While the 13.8MB patch should fix the ATI issues, Electronic Arts wants you to accept an EULA before you download it. And then, users with quad core CPUs will need to implement a workaround (described here, see "Known Issues & Current Workaround), otherwise they "will possibly have significant streaming issues." This is funny because the game's specs recommend a 2.8GHz Quad Core CPU.

EA says it's aware of the issue and working on a fix for the next patch update. And "while this will decrease the amount of streaming glitches, it is not a fool-proof fix."

So wait a minute, is the damn thing patched or not?

BETA Patch Report/Support Thread [EA Forums via VE3D]

Well, almost.

Pandemic Studios set about making a different sort of World War II game with The Saboteur, and it is decidedly different. Whether than being a small part of a bigger war, you are a force for change, bringing color back into the cheeks of Paris.

How could mixing together elements of Grand Theft Auto, Assassin's Creed, and THQ's De Blob with bare breasts not result in a runaway hit? Let's ask the assembled video game critics of the internets.

Total Video Games
Just when you thought comedy Nazis had left videogames forever, EA pulls them back in. We're talking about the sort of Nazis who run around with a flamethrower shouting, "There iz die Saboteur! Ve must get him!" while wearing an unlikely combination of a trench coat and gas mask. Although this archetype is getting a little old now (in fact, pretty much the only time it's been entertaining is in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Blackadder, and 'Allo 'Allo!), life would be fairly depressing if you couldn't mock the most evil people in history once in a while, and what better way to do this than with a Celtic protagonist called Sean Devlin?

Giant Bomb
Though set in World War II—more specifically, the Nazi occupation of Paris—The Saboteur is notable for, if nothing else, foregoing the reverent tone most WWII games assume. This isn't Saving Private Ryan; this is more like The Great Escape by way of Inglorious Basterds. This is a two-fisted tale of revenge about an Irish mechanic-turned-race-car-driver named Sean Devlin whose vendetta against a diabolical Nazi officer—the same man that both cheated him out of his first race victory and murdered his best friend right before his eyes—puts him in league with the Parisian underworld, comely cabaret girls, and the French Resistance. It's got an odd tone to it, and the game sometimes has a hard time juggling the tough-talkin' Devlin's personal angst, his multiple femme fatale love interests, his role within the Resistance, and all of the war-time business that actually propels the story forward. The story doesn't pack as much of a punch as it could have, but it sets an appropriate mood for the improbable craziness Sean gets up to.

GameSpot
The story may not be able to decide if it wants to be goofy or serious, but the intriguing atmosphere definitely adds to the experience. The depression and fear cast on the city by the occupying forces are expressed visually through striking black and white backdrops. The buildings and roads in the Nazi-controlled sections of the city have a bleak, suffocating feel, making your actions to free these areas carry more weight. The most interesting aspect of this art design is the way in which color is carefully placed. During cutscenes, a scarf on the person Sean is speaking to may be drenched in shocking blue, standing out brilliantly against the dire background. Action scenes are even more impressive, using the orange flash of a gunshot or the glowing red of spilled Nazi blood to create a dazzling look. When you finally kick those evil Nazis out of parts of the city, the color comes flooding back, giving you a visual reward for your hard-fought progress. Ironically, the colored sections don't look nearly as impressive as the black and white areas, although the pristine countryside is a pleasure to take a leisurely drive through. Just make sure you don't hit any cows. They explode as if filled with dynamite, which could ruin your mood.

Game Informer
The Saboteur isn't afraid to borrow concepts from its contemporaries. An amalgamation of the open world sandbox of Grand Theft Auto, the chaotic freeplay of Crackdown, the climbing of Assassin's Creed, and the zipline and rooftop traversal of Infamous, the game wears its influences on its sleeve. While these game mechanics work, like the French resistance they seem to have been done on the cheap. The sluggish car controls seemingly turn on an axis in the middle of the vehicle, which takes practice to master. Climbing frustratingly requires you to jam on the A button for each movement up the building. The gunplay has a sketchy auto cover system and the weaponry lacks the punch of more visceral shooters.

Gaming Nexus
The one thing that made The Saboteur feel less smooth than it could have been was the controls. Especially when climbing or hitting an action button, the response wasn't where I would have liked it to be. Part of my problem with the controls might also be due to how cluttered they are. For instance, to activate your various modes of fighting (brawl, sneaking) you have to hit either the left trigger or left button (PS3 controls). Then a combination of the d-pad buttons while still hitting the button/trigger will perform a specific action within that mode. To fire a weapon, you'll have to equip your gun of choice and then use the left button to aim and the right button to fire. Perhaps it's my hastiness when there's a showdown with the Nazis, but mixing up the buttons always blew my cover and had me outrunning the dreadful red zone on my map.

Kotaku
This may be the most un-polished major-label game I've reviewed this year, which is too bad. Because when The Saboteur is being The Saboteur and not being Assassin's Creed or choking on a bug, it's got the spirit and spark of a game that should be played. That is, if you ever wanted to blow up a Zeppelin with a rocket launcher, kiss someone to hide from the people chasing you or knock over a Nazi gas station without them ever knowing you were there.

Steady as she goes

The game's official boards have been flooded with complaints from users claiming that ATI's 3k, 4k and 5k cards won't run the game in either XP, Vista or Windows 7. In other words, if you bought the game and own an ATI card, you're screwed.

Indeed, things are so bad that online retailer Direct2Drive have placed a notice on their digital shopfront, warning ATI customers of the shortfall. Can't remember the last time I saw something like that happen.

Not the best way for Pandemic to sign off to their fanbase, is it?

ATI Graphic Issues with Windows Vista & Windows 7 64bit/32bit - The Saboteur Issues & Tech Help - The Saboteur: EA Forums [EA]

The Saboteur is the final game developed by Pandemic Studios out of the EA-owned label's former offices, the last hurrah of the studio that brought gamers new takes on combat through Full Spectrum Warrior, Star Wars Battlefront, and Mercenaries. And their last standalone effort may have been their boldest, a World War II open-world game set in and around Paris, starring an Irish race car driver on a vendetta against the Nazi occupiers of France's beautiful city.

The game has received headlines for its inclusion of optional nudity and near-nudity, and it's likely turned the head of anyone who has seen screenshots or video featuring its terrific mixture of black-and-white graphics and color. But what makes it worth playing is its attempt to offer a mix of Grand Theft Auto, Assassin's Creed and thankfully some of its own style, situated in a time and place of history no other major game has explored, letting its players be the hero in a battle they can't truly win, sneakily killing Nazis and brashly blowing up zeppelins along the way.

Loved
Winning Theme: Setting a game amid the resistance movement against Nazi-occupied France is fresh and original. This isn't a game of storming beaches but hiding in brothels, not (often) of driving a tank but of slipping into an enemy uniform and poisoning the rival army from within. You don't play many games in which you can walk around without the Nazis shooting at you until you raid their bases. Better, though, is sneaking behind them to blow up their parked cars, sucker-punching them while they're harassing people on the street, or walking calmly away after you've set a ticking stack of dynamite at the foot of their sniper tower. Basically, this is the ultimate game of griefing Nazis, which is a lot of fun and feels morally sound. That this is all draped in one of the most unusual color schemes in gaming history is a bonus. Nazi-dominated areas of Paris and the surrounding towns and countryside are rendered in black-and-white, save for the colors of flames and red Nazi arm bands and banners. The game colorizes sections after the completion of certain missions, generating a sense that some vitality has been returned to the locale thanks to your actions.

A New Tale: I'm a sucker for a novel plot. This one doesn't have you fighting Nazis because you were drafted. It has you fighting them because your character, Irish race car driver Sean Devlin lost a race against crooked Nazis, tried to prank them and wound up stumbling across a scheme that got someone close to him killed. He's in it for revenge in the middle of a war, the French resistance a convenient cause to assist rather than one he was dedicated to serve. It's a nice touch that you play in the pair of races that are both key to the story, adding the historical nuance of the Nazis' attempt to demonstrate Aryan superiority in sporting events.

Beyond Paris: The game hits its stride best, for better or worse, outside Paris, where the player is most empowered to feel like a saboteur. Climbing rooftops and battling some control and design issues in the big city can hurt the fun, but on the vast outskirts, a player can speed down dirt roads, quick-stop next to a Nazi gas station, plant a bomb and peel out. The biggest delight comes from the explosions you hear and don't see, the sounds of the chain of blasts you managed to trigger from beneath those Nazi noses. All your sneaking and planning is rewarded as they scramble or die while you drive off to your next place to cause more mayhem.

A Man Of Many Talents: An open-world game is often improved by an wide array of character abilities. Our hero, Sean Devlin, can do the stealthy chaos-causing things described above, or he can toss grenades and fire machine guns into a nest of Germans, turning the tactical subtlety that feels most distinct to Saboteur into moments of gun-facing, man vs. army action. In other words, it begins to feel like Mercenaries, a playground, as they said in the commercials, of destruction. Other options, some not commonly seen elsewhere, include arming a bomb in a car you've stolen and then bailing from the vehicle just before it speeds into a Nazi base. Or you can call in resistance fighters to help you out, sometimes with drawbacks (see below).

Dynamic Intent: Almost a "Hated" instead of a "Loved," but something I ultimately cannot knock Pandemic for is its pockmarking of its map with several hundred "freeplay targets." These dots represent Nazi guard towers, trucks, supply drops and other things worth detonating. The winning concept behind them is to empower the gamer of this open-world game to gradually influence the dynamics of his terrain. Destroying a sniper tower while wandering through Paris removes that tower from the map, making a story-advancing mission the player might take right near the sniper tower easier. The game falters in inundating the player with so many freeplay target options while making it very unclear what the incentive is for taking out most of them. Sure, knocking over a guard tower makes a mission easier and earns Devlin some cash for buying better weapons. But does the elimination of propaganda speakers make the pedestrians more willing to resist? It'd be nice if the game made that more clear.

For The People: The most original missions in The Saboteur branch from the game's main story. A lady asks Devlin to stop a Nazi book-burning. A priest requests the murder of the Nazi half of a wedding party. Most of the game's main missions feel like they could have been generated for other action games, but those that engage with the manifold struggles of one society to survive the pervasive menace of another are the most refreshing. They show the scope of The Saboteur's potential.

Hated
Very Bad Timing: In Paris, Sean Devlin needs to climb, But he is no Altair or Ezio, and this game suffers in its proximity to the release of Assasin's Creed II. Sean's climbing is slow and stymied in odd ways by seemingly surmountable out-croppings. Worse, he has a hard time lowering himself down a roof in controlled ways. That the designers named Devlin's race car the Altair or that they included summit points that spin the camera around when he reaches them does the game no favors in avoiding the comparisons. These are Assassin's Creed 1 mechanics in a world that is enjoying Assassin's Creed II. And that makes much of the emergent action in Paris — the escaping from Nazi patrols by taking to the rooftops — or climbing walls to reach ziplines to reach bomb-able targets, less fun that it would have been a year ago.

Very Bad Timing Part 2: Sean Devlin is less the Irish rogue and more the jerk. He's gruff to the point of unpleasantness, the lead in a cast of characters who seem to hate each other except when they are sleeping with each other. Uncharted 2 just showed us how very likable an overmatched, cocky hero can be and how a game with romantically-linked leads can be sexy without being sophomoric. In this game, a stressed Devlin is asked how he feels after a rough battle. He says: "I could eat a nun's arse through a convent gate."

Glitches: The game is glitchy in an absurdly amusing way at least once per hour you're playing it. I approached a Nazi to snap his neck. He animated properly, dropping to his death. But so did the Nazi standing next to him, in synchronicity. I went into a base camp to talk to a resistance leader and wondered why he had a mannequin on his office. That was no mannequin. That was another character, accidentally spawned atop his phonograph. I called in a car-load of resistance fighters while I was taking fire in an intersection. They drove over, some got out of their car, and then their driver ran over one of them. I had to escape a mission on the back of a truck and kept failing because a character not involved in my mission — but who happened to be standing on the road we passed — kept dying, for reasons I can't explain. I'd just get a notification that he was dead. Etc. Once an hour with things like these. Not gamebreakers, but certainly mood-killers.

Truncated: Why Devlin brushes off an aerial crash he survives — right after the scene that was about him not having a parachute — I can't explain. Nor can I explain why the game's main adventure ends before we've again fought the Nazi henchwoman who is set up in earlier missions or why it ends with an enchanting but incredibly easy last mission. This game's story feels like it was cut off, though The Saboteur does offer enough terrain and optional missions to keep players busy past that early end.

The Saboteur has enough originality and enough of a capacity for the player to have fun at almost all times that it's a hard game not to recommend. It's a game for the curious, for gamers seeking something different. But as with so many original games, it is a game that has rough edges.

This may be the most un-polished major-label game I've reviewed this year, which is too bad. Because when The Saboteur is being The Saboteur and not being Assassin's Creed or choking on a bug, it's got the spirit and spark of a game that should be played. That is, if you ever wanted to blow up a Zeppelin with a rocket launcher, kiss someone to hide from the people chasing you or knock over a Nazi gas station without them ever knowing you were there.

The Saboteur was developed by Pandemic Studios and published by EA for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC on December 8. Retails for $59.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played the campaign to its narrative conclusion, which was, for me, 88% mission progress in about 19 and a half hours. Liberated five chocolate bars and nine cans of caviar.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Luckily, PlayStation Blog has got me covered with a quick rundown on all the main cast members of The Saboteur (mostly spoiler-free, too — although I'd argue that it's impossible not to know about Jules before buying the game).

The character that caught my eye was Veronique, Jules' sister. Alright, I admit it — her boobs caught my eye. Just look how tight that sweater is; did they not have her size in occupied France? Anyway, after noticing her for what felt like the first time, I spent a little while trying to figure out how to pronounce her name and then realized that she's actually not the primary sex interest in the game. Color me surprised.

Check out the rest of the character rundown here.

But that distinction did come up during an interview between Saboteur lead designer Tom French and Techland's Tracey John:

Techland: We've seen other EA titles, like Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins, stir up controversy for featuring sex. What do you think needs to happen for mature content to be accepted in gaming and by the mainstream public?

French: I think it is just nudity, to a degree. There are definitely moments in our game where we allude to the idea of sex, but we never actually take it to that level. We're never actually seeing the whole act of sexuality, but we're imbuing that sexuality into the world.

Not that the game does allow users to input a code to make the exotic female dancers in the game's main cabaret club topless. The code also lets players get topless dances and unlocks new brothel hiding spots for your saboteur when he's on the run from Nazis. It's characters talk about sex, are even seen after having sex, at least once, but, no, you don't see sex in the game.

Earlier in the year, the full-frontal male nudity in Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned did get a lot of attention. But in-game sex? Hasn't been a big topic — or a significant aspect — in games since the scuttled interactive sex in 2005's "Hot Coffee" GTA scene.

One thing at a time?

There's plenty more in the original article about why and how The Saboteur's nudity option was offered to players and how the developer hopes it finds only an appropriate audience.http://kotaku.com/5418003/the-saboteur-offers-day+one-free-nudity-dlc

Saboteur lead designer Tom French [Techland]

Sharp-eyed reader Mateo has noticed a little edit on the back of the game's box. Above, you'll see the back of the retail box, the one shipping with an actual game inside.

Below? Below you'll see the game's pre-order/coming soon box, which had the cheek to show a little more...cheek.

Anyway, you can see that the bastard-ass difficulty is "feckin' hard" according to that screenshot. You know, if instead of the Paris resistance this game was about Rome's, I'd hope the insane strength would be called "fargin' hard."

The Saboteur - Pandemic's fallen-from-a-dead-man's-hand grenade - drops Dec. 8.

The Saboteur has a "'Feckin' Hard" Setting [VG247]

I have played the final PlayStation 3 version of The Saboteur for about 11 hours in preparation for a review (look for it in the coming days), and I had played the game clean.

The game is an Assassin's Creed-esque, GTA-ish adventure of an Irish race-car driver assisting the resistance in Nazi-occupied France.

Wholesome fun.

But the game came with a card, on which was printed a redemption code for The Midnight Show, some free downloadable content. "Enter code for in-game topless dances, a game of chance, and rewards for every risk," the card stated.

I didn't punch in the code.

I started the game and got this heads-up right away:

I resisted. No code. Not yet.

I did that, frankly, for gameplay reasons. The Midnight Show DLC isn't strictly an adult content tease. It suggests that it makes the game easier, by producing more hiding places for the Irish hero, Sean Devlin, to hide in when the Nazis chase him. The game already allows the player to duck Sean into sheds, run to a urinal or kiss a woman to throw the Nazis off. According to EA press materials regarding the Midnight Show, that DLC would allow Devlin to also duck into brothels.

So the content would make the game easier, in theory. It's something I wanted to test only after having played the game for a while.

Today, with EA's restriction on talking about the content lifting, I attempted to download it and see what it was all about. I understood that it would make the ladies in the game's central cabaret club topless, that it would add the ability to get topless dances, add a money-making gambling game, add the brothel hiding spots and who knows what else.

But after putting in my free code, I got this message:

So maybe the content isn't available through the PlayStation store yet. It's not surprising. The game won't be released until next week. The women in my game's nightclub will remain barely dressed, with pasties covering their nipples.

As much as the release of the Midnight Show will become a part of the discussion about adult content in games, it's important to also look at is as a sales device. EA will sell the Midnight Show for $5 for consumers who don't get the code on a card packed-in with the game's disc. But the fact that it is free to those who do purchase the game new and find that card suggests that the Midnight Show may be designed to incentivize consumers of new copies of the game, as opposed to those who buy it used. After all, it is probable that used copies of the game would not include the card for the free download, because it would likely already have been used. If that's the case, it winds up being similar to day-one free DLC for games such as Gears of War 2, which offered free multiplayer maps through a redemption code. It could be another salvo against used game sales at places like GameStop.

I asked about the Saboteur content to EA CEO John Riccitiello yesterday. He laughed about it, saying he was interested in seeing what the reaction was. He wondered aloud if people would nickname it. Not DLC but TLC, perhaps?

The Saboteur, which is rated M, ships for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next week.

Says Mathew Everett, the Pandemic Community Manager, in a message on Saturday afternoon:

I am very proud to communicate today that The Saboteur has officially gone "GOLD" on all 3 planned platforms (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 & PC). This has been a very difficult week for Pandemic Studios, but does not change the fact that a team of amazing people worked very hard to make The Saboteur a great game that fans will be able to enjoy this holiday season. As planned, The Saboteur will be available across Europe starting December 4 and throughout North America on December 8. Vive La Resistance!

The Saboteur will be released Dec. 8.

It's another batch of screenshots for Pandemic's The Saboteur, featuring protagonist Sean Devlin doing things other than wading through the seedy underbelly of World War II's burlesque scene. Marvel as he blows up a blimp! See him climbing a thing! Behold - he's totally talking to that one guy!

Totilo declared the art style of The Saboteur a winner in his recent preview of the game, and I'm inclined to agree. He left the jury out on the gameplay pending a full play through however, and judging by the amount of gameplay seen in this trailer, I'd say it was a wise decision. There is far too much going on to get an accurate idea in a brief preview or a short video. Nope, we're going to have to play it. I hate it when that happens.

I'd only previously seen the game played by a developer and that was in mid-Summer. Back then I wrote a positive preview based on the number of interesting ideas the game's designer conveyed to me. The open-world adventure would put the player in control of Irish race car driver Sean Devlin who circumstances would transform into a fighter against the Nazis in occupied France.

The game world, drained of color, represented the blight of a Nazi presence. Liberating areas of the world would restore color, in a scripted manner. I liked the little things I heard about, like the ability to take cover from pursuers by running up to a urinal or stealing a kiss from a woman. I liked the idea that guard towers and other objects in this world would stay destroyed, making missions set near them easier.

None of this changed when I got the game in my hands on Wednesday. I played the PS3 version. Controls were standard for an open-world game. Running and camera were on the control sticks. The triangle button got my guy into a vehicle. Shooting was straight-forward. Various Achievement-like accomplishments unlocked upgrades in weapons shops or new abilities for my character, like a stealth kill move.

The game ran well, controlled well and looked impressively large-scale. I played a level called The Zeppelin, which introduces the player to the Nazi nemesis they will chase throughout the game. The mission involved stealing a truck, bringing it to a castle occupied by the Nazis, and then either sneaking or shooting my way into it, before ascending to a docked zeppelin for the second phase of the mission.

The Saboteur uses a disguise system, and fills in a circle of color around the circular lower-left mini-map to show how close the Nazis are to recognizing that you're a freedom fighter up to no good rather than one of their own. Until your cover is blown, your character, Sean Devlin, might be wearing a Nazi uniform. It's gone when that meter fills. To avoid that, the player needs to act calm — with the caveat that the Nazis won't be alarmed if you run over French civilians — and not bother the enemy forces. Blowing up the gate to their castle or just walking around in civilian clothes while brandishing a weapon, however, does alarm them. As with Prototype, an icon near the mini-map shows whether Sean can be seen by any Nazis at a given time or not. So stealth is an option, albeit a tricky one.

The most arresting thing about the game is its graphics. Development studio Pandemic has produced a game that looks like nothing else. As you can see in screenshots, it's not purely black and while in its black and white stages. Color seeps in: Red armbands on the Nazi uniforms, yellow muzzle flash and orange explosions. Devlin himself has a little bit of an illuminated outline to make him stand out. Enemies exude a red glow to show they are angry and on-rushing.

I eventually handed the controls over, partially because I wanted to take some notes and partially because I wanted to enjoy the look.

The jury is out on whether the gameplay will hold up in The Saboteur. That's the kind of thing you can't judge without a full playthrough of the game. I do think, however, that the art style can be declared a winner. If you're looking to look at something different, this is a good game to keep an eye on.

The Saboteur is scheduled to arrive on Windows-based PCs, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 in North America this December.

Cory Lewis, a producer at Pandemic Studios, which is making the game, was directing me through a missions called The Zeppelin. I was the game's Irish Nazi-fighting protagonist, doing a deed to help the resistance in the game's Nazi-occupied France.

The first task of my mission was to steal a truck, adopt a Nazi disguise and drive into an enemy based. I was gingerly driving through some French streets, near Nazi checkpoints and out of the way of French pedestrians.

It would be okay to run those pedestrians over if I wanted to, Lewis told me. At least, it wouldn't blow my cover or anything, because the Nazis don't care.

I asked him if he was covering for an artificial intelligence glitch, because, sure enough, running over an innocent Frenchman didn't stir the Nazis a bit. Not at all, Lewis told me. "It's meant to recreate the world of the era. These people, [the French], were getting their asses handed to them." The Nazis, simply, didn't give a damn.

Lewis explained that, elsewhere in the game, I might come across Nazis lining up French people for execution. I would be able to save them or just keep on walking by. That's the mood of occupied France Pandemic wants to convey. (No word on whether hurting the French will make them less willing to help in later fights.)

[UPDATE: An EA spokesperson contacted me to say that the development team has incorporated some repercussions for French deaths caused by the player: "There are a couple of different stages of punishment for killing civilians and without giving too many specifics here and spoiling it, the punishment ranges from disabled hiding spots to closed weapons shops and garages and more." The Nazis still won't be bothered, but it appears that the French, understandably, will not ignore the death of their countrymen at your hands.]

When you do blow your cover, by bumping a Nazi or blowing up a gate or brandishing a gun in front of them while you are in civilian clothes, they react in force.

Our conversation reminded me of a chat I had with another EA official, David DeMarini, back when the current head of EA Partners was overseeing the development of The Godfather.

Like The Saboteur, The Godfather was an open-world game. And like The Saboteur's creators, the developers of The Godfather had to determine what kind of mayhem would be permitted and what wouldn't be.

This is what I wrote about that conversation in early 2006:

Some of the possibilities of who you might be have been tempered. Police aren't easily available to fight. At the game's start, violence against innocent women attracts police heat at twice the rate of violence against men. "There are not any benefits to killing innocent people," said DeMartini, rattling off a list of limits that he says are in the spirit of the "Godfather" fiction. They also, of course, provide a roadblock to the police and prostitute violence that has steered "GTA" into controversy.

Chalk this all up as one of those development decisions I don't often think about when I'm playing a game. Who can you kill or hurt and why? In the Saboteur, the rules are a little bit different.

I'll have more impressions of my session with The Saboteur in the coming days.

Yes, we've posted a couple of these screens before, with the E3 trailer that first took us outside the Belle De Nuit, and we pointed out that the video was a whole lot tamer than the screens were. EA explained that the ESRB was rather strict about video, which is probably why the women in this little club walkthrough are wearing much more than their screenshot counterparts as well, making it seem less like a seedy dive and more like the bar from Cheers, only in World War II France.

That shot of Sean in his race car is probably the most color I've seen in any one screenshot for Pandemic's The Saboteur. It sort of gives you an idea of what you're fighting for in the game, restoring color and life to Paris by liberating it from Nazi occupation during World War II. Sure, it's still just a next-gen de Blob, but there isn't anything wrong with that.

Saboteur protagonist Sean Devlin may have been inspired by real-life Grand Prix motor racing driver and special agent William Grover-Williams, but Grover-Williams' look didn't quite fit what Pandemic was looking for in terms of a rugged, good-looking main character. Lead designer Tom French and Hunt explored the difficulty they had finding the right look for Sean Devlin during their "Rethinking The WWII Gaming Genre" panel at the San Diego Comic-Con this weekend.

After the original concept of Tom French wailing on an electric guitar was vetoed, the team tried for something a bit more period appropriate. A nice look, but it was a bit too fragile for their liking.

Then, inspiration struck. Chris Hunt found their hero at a concept artist convention, but it wasn't a piece of art that caught his eye. It was this guy:

"Then we ran into this guy. He had the hat, he had the hair...even him walking around...he was the embodiment of what we wanted, so we approached him, got permission to use his likeness, and now we had the hero we were looking for."

The moral of this story? Always wear a kick-ass hat. You never know when you'll be asked to be the main character in a video game.

December is generally a bad month to release video games, but this year could be an exception. With a great many of the big titles we were expecting in the fall being pushed to 2010, The Saboteur's newly-announced December release date shouldn't be much of a problem for the eagerly anticipated title. After all, it does have that lovely colorizing the world game mechanic going for it, as well as its unique tone and setting. Plus, nothing warms you up on a cold winter evening like a visit to a 1940's Paris brothel.

The Saboteur ships worldwide for the Xbox 360, PC, and PlayStation 3 on December 8th. For an early look at the game, stop by EA's San Diego Comic-Con booth this week to put the game through its paces.