Jagged Alliance

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Description

The land of Metavira needs your help! Contract additional mercenaries as you explore, capture, and hold new territories so the natives can harvest the valuable trees from which a revolutionary medicine can be extracted. The more trees you hold, the more money you make. The more money you have, the more you can do, such as hire native guards, hire more mercs, in order to take the offense and clear the sector of enemies. You will also need to retrieve certain objects from behind enemy lines, rescue captured personnel, capture equipment, and more. Hire a good mechanic in order to get your equipment and guns repaired, and to "enhance" them with various add-ons. Travel through lush jungles, treacherous rivers (with venomous snakes!), and more as you seek to free Metavira. Eventually, you'll meet up with the bad guys' leader in his compound for the final showdown...

Jagged Alliance is a turn-based tactical combat game with a mixture of strategy, reminiscent of X-Com games. On the "strategic view", you get to see the various sectors of Metavira. You start with just one sector, with a few trees for your income. You need to hold more sectors in order to increase the number of trees you hold, which will increase your income. You can hire or fire mercs.

Each merc can move, shoot or perform any of the other actions as long as they still have action points. Each of the mercenaries have their own personality. Some work well with others, others don't. You'll need shooters (both long and short guns), explosive experts (to set or disarm bombs/traps), mechanics/gunsmiths (to fix and modify your equipment), and doctors/nurses (to heal wounded mercs). Each merc has a different price, so you'll need to balance what you can afford vs. what you need. You will have to manage the equipment as well.

If you move into an enemy-held sector, the game moves to combat mode, where you get an overhead slightly-isometric turn-based tactical combat that's based on "action points", which limits the number of actions each merc can perform. You can do this, or that, but not both. The action continues until the sector is no longer contested (either one side got wiped out, or retreated to another sector, or both).

After the sector is clear, you can call in native guards to "hold" the sector (you need to pay for them as well) as well as hire more natives to process the "new" trees. You will also need to get the mercs to the homebase if any one was wounded, and let the doctor/nurse treat them. Idle mercs at the base can train to improve their ratings. Some scripted events and some random events will keep you busy such as poisoned water, a virus that attacks the trees, the kidnapped daughter of a chief, and others.

So to summarize, you need to manage the mercs (and their salary), their equipment (who gets what), arrange for backup (mercs at base) and medical treatment (doctor/nurse) while taking into account their personalities and strengths. You also need to manage the strategic aspects as you need to "conquer" each sector and then send enough guards to hold the sector after you retrieve the mercs. You manage the money as you need to balance the expenditures (mercs, equipment, guards, natives, etc.) against the income (the trees). You also get to manage the tactical aspects of the battle as you decide each move and shot. A full complement of mercenary supplies (from revolvers to M-16s, plus bombs, grenades, mines, flak jackets, helmets, and more) are available.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Alternate Titles

• "铁血联盟" -- Simplified Chinese spelling
• "Jagged Alliance: Kampf um Metavira" -- German title

Part of the Following Groups

• Gameplay feature: Squad management
• Jagged Alliance series

User Reviews

The most unjustly underappreciated game of all time.	DOS	Afterburner (496)
I didn't like it as much as most people...	DOS	John Lucas (13)
A Verbally Gifted X-COM	DOS	Narf! (138)
Holiday Island? Not at all.	DOS	Isdaron (726)
Playing JA1 in 2001?	DOS	Daniel Martin (17)

Critic Reviews

MikroBitti	DOS	Jun, 1995	94 out of 100	94
Computer Gaming World (CGW)	DOS	Jul, 1995		90
PC Games (Germany)	DOS	Jun, 1995	90 out of 100	90
PC Gamer	DOS	Jul, 1995	89 out of 100	89
Power Play	DOS	Jun, 1995	88 out of 100	88
Pelit	DOS	May, 1995	87 out of 100	87
PC Joker	DOS	Jun, 1995	80 out of 100	80
PC Player (Germany)	DOS	May, 1995	76 out of 100	76
Cheat Code Central	Nintendo DS	2009	3.3 out of 5	66
IGN	Nintendo DS	Jul 08, 2009	4.6 out of 10	46

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Trivia

German version

For the German version, the Association of International Mercenaries A.I.M. was renamed to I.V.S., short for "Internationale Vereinigung der Söldner". The game's sequels, however, stuck with the A.I.M. notation.

Speech pack

According to a sale offer placed in the manual, Sir-tech planned to release a speech pack as a floppy version add-on back in 1994, although the official website doesn't contain such a product.

Awards

• Computer Gaming World
  • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #114 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
• GameStar (Germany)
  • Issue 12/1999 - #52 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
• Power Play
  • Issue 02/1996 – Best Game in 1995