Sabre Squadron for sale anywhere these days

[Dinger]

I played H&D when it first came out and loved it! My sone just came home with three copies of H&D 2 for some multiplayer fun. I got the patch 1.12 but can't find the expansion pack (Sabre) for sale anywhere.
Any ideas where we might find it?

[Jason]

ebay.com is a great place to buy games for cheap.

[Johannes]

Good luck with finding it. I just bought Hidden & Dangerous 2 (haven't opened it to play it yet) and went on a rush to find the expansion (in truth, I want to see the MAS 36; vive la France!), only to find it virtually impossible to find. With some help from the local Gamestop, I tracked one new copy down in a Gamestop some forty miles away.

I picked it up yesterday. According to Gamestop records, it's the last copy they have in an almost 400-mile radius. If you live in Northern California and aren't me  (:mrgreen:), you are now officially out of luck.

Ebay does seem to have some British copies though, and Amazon has one for $90 if you're willing to shell out that much. Basically though, the expansion is extremely rare and almost impossible to find in the United States these days. I assume that after the base game didn't do so well here (Gamestop put them in their current sale to get rid of them; I picked up all 8 new copies from the local store for one dollar each, and am going to give/send them to friends), they didn't bother to manufacture many of the expansions for the American market.

I still haven't actually opened or installed the games, but I plan on doing so one of these days. When I do, what patches do I need and in what order do I install them? I see there's a 1.12 for both Sabre Squadron and the base game...

[Jason]

All you need to do is install H&D2 then Sabre Squadron then install the Sabre Squadron 1.12 patch

Oh and download the fan-made COOP maps to play with your friends

[Johannes]

Thanks, but what is this patch for? http://www.hidden-and-dangerous.net/hd2 ... hp#patches

It seems to have a different file size than the 1.12 listed here: http://www.hidden-and-dangerous.net/ss/ ... hp#patches

I don't need them both?

[Lars]

For HD2 are 2 1.12 patches out: One with ~12 MB for HD2SS and one with ~120MB for HD2 without the addon.

[Jason]

Sabre Squadron merges with H&D2, not something that generally happens with an expansion. They become the same game, you access the expansion mission through the normal H&D2 mission. Since they are the same installation, they only need one patch.

Sabre Squadron has many gameplay enhancements, they made them available for people who only had H&D2 through the large 120mb patch. If you install H&D2 and Sabre Squadron you will only need the 12mb patch.

[Johannes]

I've been playing through the game rather slowly (it usually takes me a while to complete a game). I've just finished the Austrian Alps level in the original H&D2 (haven't played the SS campaign yet), and I must say I'm rather impressed by this game. It has so many good ideas that I'm surprised hasn't been adopted by more modern WWII-oriented FPS titles.

For one thing, it is greatly refreshing to find a commercial WWII game that has a rather realistic feel to it. Usually they're all rather rambo (CoD and MoH franchises), or else one has to turn to a mod to find a touch of realism (like, say, the Forgotten Hope mod for the Battlefield franchise). The multiplayer is a little less real-feeling (bolt-actions all seem to have been nerfed and take two hits to kill someone, but it's still good, especially for someone who always played engineer in Battlefield 1942...).

Some of the controls feel a little clunky, but nothing unmanageable.

Weapon variety is fantastic, although it's too bad the Italians didn't get any of their weaponry. The French MAS 36 in Sabre Squadron is unfortunately the post-war model, but then almost everyone makes the same mistake concerning that one.

I do have a question though. Are there any Occupation servers that use Sabre Squadron? It seems a pity that the SS weapons are never available for use online.

[Jason]

It can be difficult to find Occupation servers but they are around. A few servers have mods which give all weapons - they are server-side mods so you don't need to install anything yourself

[Johannes]

From what I've seen so far, none of the Occupation servers run Sabre Squadron unfortunately, so my MAS 36 (as well as the Gewehr 43 and silenced Luger) isn't usable.