Jagged Alliance 2

The Jagged Alliance remake is coming out soon.  I'm skeptical, honestly.  With information lacking and a demonstration video showing this one guy who sucks at it, it's hard to say whether or not it'll be good.  The question on most fans' minds is whether or not it'll live up to the original.

I think that's a bit of a loaded question though, since most of these fans are the same people that have modded the game to hell (like Oblivion).  v1.13 and beyond are all fan creations, and are very different games from v1.12, where the developer updates end.  This modification, while fun and entertaining, leads to some seriously skewed views about what the game actually was.  I can't comment on the quality of v1.13 and various other fan mods, but I have played the steam release which is 1.12.

You start by getting a lump sum of $45k from a deposed ruler named Enrico Chivaldori, to use in hiring mercenaries to take back an island republic called Arulco from his evil wife Quen Deidranna.  You can create your own merc, and hire either a lot of decent mercs or a few good ones.  You'll need to fill gaps, like having shooters, a medic, a mechanic, and so on.

However, who you hire won't really matter so much as how well you can use them tactically.  Early on, with little armor, even the dinkiest handguns can do a lot of damage.  Taking damage means you start bleeding, and eventually you'll bleed out if you don't patch things up.  Even after you patch a merc's wounds, they don't actually heal until given a few days.  If the merc does die, they don't return.  It's entirely possible to lose every single merc in the game, the only real lose condition besides having no money to hire anyone.  In other words, mistakes are punished severely.

This is compounded by the lack of any sort of real tutorial.  No way to learn the interface or the commands exists in the game itself outside of the edit controls menu.  While the progression of difficulty is fine itself, it starts comparatively high to other games.  The mildly useful tactic of climbing onto building roofs eluded me until I noticed one time that a new button buried in the interface had mysteriously lighted up.  I didn't know where exactly supplies would show up when I ordered them.

Another difficulty is that the game doesn't tell you the odds of a bullet hitting someone.  It depends on the level of aim, angle of the shot, obstructions, visibility, the gun itself, and the merc's marksmanship.  This is fine since over time you'll get an idea of what will hit and what won't.

As a turn-based tactical game, it's naturally slow.  Each merc gets action points dependent on their agility, current health and current encumbrance.  If an enemy walks into a merc's line of sight, they might be able to interrupt.

While the tactical elements themselves could constitute a good game, Jagged Alliance 2 also features a territory control game.  Your mercenary company has to take over cities and towns, induct citizens into the militia to protect your captured assets, and get the citizens to fund your military efforts by turning over mine proceeds to you.  You'll also need to take down SAM sites to allow a helicopter pilot you can gain to fly you around more effectively.  You also have to take over an airport to get supplies from off-site, and maintain a supply chain to keep your front-line mercs equipped.

I decided to name my custom mercenary Boss Man.  He was a good shot, fast and wise, a night ops expert (I guess answering that Barney should be hung from a tree and shot on the personality quiz gets that result).  Not good for much else.  I also hired Grizzly and MD.  After we were airdropped into the island, we were quickly attacked.

My team died, naturally.  I had no idea at the time I could adjust aiming, or even crouch.  I reloaded my last save.

This time, after lots of control fiddling, I managed to get my team to crouch behind sandbags after getting into an open shootout.  Grizzly caught a bullet, but MD patched him up and he took it like a champ.  I wandered around aimlessly, talking to the locals and showing them a letter Enrico told me to give to the rebel leader Miguel.  They hooked me up, and Miguel foisted some New York humanitarian-aid-worker-turned-rebel woman named Ira on me.  I pursed my lips as she told me she was basically useless.  I guess she'd be a decent meat shield.

Miguel told me I should head to Drassen, and get the priest there to agree to supply the rebels.  Little did I know that this would entail murdering everyone in an orange wife beater and green pants in town.  Seriously, that's what all the enemies looked like.

I talked to the mine leader, who said he'd give me the mine earnings if I'd overthrow the Queen.  Since I was going to do that anyways, I automatically accepted and proceeded to hire more mercs.  More manpower would make this easier after all!

This took about a week.  I got an email from Enrico telling me that he knew overthrowing his ex-wife wouldn't be easy, but that I should hurry my ass along.

Me being who I am, I sat at the mine letting the mercs practice fighting guns, and fill out the militia until the game told me I hit the arbitrary cap.  Two weeks later or so, I received a vaguely threatening email from Enrico saying he was 'unhappy with the lack of progress.'

I decided to stop being lazy and spoke to the priest, who apparently is attracted to Ira.  I took a moment to revel in her discomfort as the fat priest agreed to help us.  I went back to Miguel, who foisted another of his rebels on me, Dmitri.  Dmitri is dumb.  Seriously, he sometimes forgets commands and you have to reissue them.  He also likes to say 'I MAKE PROUD.'  He works for free though, so I turned him into a pack mule.

I found that fighting at night with Boss Man alone was very effective; his expertise in night operations meant he could see and hear further than enemies could, and thus shoot them without fear of retribution.  I continued to exploit this as my team made their way to the next city, Grumm.

As usual, I attacked during the night.  But now, I had a new problem.  Chain fences.  They blocked off paths, and such.  I had Boss Man crawl around to the front, which was naturally guarded. He fired off shots, and killed one of the guards.  When the enemy turn came, they chucked something at Boss Man.

It only did one hit point of damage.  The ground lit up around Boss Man, but nothing seemed to happen otherwise.  I shrugged, and ordered Boss Man to continue firing.  The enemy turn came again, and this time five soldiers shot at Boss Man until his little profile icon grayed out and became a skull.

I would later find out that further along the game soldiers had chemical break lights.  Or rather, Glo-sticks.  I was defeated by damn raver paraphernalia.  But I learned my lesson.  Run like a coward until the enemy loses you in the darkness.

I took a break from the game for a while after that.  It's been very fun and interesting, and I keep returning to it, but I like to break it up between less involved and quicker-paced games.