had their character running away from a huge explosion, but this one which begins with the start of the final mission, takes the theme and the plot devices of the whole game and turns it around in tie with whats happening in the game is just frankly... well... brilliant!

And if you've not seen the ending... Here it is.

[Silencer226]

I'm gonna be honest, I barely read this... I just stared at the first pic for a couple of minutes.

[Mr. Awesomest]

Well.

That was one HELL of an ending. When a developer pulls something like THAT, you know that when the Art Director of the game was born, God came out from his throne in Heaven, pointed at a newborn and said "THIS CHILD WILL HAVE BALLS OF GRANITE."

That was good.

But this is good... isn't it?

[Gabz Girl]

I'm really glad I'm not the only who likes The Saboteur! ^ ^ It's sooo underrated, and it's a shame that this was Pandemic's last. The epic ending leaves it open for a sequel, but I doubt that will happen since this game seems to be often overlooked. And of course Pandemic is no more...what a shame. D: