Jagged Alliance 2

The Good
Though sometimes very hard, this game is one of the best squad-based combat games I've ever encountered. This game even best's X-COM by allowing the user to control every aspect of his sqaud's movements and actions.

The game runs in real-time until your squad gets into a battle, when it switches to turn-based combat. Here you can control every movement and shot fired by your squad members. The more experience they obtain, the better they get (just like in real life).

The controls are intuitive (once you get the hang of them) and allow you to quickly deploy orders to your team. Once you take control of the airport, you can order refreshed supplies of ammo and other items and can recruit more mercs to help you in your task of taking back Arulco.

The game is completely non-linear: you can accomplish your missions (taking over cities) in any order you like. If you want to barrel-on through and take out the head cities first, you're free to try.

The graphics, though 2D, are perfect for this game. The picking is almost flawless and movement fluid. The voice-acting, usually a stumbling point in such games, is just right. The interface is free of clutter: the information it displays in useful and pertinent. The music for this game also seemed "right on."

The enemy is finely tuned. The enemies don't seem to have any artificial education to help beat you. They seem to know what they can see and nothing else (a Good Thing(tm)). Many enemies are difficult to defeat but rarely "impossible."

I just wish there were a Jagged Alliance 3 on the way... (there are rumors, but nothing confirmed)

The Bad
The game usually runs fine, but seems to have trouble with NTFS disks. It ran flawlessly until I redid my installation as NTFS. It will run a ways, but then die and refuse to load saved games.

It would be nice if this game were higher res and 3D. But I think these are more of wish-list items for the next version instead of complaints of this game. I never found myself thinking, "Man this game needs to be in 3D."

The Bottom Line
A great squad-based combat game. One that needs to be played to be appreciated.

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....

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.