NO, STOP EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW! -- {ahem} The Saboteur returns via GoG

[JasonPratt]

Affectionately known to its fans (myself included) as Grand Theft Nazi, The Saboteur was sabotaged on its PC release by fatal and damaging levels of DRM. Available through Gamersgate, technically but not realistically, up until earlier this year, I was sad yet hopeful to see it disappear from the lists.

My hope has been rewarded.

GOG has just released a DRM-free edition of the genius sandbox WW2 game. (...I'd provide a link, but GoG Galaxy doesn't seem to work like that.)

Currently it's 50% off as part of GoG's back-to-school sale (no mean sale in itself), but having beaten the game on PS3 years ago, I would say the game is well worth its current full price ($20) and even well worth its original price ($60) -- though since I do have it on PS3, I wouldn't pay that of course.

Anyone who loves sandbox shooters will probably love this game. Anyone who loves WW2 action games (especially in Western Europe) will probably love this game. Anyone who loves Paris noir during the war, may or may not like this game but you'll probably gush over the aesthetic!

Did I buy and start installing this game immediately today? YOU BET I DID!

Will I be running an AAR of this? God willing and the creek don't rise!!

[Ian C]

This is a great game and I've replayed it many times and it's hands-down one of my all-time top-ten PC games.

There is small bug to correct: The in-game map screen mismatches the overlay when you zoom in, so you have to run the game in 1280 x 800 or other 1280 resolutions.
If anyone has a better remedy please let us know!

[JasonPratt]

Hm, worth keeping in mind, thx!

I'm sorry to say that many people, including myself, are having trouble getting the game to run at all for various reasons -- in my case the game won't even start. GoG is aware of several of the problems and will be working on it. Until then, I must recommend staying away...  :'(

[JasonPratt]

In my case, the first problem would be that I have more than 2 cores to my processor, and the game's code doesn't know how to deal with that. (Probably due to its console origins?)

The tech guys at GoG feel pretty confident they can set up a workaround. We'll see.

Considering that the game was notorious in its own day for not working well on the PC, and that the multi-core problem was well known (I mean among people who tried to play it -- not to me), I'm surprised they released it without even addressing that problem yet.

Some other problems apparently include the game freaking right the hell out if you dared to have a console-controller plugged into your computer when launching the game. It will work with the controller, but it must be plugged in after launch not before.  ::)

[JasonPratt]

Ian, I suspect your reported gfx problem stems from the game being designed to run on 720p Xbox systems. I can't recall if I ever ran it on PS3 at 1080 -- games released through Sony could, others could be forced that high with a bit of manual tinkering in the PS3 system prefs -- but I'm pretty sure I recall it being 720 native.

Of course 720 is still high-def; so it shouldn't look terrible. Arkham Knight, for example, still looks amazing at 720.

[Ian C]

I don't have the GOG version installed and it also works on my 8-Core AMD PC.

[JasonPratt]

Hm. I wonder if their chip architecture starts with 2 cores and then only adds more if necessary?  ???

[bboyer66]

This is a great game and I've replayed it many times and it's hands-down one of my all-time top-ten PC games.

There is small bug to correct: The in-game map screen mismatches the overlay when you zoom in, so you have to run the game in 1280 x 800 or other 1280 resolutions.
If anyone has a better remedy please let us know!

This was a game breaking bug for me.  It's very difficult to navigate without the map, and turning the graphics down to 1280 just makes the game look like shit.  If this bug is still in the game, then it's a no sale here.

[JasonPratt]

I will say out of all the many complaints I've seen about unfixed things in GoG's new edition so far, I don't recall seeing the mismatch mapping resolution so far.

So.... progress?  O0

[Slick Wilhelm]

Thanks for the heads-up, Jason. I just picked this up from GOG. Looks like a lot of fun!  O0

[Ian C]

I will say out of all the many complaints I've seen about unfixed things in GoG's new edition so far, I don't recall seeing the mismatch mapping resolution so far.

So.... progress?  O0

This was a game breaking bug for me.  It's very difficult to navigate without the map, and turning the graphics down to 1280 just makes the game look like shit.  If this bug is still in the game, then it's a no sale here.

I can confirm that the map scaling bug has been fixed and the game can be run with full video options on and it looks great.

To change video options go into GOG Games\The Saboteur and click on the VideoSetup file. It can be run fullscreen on your normal monitor resolution.

[bboyer66]

Holy shit !!!!!!! Buying today !!!! :D :D :D

[JasonPratt]

 

Now if / when they'll just fix the problem with four-or-more-cores...

GoG tech support tells me that they'll refund or credit a purchase if anyone runs into the core problem and doesn't want to wait for a fix; so you can try without risk. (I presume the same offer would continue if they give up or fail to solve the problem.)

[JasonPratt]

No updates from GoG yet, but I wanted to clarify that there are TWO bugs related to multi-core crashing.

Bug 1 triggers if the processor has exactly 4 cores running (which can be controlled from the BIOS of course, if anyone dares), and if the graphics card is from ATI instead of NVidia. In that case the game will actually launch, but then crash after the main screen at some point. The solution currently is not too bad: tab out of the game while on the main menu screen, launch the Task Manager, select the Saboteur.exe, and look around until you find the affinity control, in order to disable cores 3 and 4 while running the game. This fix only works with this bug, and doesn't affect core usage elsewhere. (In fact, strictly speaking it doesn't even affect core usage in the game, since the crash happens from the game being confused in how to read the 3rd and 4th core with certain graphic card calls.)


Bug 2 triggers if the processor has MORE THAN 4 cores running (which can be controlled from the BIOS etc.) I'm not sure it always happens with more than quad cores, but this is my problem. In this case, the game never launches at all, or possibly launches and quits or crashes silently so fast that it seems like (after the usual Windows Permission window asking if you really want to run this application) it never starts at all.

GoG techs are still working on solving these problems, and feel like they can be fixed. Hopefully so. As noted, the game can be bought and tried risk free for wallet credit or a straight refund.

[JasonPratt]

Alas, checking for updates on patch progress tonight, I discovered (though the announcement was somewhat hidden!) that the hoped-for fix has hit a brick wall, although at least the problem turned out to be something else (so at least something was learned). So GoG has, frankly very late, added a compatibility warning (one of several for different reasons) to the store page, and I have filed for a refund.

I don't understand what the GoG team was thinking. The game was notorious for being highly buggy on the PC, with problems that just got worse over time -- so there was great rejoicing when they released it by surprise, since there were no warnings any problems remained and past experience would lead customers to believe the problems had been fixed. Did they think people just wouldn't notice? Did they think the problems would magically fix themselves by osmosis if they clapped their hands and released it on a service with a high reputation for bringing old games to new PCs?? Did they do no research at all on the game's release history???

Fortunately I can still play the game perfectly fine if I want to again on my PS3; I just can't share the glory with my fellow Grogs. So my bitterness is a little mitigated. But it's stoked again by there apparently being no official refund request method on GoG!  >:( We shall see if my eventually-chosen generic path bears fruit.