Ground Control Anthology

The game works fine but it starts at my second display screen. Do you know any way to move it to other display?

You can probably still Google and find the free Demo for this game. My primary objection is the camera view.....there are actually TOO MANY options, and it's far too difficult to get focused and stay focused where you want and need to be. A good idea, but the execution simply doesn't work.

CONTROVERSIAL. This is the opposite of a bang for a buck. Buy World in Conflict or GC2 (haven't tried it yet) instead, they are from the same makers and probably better worth. The main game is pretty fun w/ the terrain utilization is particularly superb tactics-wise and you can find it for free as it was released to promote GC2 or something. The expansion, i.e. the "ground_control_expansion" in the URL that you are paying for here, is utter feces in quality. Grading wise, the base game is 4/5 ("fun") and the expansion 2/5 ("dull and torture"). BTW, even the "paid expansion" you could've got for free in if you mailed a receipt copy and covered the mailing costs, about 5.95 USD apparently. Here is a content summary of the expansion: -Plot: Killed characters turning out alive (used multiple times) -No ending, plot development or explanation whatsoever (GC2 ignores most of everything) -Missions: a bunch of non-inspired material destruction missions with the plot excuse of either collecting supplies for a never-mentioned purpose or hindering the operations of a forgettable antagonist -a couple barely functional stealth missions -most missions pit you against vastly superior numbers -the mission objectives lie, change and trap you all the time, making the game a colossal trial-and-error time-wasting festival -still no save function (oh you made a tiny mistake 45 minutes into the mission, e.g. the enemies killing something vital as the b-line on the key targets faster than you can theoretically micro your units) -no game speed controls - enjoy waiting the for the units with godawful path-finding queue-up and waste 5 minutes going somewhere while nothing is happening -The new merc units are terrible, the mini-mechs are interesting but not worth suffering the expansion over. -The gameplay plot amounts to wasting a couple expansion-only commanders and doing stuff only to quickly escape back to the drop ship. -Expansion missions have the challenge mission stench. Boring af.

Game only crashes on Win 7. No compatibilitymode or workarounds worked save your time and money.

I know I'm coming into this game years and years after it was popular so my tastes have been spoiled by bigger and better iterations of the formula since its release. Regardless, a "classic" game should be able to wow a veteran or newcomer alike and this game just didn't do it for me. First of all, the story, or lack-thereof. Keep in mind I only played most of the way through the first, "Corporate" campaign before I just stopped caring. The writing for the mission briefings is abysmal, there are only two characters and their interactions are extremely generic. I spent more time trying to turn off that dizzying, uninspired "star-field" screensaver looping in the background than I did listening to them drone on. Every mission boils down to "go here, destroy this" or "go here, escort this". Nothing much happens over the course of the game, there is some intrigue involving alien artifacts that goes absolutely nowhere. The heroine is very unlikable, she never stands up to authority, just does what she is told and then fumes about it. How exciting. Game play is the same thing over and over again. Scout ahead, gradually move your squads forward in increments, find enemy, engage. No matter how careful you are, at some point during each mission you will be ambushed by enemy rocket infantry that will appear out of nowhere and proceed to annihilate half your troops, or go straight for your command APC, resulting in a mission failure. It doesn't help that your units PAUSE every time you give them a command. This is the only game I have ever played that has this. In the middle of a heated firefight, this can be fatal. When a hundreds things are happening at once and your vehicles are taking fire you need your soldiers to REACT, not sit there helplessly as you click madly on a location over and over. The environments are huge and the terrain is very confusing to navigate, which is fine and challenging, except that it means two thirds of the game is spent navigating and trying to find the enemy. These environments are lazily detailed and despite the gradual change from temperate to frozen climates over the course of the game there is little variety. Since there is almost no in-game music to speak of (there is some in the early missions but it is strangely absent later on) all you have to listen to is the constant droning of your units as you boss them around. I liked the "friendly fire" aspect, which requires you to set up your fields of fire carefully. I didn't like how utterly confused my vehicles behaved if I told them to go somewhere and there was an obstacle in the way. Complete chaos as everyone tries to shuffle around each other, like rush hour in a parking lot. Meanwhile, the enemy is attacking. The dropship design of the game is also pointless. You don't start out with all your units on the battlefield, you have to call them in via dropships. But you can only drop them in specific spots, which defeats the whole purpose of a dropship. This is supposed to give you some extra layer of tactical planning but is almost completely useless since I gaurantee you 100% of the time you will have the best chance if you dump all your guys right at the start of each mission. The game occasionally nudges you into mixing it up by offering you multiple drop zones, but you ALWAYS stand a better chance if everyone sticks together. Overall Ground Control is just a bad, rough-around-the-edges generic real-time tactical game. There is no base-building, no story beyond "kill the fanatics" and it's all just so slow and tedious. Air units are useless, enemy AA will pick them off from halfway across the map. The graphics are awful. It feels like the beta of a real, complete game. Play World in Conflict instead, that one got the formula right.