Invasion: Lost in Time

Sound: 5 Graphics: 5 Story: 3 Gameplay: 4 Commands: 7 Fun: 3 Time to load / lag: 9 Bugs / Problems: 9 Final score: 3

There seem to be some basic functionality problems with this game. Somehow the very first "puzzle" was bugged and I couldn't leave it or solve it. This may just be a scam game.

This would have to be one of the best hidden object games I have played only ruined by intermittent soft locks. The best mix of mini-games I have seen in any hidden object game with plenty of puzzles and I don't think any are repeated. The only downside I saw in this game (other than the soft locks) is that I often found it difficult to determine what to do as there is no indication of active areas and some of the areas are quite small so difficult to find scanning the screen with the mouse. The soft locks were easy enough to work around by simply leaving game screen and force shut down from outside the game. When restarted I always arrived back at the same position and never lost any items. Think the soft locks may be caused by opening puzzles where pieces are not present and clicking on the puzzle that is unable to be done seems to lock into the puzzle and even though the mouse moves and changes icon with hover over nothing can be clicked or activated.

This a qualified endorsement. I have played only a little so far, but I've encountered far too many seemingly random puzzles. The Steam store page describes them as "fiddly"! Only the scrambled picture puzzles seem to have anything to do with the story. So I find it a little tedious. I want to arrive where the action is and have something to look at other than these puzzles. Perhaps farther along the scenery will be more interesting and the encounters interesting as well.

I like most HOG. But this is very ho - hum. Uninstalled & hid it.

Insanely buggy game engine. You can get it to run if you tweak some compatibility settings, but an entire host of annoying display glitches will remain. This is a shame because the game itself is very good. There is a wide selection of original (my opinion) minigames. Given this variety, it is to be expected that some of them are annoying. Many of them are fun. Every swinging one of them is skippable. Story and artwork are good. Hidden-Object scenes are varied, not the same tired scene over and over, as is lamentably common in this genre. Lack of voice over, to me, is a good thing. I'm not here for the acting. So it comes down to this: Nice game nestled into a horrible bugfest.