Jagged Alliance 2

aka: Guerilla: Jagged Alliance 2, JA2
Moby ID: 356
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

The political situation in the democratic monarchy of Arulco has gone from bad to worse. The country has been taken over through a coup d'état by Queen Deidranna Reitman, the wife of Enrico Chivaldori - rightful heir and son of late King Andreas Chivaldori. Enrico was reportedly killed in an assassination attempt during his trial for the murder of his father. Enrico however is alive and has contacted the Association of International Mercenaries (A.I.M.) to help him retake the island. Making contact with Miguel Cordoba, the head of the resistance team, A.I.M. will hire mercenaries and coordinate battle plans to control towns, organize militias in a quest to overthrow Queen Deidranna.

Jagged Alliance 2 is an isometric, third-person perspective turn-based tactics game. The role-playing elements of the game refer to (mostly) character development. The game is also able to switch between two different styles: sci-fi or realistic modes. From a new game, players will use their laptop to review information and hire mercenaries. Following that, the political map shows a satellite top-down position of the island of Arulco. From the map, equipment and funds are managed, as well as a review of enemy movement, and planning can be made to capture towns, mines and other locations. From the map, mercenaries can be deployed into a specific sector. Hostile sectors and enemy counter-attacks initiate combat mode.

The combat screen is where most of the actual gameplay occurs. Traveling in towns, exploring houses (with the purpose of stealing stuff of course!) and most importantly combat, occurs here. An encounter with an enemy team (either offensive or defensive) will prompt a battle in the area of contact. If on the offensive, players may opt to place mercenaries in favorable positions. Each team plays in turns, unless their action in interrupted by an opposing member. Enemies come in all shapes and sizes: enemy soldiers, tanks, bloodcats, and (in sci-fi mode) insect-like monsters. The team that remains alive will control the sector.

In order to recapture the island, players must engage in town militia management. A defense system must be organized for newly conquered towns to defend against enemy troops. Only loyal towns however may have its population trained into militia (indicated by a green percentage on the town via political map). A maximum of 2 mercenaries may train militia in any given town. The militia has 3 different training levels: green, regular, and veteran. The first 2 may be acquired through training, while the veteran status may only be acquired through combat.

Spellings

  • Агония Власти - Russian spelling
  • 铁血联盟2 - Simplified Chinese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Windows version)

226 People (195 developers, 31 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 87% (based on 31 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 142 ratings with 10 reviews)

One giant leap for mankind

The Good
I don't know where to begin! Being a long-time fan of the series, I felt amazed by the added depth of plot, new features, new weapons, and new tactics, not to mention the cool new mercs, such as Shadow, Stephen Rothman, and Reaper (or the new budget mercs, such as Barry Unger and Igor), as well as by the advancement and redefinition of the old mercs (Buzz, Lynx, Scope, Hitman, Fox (foxier, but ditzier than ever!), Wolf, and Helmut). I loved having to choose mercenaries from two competing agencies. The graphics and interface still aren't great, but they are great steps forward for this series. (However, it still feels like DOS with its linear menu choices). Creating your own custom mercenary at the beginning gave me such a thrill (with this, you can go for desired abilities or to truly try to make a merc just like you, with all of your strengths and weaknesses). The game map is huge and you have to control the fatigue levels of your team carefully. In addition, you can hire up to 18 mercs in 3 teams (versus 6 mercs in 1 team in the 2 previous versions). There is so much to like in this game. I have not even begun to mention the great variety of non-mercs and tons of side quests you'll encounter in JA2. The surprising dialogues will catch you off guard and will occasionally delight and horrify you.

The Bad
It's gory at times. The graphics aren't that great, per se, but some of the mutilation will shock you at the least expected moment. Enemy bodies will splatter at close range with the "right" (or wrong) weapon and you can pop off heads as well. It is quite a tour de force in both surprising and horrifying ways.

Do the creators at Sirtech have something against Romanians? First, in Deadly Games, there was Reuban, a psychopath merc from Romania. Now, the enemy, Deidranna, comes from Romania as well. It's odd! (To their credit, I hope that this was a coincidence in their choices of nationalities for various characters.)

The main villians (Elliot and D.) are more annoying than evil. In any case, you'll want to shoot Deidranna! Maybe annoying isn't so bad... but, compared to the pure evil of the original villain in Jagged Alliance, these clowns in JA2 seem like a parody of evil and destruction.

Many of the citizens of the land have bad "Spanish" accents.

Ira, a key (and otherwise likeable) person you'll encounter, has the ugliest New York accent that you'd want to listen to. In fact, many of the characters have exaggerated taunts and mannerisms. (The voices in the game are both good and bad... you'll see why after playing this for a while.)

The ending sectors are incredibly difficult-- tanks are very frustrating when even your heavy weapons seem to fail and your platoon gets blasted by tanks, mortars, and elite enemies... I don't know why Sir-tech elevated the difficulty so extremely toward the end.

The Bottom Line
If you can deal with turn-based and mostly close combat strategy, buy this immediately. If you like JA2, get the other games in the series for historical reasons. The graphics still leave you wanting, but the sounds, gameplay, and incredible depth will provide you with countless options and hours (and possibly years) of struggle. This is a memorable, addictive, frustrating, and valuable game.

Windows · by M B (15) · 2002

The best turn-based squad combat strategy game around

The Good
This game got all the details right. First and foremost, JA2 only operates in turn-based mode when an enemy is spotted or one of your soldiers is attacked. Non-combat movement happens in real time. This makes the game exponentially more enjoyable to play than many similar titles. Combat--the meat and potatoes of the game--is a blast. There are plenty of items to choose from - a veritable cornucopia of guns, ammo, armor and assorted stuff. A mechanically adept character can often combine two or more apparently useless items into something useable, like a gun barrel extender or a trip-wire booby trap. The characters are all distinctive and they let loose some great sound bites, especially during combat. If you liked the character of Minsk in the Baldur's Gate games then you'll find plenty to enjoy here. All the potentially mundane management tasks (character generation, recruiting personnel, buying equipment, tracking your finances) are actually enjoyable, thanks in no small part to a wonderful pseudo-web browser interface.

The Bad
This doesn't detract from gameplay at all, but it's worth mentioning. JA2 is supposed to be set in a tropical island nation. The NPC natives of the island don't seem to realize this; they speak with a variety of Russian, South American and African accents. The voice acting is good, but the accents don't make any sense.

The Bottom Line
Don't be fooled by the ultra-cheesy box cover - this is a fantastic game. Essentially this game is a member of the turn-based squad combat genre pioneered by X-Com UFO Defense, with a healthy dose of role playing thrown in for good measure.

Windows · by Kurt Sample (1071) · 2001

Sirtech magic touch blessed this one too....

The Good
Absolutely almost everything was perfect, but what made this game a winner - even if as people say within the certain circle, is that mercenaries you controlled during game, had different personalities, something we always miss when we do create own whole group at the start. Different voices, faces, habits and traits made this gaming experience so wonderful for me, I come back every year to install and play this one. With decent if simple story, detailed and plentiful equipment and realism (as far as game allows) it has captured me forever. Graphics and music.. I dont care much about - as far as I concerned, they will satisfy me until I turn 60... Animations were as good as year 1999 allowed, granting small size of mercenaries too. Its a tragedy that there will be no Jagged Alliance 3, and I sincerely hope that no other company thinks of releasing flop sequel on their own.

The Bad
Some particular voicing was irritating at times, small glitches, but otherwise perfection itself.

The Bottom Line
Find it, buy it and play it - but beware, if it captures you like it did me, there are at least few days without sleep ahead... Really hard to stop playing this one, except if you mess up quite a bit and forgot to save before....

Windows · by Marina Shoykhet (6) · 2003

[ View all 10 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Not 4x but x-com like squad/turn based tactics Dim Gri (30) Jan 2, 2012
4X (eXpand, eXplore, eXploit, eXterminate) SharkD (425) Aug 31, 2007
Anyone know what those switches are for? Indra was here (20756) Jun 16, 2007

Trivia

Character Responses

  • When Ivan sees someone hitting an enemy in the head he says, "This is why my brother became an alcoholic."
  • Mercenaries (mercs) are known to have certain personality problems with other mercs. One instance is Enrico, the Arulco rebel leader (and his bodyguard) who dislike German and Austrian mercenaries (due to German occupation of Arulco in World War II).

Cover Art

The talent (model) on the front box cover bears a remarkable resemblance to one of Jagged Alliance’s top mercenaries: Sheila 'Scope' Sterling, a British sniper, though this might be purely coincidental.

Awards

  • PC Player (Germany)
    • Issue 01/2000 - Best Round-Based Strategy Game in 1999

Information also contributed by Chentzilla

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  • MobyGames ID: 356
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Heikki Sairanen.

Linux added by Trixter. Macintosh added by Cavalary.

Additional contributors: Andrew Hartnett, Shadowcaster, Brian Robinson, Unicorn Lynx, Indra was here, Trond Berntsen, Patrick Bregger, Plok, Dimi Morabito.

Game added November 1, 1999. Last modified March 20, 2024.