Jagged Alliance 2: Unfinished Business

The Good
I liked the new mercs: Gaston and Stogie should've been in the original JA2. You'll want them on your team! The new weapons are quite cool, especially the PSG-7, but the new Barrett sniper rifle is too heavy and powerful for this type of game. If you never saw a head pop off or a body fly backward in JA2, you'll see this in overkill once you get the Barrett.

If you found the difficulty too easy in JA2, buy Unfinished Business-- it is far more intense from the very beginning, although (being a small game) it's easier to reach the end, too.

The "Line of Sight" feature is brilliant. If nothing else, get UB for this. It helped me greatly in seeing my vulnerabilities in cover that weren't always obvious by sight in JA2. You'll notice new bullet trajectory angles after playing UB. After playing UB, play JA2 with your new knowledge.

The Bad
Sir-Tech managed to make an even less convincing villain than JA2. I don't even remember his name. The only time that you'll encounter him is before you kill him.

I wished that the plot were less linear. With Unfinished Business, with its similar sector map to JA2, one got the sense that you could make bigger tactical choices than you could really make. At least with Deadly Games (sequel to the original Jagged Alliance), you knew that you had no choice, at least, but that you could plan your raids according to the reward that you might receive for successful completion. Thus, you could make the superficial comparison that "Unfinished Business" is to JA2 as "Deadly Games" was to JA... but, to me, the sequel of the first was better than the original, whereas JA2 seems much better than its sequel. I felt a litle ripped off by "Unfinished Business" (even at a "budget" price of $20), because the campaign felt so short, which was a first for me with this series. Well, it was still worth it... yes, just not so much as the other feature-packed epics in the Jagged Alliance past.

The Bottom Line
It's not bad, except in comparison to the other games in this series. Historically, it offered few improvements in features or personality. With the very difficult to use mission editor, this game made and will make dedicated fan missions and campaigns possible (such as "Deidranna Lives"). However, this is because of fans mostly and not the original creators of Unfinished Business.

I can still recommend it sincerely, but not nearly as highly as I can as the "original" Jagged Alliance 2. At least "Unfinished Business" stuck mostly with a very good formula without screwing too much up!