Foc1's reviews on GOG.com

Created on 26 August, 2026 09:16

Long Playing

Immersive early game. Using your personable agents to push the goals of your faction and expand your control across the earth is quite addictive. Investigating enemy councilors and the aliens while grabbing companies and competing with the other factions for technologies is cool. The early part of the space race and getting footholds on the moon and Mars is also good. Around this phase of the game, the number and unknown value of the many different technology options becomes a bit daunting as does the now more apparent scale of the alien challenge. Looking back the early part of the game seems like a Fun Run you undertook much too casually; the next sections look like a marathon you have not prepared nearly well enough for. A realistic view at this point is that the chance of getting enough right to succeed is negligible and so, as the Earth is doomed by your ignorance and lack of resources to be defeated by the aliens, the logical faction to go back and play would be the alien assisting Servants or (while still in need of some luck) perhaps the earth fleeing Exodus factions. Or, as illustrated in the movie "Ground Hog Day' if you have the fortitude and a *lot* of time at your disposal, you can keep continually coming back from the start of the day/game and change the options and order you do things until you finally get a winning combination...(alas not. as in that movie resulting in improving your whole life) .. against these aliens when playing as the Resistance or one of the more aggressive antimigration factions.

2 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 28 July, 2026 13:57

Updated on 12 September, 2026 09:06

Lacking Color

Terra Invicta is a great game, in that it soon has you playing many hours on it even though at some point some of your many decisions or lack thereof may make final success elusive. Dark Skies offers new maps of the earth with some very interesting scenarios. Back to the 1990s (edit ..I mean 2003..I was mixing up my Iraq wars) with Earth at the time of the search for weapons of mass destruction with aliens becoming involved and a later earth a century ahead of us with new and sometimes amusing nations (Westralia for example which has been mooted at times in reality) after some mass destruction weapons have been used. The resistance does not have a lot of influence at the start so taking over nations with decent industrial/research bases is a bit harder than in the main game, Each new map starts with some different conflicts happening between earth nations compared to the parent game. Some notable changes are also present in the tech tree. In the earlier scenario you have a huge research hurdle ahead of you to get to some of the 2022 techs and space, Now this is only my initial impressions and opinion, I have yet to play it for a long time, but I feel that the impact of these new scenarios is significantly lessoned because each scenario in this DLC has the same graphics in the opening scenes and (for the Resistance at least) the same statements of mission as the main game. If your initial briefing was by someone who looked different and the briefing had a scenario specific context that would have been a big plus for initial immersion. The people you can recruit look the same as from the main game and even in the post nuclear scenario (where there was surely the opportunity to bring in a few oddities). My initial impressions from the pools of agents so far seen, are the traits are also the same. No 'irradiated' for example among the negative traits or some sort of mutated positive. From the early 2000s to the 2100s fashion in hairstyle or clothes (including fondness for odd black 1950 style police? hats ) and the traits and the age of these fixed characters does not seem to vary significantly from the original game. You still get the initial alien crash and a few other events as per the start of the main game In the post nuclear world, on the map there appears to be no glow, huge, blackened terrain or sun filtering dust clouds etc showing earth changing effects of mass desolation on the maps. There might be some less obvious stuff I have not picked up at this early stage. The issues I have raised with the DLC are all only cosmetic and so I hope that there is scope for some work in subsequent patches on appearance to better set the mood and character of these new scenarios so that they feel much more different from the start and so set the mood while you are waiting for your turns to eventually give rise to some different situations, Edit - 12 Sept 2026 - Nothing done for the cosmetics yet. Not sure if the developers even check GOG or just view steam reviews. But Important News: a patch has just been released (may be a lag before it arrives on the GOG version) that is said to provide the player more time to get set before the Aliens get more aggressive. The 2003 scenario was advertised as a more player friendly slower start option to the original game but the opposite was true at release and up to this last patch. The broken world scenario sounds to have also been now adjusted to allow the player more time before extreme challenges of Alien assault ships. Hope the improvements keep coming. More useful missions for the councilors would be a good step that may not be too hard to implement.

6 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 19 December, 2025 08:27

A very worthy older XCOM

Much less claustrophobic in battles than the original XCOM 1 where the path obstructed movements, in narrow passageways, on UFOs in particular chewed up too many time units. The bigger spaces in most of the battle areas allow you more choices and mitigate this issue. Having to face human enemies using heavy launchers and to be able to do preventative building raids days before an alert on multiple buildings in a good size city would issue make the game more interesting. These greater freedoms in an old game seem to come at some cost of the graphics used for the figures. The graphics for the buildings themselves are okay (as far as games of that era go) and are more varied that the earlier XCOM games. The number of attacks you endure seems much greater in this game and though I have finished the research tree a few times, I have so far wearied in taking alien ground before the final of the off-world battle in this game while I managed to the end several times in the original XCOM 1 and 2 where in the latter stages battles were not too taxing.

1 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 15 December, 2025 10:12

With internet help did get it going

Had the "Not launching on windows 11 (launch splash screen starts, then returns to the game launcher" and tried a variety of things such as killing the intro movie and modifying the config file, and took quite a while until I finally found the combination of internet advice and software downloads to get this to run. Sorry I can't remember quite how (at around the same time was doing a lot of fiddling and adding software to GOG Victoria 2 to successfully run it and still failing with internet suggested cut and pastes of files at GOG Gabriel Knight 3 has confused my memory) but installing Microsoft Visual Studios version 4 was one component as well as old direct X files. The Slitherine chat group was one source of info though even there a lot of digging is required ). Then you just need to change screen resolution so you can read the information which can also be done. When playing on a laptop a lot of the information is on quite small icons for older eyes. Actually, I also own Distant worlds 2, but I like the energetic music and quick response of this older game and my main computer is used mostly for non game hobbies so DW2 has not enjoyed much playtime. When you do start it up at any timepoint it is already a lively universe, like watching a stirred up ant's nest on a hot day. Private sector ships shooting off everywhere, staff getting promotions and perks. Lots of decisions so lucky you can pause. If packing a laptop for travel this game takes up far less disc space than its sequel letting you also include a lot more games and will run longer on battery only. Now my next issue is that I have forgotten what techs I should prioritize and how I should balance my budget on builds...so more work to learn to play the game well.

Created on 05 December, 2025 11:14

Updated on 04 September, 2026 12:32

After many wrong turns - It is running!

Sept 2026 update -Finally got Rome Total War to work...its not giving me the Frozen Black Screen treatment after the SEGA screen, it now shows the intro movie with proper sound and starts the game with the tutorial... hurray!...in the last 9 months, having nearly given up on getting it to go, I have bought ROME TW2 and several other Total War games (including the older Shogun 1) and these ran with no adjustment but I just could not settle to learning to play them without being able to first revisit this much more nimble and easy to understand old favorite. So under Windows 11, multicore, Nividia card its finally now working. In the end, for me it was not some fancy rewriting of a player text file or loading old direct-x files that achieved success but just a simple import of RTW's .exe file into the games listed in my computers graphic settings and then applying setting there to use High Performance on the Nividia card. I have not had to do this with other games, and so this was a new step for me, The alternative option of adjusting the card via the Nividia app, was ineffective in my hands, the app seemed blind to this game or indeed most older games other than Medieval 2 Total War. Problem overcome: Excerpt of my now outdated 2025 review: I know there are versions of Rome Total War remastered to run on 64 bit systems but I suspect this GOG version still needs 32 bits and/or does not like multicore or my NVIDIA card. After a brief look at a company logo page, I just get a black screen and no sound when I attempt to start it. Same issue happens if I try and install onto my desktop WIn 11 computer. Have tried some cut and paste of internet fixes on widescreen and resolution into either player.text or a (created) preferences.txt file in the preferences folder but that did not noticeably affect the outcome I tried the following multi cpu core fix without success for the black screen: "If you're having trouble with the game crashing to the desktop while loading battles. Launch the game to the main menu, press ctrl +alt+ delete, use the task manager to set the affinity settings for the game process so that the game is launched by a single CPU, not all CPUs (this is the default for multi-core computers). Game process launched only by 1 cpu solve this problem." My problem starts earlier than the issue fixed above and experienced by many, my issue starts before seeing any game menu or intro animation, instead after a slow start I see only a momentary blankness then the initial Sega screen then a blank screen and no sound until I finally control alt delete to end the task then I hear a second or two of the Rome music. I cannot find the GOG config file to kill the intro animation to trial that. Has anyone else had the same game issue and managed to fix it?' Upgraded my rating of the GOG game. My feelings are currently 5 stars but only 4 stars now until I am sure the game does not crash frequently or slow down to a crawl after playing for a while. If it does eventually struggle in battles, perhaps the earlier GOG post on fixing battle problems will then work for me,

8 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 30 November, 2025 06:16

Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned

Can GOG get this game to work - Win 11

GOG is still charging money for this game but does not seem to have done any work to make their version run on modern systems. I am not particularly technically proficient in renovating old games (did eventually get Distant Worlds Universe to work on my machine). It may well be possible to get the GOG version to work in Win 11 without making your system unable to play modern games based on various internet fixes (some of which need to be paid for) but GOG itself should invest some effort into making these old games playable, ( not just GN3 but also Tex Murphy's Overseer) that used admittedly very awkward early 3d technologies that assumed single core devices, since GOG is charging money for these games and having more customers that get to enjoy these games might eventually result in more remakes or sequels My current computer is Windows 11 typical 64 bit multicore laptop with Nividia card. After including a pretend CD drive ISO file, I can get the Intro movie to run but after that I just get an amorphous sea of chaotic textures and have to switch off the laptop to get out.

3 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 26 October, 2025 14:39

Updated on 26 October, 2025 14:40

GMDX mod solves glitch issues

With no Mod I could not get the game to work. With the Revision Mod, Deus Ex would run for me on my Win 11 Nivida game card multicore laptop but speech and movement would be too fast perhaps because as usual I have downloaded this game without using GOG Galaxy All the glitches and stutter problems seem to have disappeared with the new Mod and the game world view is beautiful and movement and speech smooth. Only 4 stars on Mod performance as I am still near the start on Liberty Island with most of the game ahead of me,

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