Jagged Alliance 2

The Good

• Voice acting.

• Sense of immersion into enemy territory.
• Variation in difficulty.
• Lots of nerdy weapons.
• Rewards tactical thinking.

**The Bad**

• Can play a little slow.
• Level editor is crap.
• Graphics are clunky.
• Enemy AI can vary.

**The Bottom Line**
I'm not a graphics snob, but when the game-play of Jagged Alliance 2 started up my heart sank a little. I could not imagine getting too involved or invested in these ‘jagged’ graphics. The interface didn’t help – it seemed clunky and awkward. You see, I’d played ‘Fallout Tactics’ just prior to this, and regardless of whether that’s a good ‘Fallout’ game, it is a sight prettier and slicker looking than this one. Thankfully I powered through the initial awkward phase, and as a reward I got to know a game that can provide some emotional highs and dramatic moments – not because of masterful story writing – but because of the hair-raising tension that unfolds via the player’s actions. I’m not usually the one to scream ‘Yes!’ and pump my fist in excitement; nor to swear and bang a keyboard, but this game had me doing both. I was screaming stuff like “Swim you fat old f#$%!”, “You die and I’ll KILL you!”, or “Ohhh! RIGHT in the HEAD!” I was bugging co-workers with tales of my exploits in a game 13 years old. I know you’re looking at those screenshots and thinking ‘it doesn’t look like much’, so was I, but it’s the actual game-play that gets to you. As silly as those ‘orange garbage bag shirt’ guys look, you will come to loathe them. The Atmosphere
The atmosphere is the most important ingredient in this game. A lot of games try to create atmosphere, try to convey feeling, but are restricted by their own interface. Let’s look at a sports game, a hockey game – Up until recently, you had to play as whoever had the puck on one side. It doesn’t really re-create the feeling of being a hockey player. Even when you enable a ‘career’ mode and you play as just one guy on the team it is frustrating because of your lack of control. This is a failing to establish convincing and dramatic atmosphere. Jagged Alliance 2 does not fail in atmosphere, because it is a pervasive simulation of being a group of mercenaries in a hostile country. There is no break from this, it is constant. Your enemies will continue to come for you; whether you need to sleep, heal, lick your wounds – is of no consequence to them. They are the many, and you are the few. They will not wait for you to come to them, they will not sit idle while you take their territory. You’ll think you know their measure, and then they’ll take back a site from you, using shock troopers that mow down your militia guards with ease. You’ll push forward into a sector, and be pushed to retreat – only to find more enemies at your rear – caught with men who are tired and low on morale. You’ll watch your mines dry up, your income cease, knowing that the day you can’t pay your men the war is over. So trust me when I say the graphics are unimportant. Trust me when I say that your men will be true characters, and whether you love them or find them annoying you’ll sell their lives dearly. Trust me when I say you’ll get angry at your masses of pixels being unfairly slaughtered by a lucky shot. That you’ll cheer when a hated enemy bleeds out, his life worth less than the precious ammo he’s carrying. All you’ve got is cash and a laptop. You need to fly in people and supplies, it takes time. Time is not your friend. Never in a game have I felt so restricted by the reality of time, the need to train militia, the need to heal your men, the restriction of having only one helicopter, and the ever present knowledge that your enemy is recovering and hunting for you… The Game-Play Mechanics This game does things that you won’t rightfully expect from something that looks so choppy. I didn’t even suspect that I could blow a hole through any building’s wall with a bomb or a missile launcher. I didn’t realize that any fence is only an obstacle to those without wire-cutters or a grenade. I thought the throwing knife was an obligatory gimmick, I couldn’t imagine how titillating it would be to watch it sail silently 10 metres through the air and cut into the face of a nearly bullet-proof opponent – to watch this dread foe stagger back and fall off a roof to his death. Locked door? Can’t pick it? Blow it up! Metal door you can’t blow up? Blow the wall up! Learning your options and applying them intelligently (or rashly) is one of the most rewarding parts of the gameplay mechanic. The items system is deceptively useful. Most guns can have multiple attachments – red dot sights, scopes, under-slung 40mm grenade launchers, tri-pod. You can switch out barrels and springs to create harder hitting automatic weapons! Just because it isn’t flashy looking it’s easy to underestimate the power and versatility here. Ricochets are not just a sound effect here, they can and will kill. Cover isn’t some ½ wall gimmick either, it is essential for survival. If you’ve read up on commando tactics you had best apply them, they’ll save your life. The sheer amount this game knows about the reality of battle is amazing – the demoralizing effect of seeing dead bodies of comrades, the thirst for water in battle, even how much of an advantage firing from behind a copse of pines can give you! The core mechanics are the heart and soul of the game-play. The dread of having a break-light (glowstick) fall near your party in a night mission is terrifying! Shots ring from the darkness, they hit you and you can’t hit back! Characters Having just played Fallout Tactics I wasn’t expecting too much other than archetype’s in the characters department. My perception from the ‘interview’ screen when hiring them didn’t rise my expectations too much either. You see, when it comes down to it, they’re just an amalgamation of statistics and feats. But after a few missions you won’t feel that way anymore. You begin to expect certain things from them, you begin to get to know them and what they can and cannot do. Some of them will frustrate and anger you; I remember a character named ‘Grizzly’ missing almost every shot he took, and getting severely wounded in every encounter. That’s no small deal, as healing a character takes a lot of downtime and effort, it isn’t a ‘use item’ heal, it takes hours of surgery and recovery. It took a long time and a lot of leveling up before he was more competent in a fire-fight, but he was also the only one on my team who could crow-bar open almost any door or locker I wanted into. On the contrary, another character named ‘Blood’ was always the star of my squad, even above my own avatar. Blood always had twice as many kills as anyone else, and it was Blood who made that knife shot to the head. Blood was also a talented martial artist, taking down heavily armed enemies with spinning round-house kicks to the head or a silent knife kill. I would often pair Blood with ‘Hitman’, an older character who was also good with a throwing knife but was out of shape. He’s the guy I was yelling “Swim you old f#$@” at, because he floundered and drown in a river due to his poor shape and heavy load. Where Hitman shined brightest was in training militia troops to hold the ground I took, he was a natural teacher. The Characters BECOME what you MAKE OF THEM. I made Blood into a paragon of victory because I used him as one. I could have done that with anyone I applied properly. I made my lady doctor into a dread sniper because I adapted her to the role. It’s that dual attachment of both being presented with and shaping a character that endears them to you. Short-comings No game is without flaw, and this is no exception. The only weakness here I feel are the graphics, which were honestly pretty par for the times. Everything they DID with the graphics surprised me, I’d visit battlefields from a few days ago and see vultures picking off the corpses of the men I’d killed. Pixelly vultures, but still – that’s neat. Bottom Line: This is a really good game to play for set periods of time (an hour and a half) at a time over a few months. You’ll be thinking about it at work, you’ll want to think before you act, it’s more rewarding intellectually than something that’s just visually pleasing.