Z40 Pull Out The Sharp Knife (James Bond)
I find the missions from this author very entertaining and creative. The missions are long, unpredictable, and fun.
However, I always seem to stuck at some points. See my previous feedbacks for the missions. It always gets too difficult at certain point, running out of resources, or unclear missions. It's such a pity because I really like the mission.
This mission is one of the example, it combines the map of Burma and Castle Corditz, which provides a very long satisfying mission. The starting is hard, but not impossible.
Starting Commandos: Driver and GB. (plus Lupin and Spy)
GB is stuck inside of the castle, I got him out by jumping from the window and slowly he starts to clear enemies in the buildings. There are many, the plays are tricky because he is limited by many things, including not raising the alarm. He managed to climb to the rooftop, but unfortunately I learned it's impossible to climb back without being dead, so I had to reload my spare save and didn't let him go up. He cleared a number of snipers, as many as he could and got wounded badly.
I played him concurrently with Driver, who started in Burma map. Getting out from that corner is difficult and requires strategy and smoke bomb. Neutralizing the Gestapo was the key. Smoke bomb, tied the enemy closest to the hiding area and placed him strategically so when the bomb cleared up, the Gestapo would come and untie the enemy. Knock him out and the other enemy, but brace yourself with a machine gun soldier that would be running there. Driver knocked off the patrol with two sleeping bomb by baiting them with cigarette and tied enemy without raising an alarm. When patrol was neutralized, things got easier.
The building with balcony can be cleared, and there are some resources inside. I also managed to clear the train and area opposite the river but when I wanted to free Lupin, the alarm rang, so I cancelled and went back to GB.
GB had cleared the bigger building (with a very pesky sniper at the rooftop) but he couldn't get to the last level therefore couldn't get to the sniper. Everything went well, and when I was thinking about how to proceed, the alarm rang without provocation. It was okay for a long time and GB had killed whatever inspected enemies who reacted. It was okay for a long time!
Since the mission stated that alarm shouldn't ring, I reloaded my spare game that was saved before that, but after a long time, the alarm went off again.
Repeat, repeat, but couldn't find why the alarm rang. At this point I was frustrated enough. I can't find why and I'm not about to restart. All my saved games ended up with alarm even though I have checked everything. So yes, F it, I continued.
And since the alarm had rang anyway, I just went ahead and freed Lupin and from there, Driver and Lupin went on killing frenzy.
It was fun. They killed everyone except some snipers that hid inside the building in front of the river. There were some building they couldn't enter, so they went to the other map, freed the Spy, found the ladder, and Lupin climbed to get access for the other two using the ladder. It was a long game to get the sniper, but there were two left because some ladder were impossible to access with Gestapo and multiple enemies facing it, same with building.
And I couldn't find the fourth bomb! I think it's in the building in Burma, there was a cupboard that highlighted after pressing F10, but I couldn't get into that building. I tried using Spy, baited using Thief, used smoke bombs, sleeping bombs (no reaction) so I couldn't exchange the key to get to the chatting Gestapo.
Again, after a long try (I played this mission for days!) I decided to just blow up the door but somebody had to die to detonate the bomb. So here I was. Can't end the mission. Dead commandos. Frustrated.
There were two molotov, maybe they can be used to clear this building to get the fourth bombs, but I had used them to clear the patrols around Spy building (there were a lot of patrols). If I can't finish this mission because of this very limited molotovs, then I'm not going to repeat because it's ridiculous to repeat all those. After all, I maybe fail to because of the alarm.
That's why this is frustrating. I really loved the mission and stayed up late to play it. It's a lot of fun but if I had to repeat everything because of mysterious alarm and misuse of two measly molotovs, then it brings down the whole quality of the mission for me. I hate impenetrable interiors and there are many of them in this mission but only two molotovs and random sleeping bombs not working. Very dissapointed.
