This is a great game, but anyone considering this game should take the lack of a saving mechanism into consideration.

The game only saves your progress when you complete a level.
The levels are quite long ( takes me at least 2 hours to complete one ). There are a limited number (5 i think) of respawns that allow you continue playing from where you died, but the game does not save progress, so if you use up all the respawns you have to repeat the level. Sounds fair ok ..

but if you loose electrical power while playing? if the computer crashes ? if you get a phone call and have to leave in mid level ?
No saving what so ever .. you have to replay the level!

I have been replaying level 4 for the fifth time now!

The first playthrough I didn't anticipate or prepare for an ambush, so I died. OK that's fair.

Second time I had to leave the game running and switch to other windows .. when I got back to the game after 5 hours it just froze and I had to restart the level.

Third time the game crashed while I was playing.

Fourth time I actually completed the level .... and the game froze during the movie sequence at the end of the level.

Now I am replaying for the fifth time! .. and I am afraid of a crash .. a freeze .. or any interruption .. will I see the end of level 4 ?

This is a serious flaw in the game design because the levels are not short .. so it's quite annoying to repeat them.

Automatic mid level save points could have helped here ..

Anyway .. just hope this will be useful for anyone considering this game.

I really like it though .. that's why I persist.

Update ...

Attempt 5 failed as well .. I got to the end of level video and ... froze

at this point I will reinstall the game .. maybe I have a corrupt installation.

Or it could be a bug.
is the GOG version the latest ? or is there a patch somewhere ?

regardless .. very frustrating!!!!
How many times can I play level 4 ???!!!

seems like crashes and freezes with this game are common, even with the latest patch 1.05


Not sure which version GOG has.

This forum discussion might add more information on this issue
http://frozenbyte.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1566

whaaat? 15min per lvl max

I did not play the GOG version, but I also did not have any issues with crashes. I was using XP at the time, so maybe there are some issues with running under Windows 7?

Anyway, I didn't find the levels TOO long, so it usually was not an issue for me, but I totally understand your complaint about the saving system and I also would have preferred quicksaves or at least some sort of mid-mission saving. Hopefully you'll be able to resolve your crashing issues and get to continue with the game, because it's actually quite good.

I contacted GOG support to let them know of the issue.
Here is their response and my reply.

Just to let everyone know, I have given up on this game.

The lack of a save feature makes it impossible for me to play.
I have had to replay levels over and over because I couldn't finish them in one session.
finally that got to my nerves and I gave up.

be warned

Odd. I've noticed that the game only saves when you complete a level, but I haven't had any other problems. And I've edited the data files, removed the hud, and changed the camera angle.

I fully share the OP's frustration; this is not the kind of game I want to play for an hour on end. In facte there are hardly any games I want to play that long without break, but this is the kind of game where I *especially* want to play in short bursts. I get what they wanted to do, they wanted to make it more arcade-like where you can't just hit quicksave after each encounter and then reload constantly. The problem is that arcade games didn't have stages that went for an hour straight, by that time you could have beaten an arcade game several times already (if you had the skill of course). I didn't have any crashes, but I've lost interest as well. It's a shame, this is a really fun game, you run around and shoot stuff, but without the ability to even just "freeze" the game and come back some time later I just don't want to play on.

I think the game freezes just fine when you go into the menu, e.g. by hitting ESC. Which is exactly what I did to take a bathroom break or such.

I know it has a pause function, it would be pretty idiotic if it didn't do even that, but I wanted more than just a quick toilet break, I wanted to suspend my game, shut it down and come back the next day.