The Windows cursor was locked, the game cursor was behind the activation screen and unresponsive, so I could not stop the process normally. Resorted to CTL ALT DEL .. many times … after several minutes, I tried CTL ALT DEL ESC and was able to knock down the game.

I run dual Pentium 4′s with > 1G of memory and darn near a Tb of hard drive space. First time I’ve had a game overwhelm this system.

Sorry Giveaway team; sorry to the software developers, too.

I am stunned and amazed at the toxic reaction~

To set up the screensaver (that’s if you decide to keep the game, lol), Click on the game icon to open up the first screen, which is the intro to the game. to skip this press the space bar, this will bring the game options menu into view.

Click on options. You should see two buttons: OK and MORE

Click on More. The game will be minimised to the task bar and a window will present itself that has a series of tabs that allow you to tweak aspects of the game such as the effects, grapics etc.

Select the screensaver tab by clicking on it once. You should see below the instructions a button called SET SCREENSAVER.

Click on the set screensaver button

Click on Save and exit

To return to the game you will have to click on the game icon again.

To set the screensaver you will need to follow the path:

Start\Control Panel\Appearance & Themes\Choose Screensaver

then click on the screensaver drop down menu and select the screensaver called ‘Sascreensaver’

The screensaver is basically a demo of the game. Okay for a short while, but I prefer my space screensavers especially the last one from last Sataurday.

My son liked (8) liked the game so it’s now installed on his computer, but i’ve removed it from mine.

To change the look of the game there’s free downloadable skins available here:
http://www.invitinggames.com/silentattack/skins.html

Click the “Download” link under each and save them to the “Skins” subdirectory in the game’s folder. To access follow directions given on the above site, you use a Configuration utility found in the game’s Start menu shortcuts. All the skins look great except the Mars skin, it’s so dark it affects playability which already isn’t great.

Developer’s Help link offers expanded instructions on game play:
http://www.invitinggames.com/silentattack/help.html

The instructions are good and make things much clearer. There IS an explosive effect but only from enemies hit with rockets and only if you stick around to see it. Going immediately to another enemy, like I was doing, means you’ll miss the explosion from the rocket. Hitting with the plasma gun causes enemies to fall with only a splash, except after one particular power-up and even then only once. If you read the entire page there is a way to change power of the gun and switch from a single barrel to a double barrel. Too bad these expanded instructions are not included in the game’s Help file.

Also it turns out the screensaver IS there, but has to be added manually from the Configuration utility within the game’s start menu shortcuts, the same one used to change skins. The bottom of the page contains an explanation of how to use the screensaver, another instruction that isn’t accessible from within the game. The screensaver runs like a demo of the game and uses whichever skin you have currently set for the game.

Even with the expanded instructions the emphasis still seems to be on wowing the player with graphics rather than playability. Maybe not a complete thumbs down but not a thumbs up either, more like neutral.