Checkpoint Saves - why?

[Ronin]

I must admit that I hate checkpoint only saves.  I hate being forced to go back and clear the same rooms again just to satisfy some game designer's idea that that's how it should be played.

On a game console with a very small hard drive and very little memory a checkpoint save is a good way to save space.  Especially on consoles where there _is_ no hard drive.  Most had to save games in little memory cards.  Space was at a premium.

But all the leading consoles now come with hard drives.  Why not move to full game saves?  PCs have always had hard drives since the advent of the IBM PC XT.  The space for a full save of a game was always there.  It would seem to me that the checkpoint save might be a good thing because it's an automatic save.  But I think the game companies need to put save on demand on all games.  On consoles AND PC games.

That "it's always been done that way" is no excuse.  I don't know many (if any) people who like the checkpoint system in lieu of being able to save the game where and when you want to.  We PAID for the game.  We should be able to play it the way we want to in single player mode (I despise people who cheat at multi-player).

At least let us insert more checkpoints so that we don't have to replay so much when we get killed.  We WERE being careful and mindful of the penalty for getting killed.  But the designer wants to punish us anyway.  Just because we don't have the hand to eye coordination and reflexes of a 10 year old.

[Fixxxer]

Autosaves like in the TES series is good to have. Since it's prone to CTD's it's nice if you forgot to save your game. However, it only autosaves when the game loads a new area (or when you go to sleep).

But the checkpoint system sucks. I think I read around these boards that R6: Vegas is on a checkpoint system which I think sucks. R6 should have no saves. It's one of those games that is supposed to feel real, meaning you have one shot to make a success out of the mission.

If I couldn't save my own game I probably never would have finished Deus Ex or Morrowind.