Jagged Alliance 2

aka: Guerilla: Jagged Alliance 2, JA2
Moby ID: 356

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Critic Reviews add missing review

Average score: 87% (based on 31 ratings)

Player Reviews

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

I don't scream and cheer at many games. This one I did.

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.

Windows · by Kyle Levesque (904) · 2013

My favorite game!

The Good
This has to be my favorite game ever. It's a perfect mix of strategy and role-playing. You control a squad of up to 18 characters as they try to wrest control of Arulco from the evil dictator Deidranna and return the country to its former monarch. You take control of sectors on a map, gradually leading up to Deidranna's seat of power in Meduna. Along the way you combat green and elite troops, meet individuals who help you along the way and upgrade your units.

The game runs very smoothly on even low-end systems. There's no interface lag like in many other video games. The graphics are nice and the controls are functional. The sound, music and humour are also great! The tactical gameplay is superb and some of the best you'll find in any video game. I'd rate the tactical combat even higher than X-COM's. The interaction with characters and side-quests, while less prevalent than in some other role-playing games, is interesting and adds a nice break from the combat.

The Bad
The only complaint I can think of is the lack of multiple levels in structures as in X-COM. While it is possible to walk along the ground and climb on the roof of some buildings, multiple storeys within buildings would have been nice. The sci-fi aspects are also not so good.

The Bottom Line
Probably as close to perfect as any video game as ever come! The game is always interesting and never leaves you wanting to play something else.

Windows · by SharkD (425) · 2013

Mercs and guns and baddies, oh my!

The Good
Strategy, tactics, and a well thought out plan. This is what you need to play this game. X-COM was a lot of fun. The original Jagged Alliance was a blast. This game made me think in tactical terms for weeks (and still does from time to time). Jagged Alliance 2 is a rather large step up from the original in terms of scope, graphics, and all around gameplay.

The basic gist of things is that you have been hired by the ex-ruler of a country called Arulco. He is thought dead by its citizens and his ex-wife/queen of Arulco. Your job is to make contact with the rebels, and take the country back. You do this by hiring mercs and basically going to war with the country's army. This is a pretty basic plot, but there are so many side quests and extra NPC's and other things to keep your interest throughout the game.

One of the differences with this and the first game is that you can actually make yourself a merc in the game, instead of leading from some invisible command center. Depending on how you answer some questions, you will have certain abilities or quirks. Trust me, you WILL get attached to yourself. (Um... yeah. You know what I mean...) You hire your mercenaries from AIM (Association of International Mercenaries) by signing contracts (1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks) instead of just paying by the day. The mercenaries that you have access to are mostly new, with some returning from Jagged Alliance and Jagged Alliance:Deadly Games. While there are not as many as in the previous game, they all still have rather unique personalities. Some will simply not work with others, while some may go berzerk upon seeing the enemy. This was one of those things that I loved about the original. Personality. These are not mercs that you hire and use carelessly. Each one has their use in your team. When you lose one, you don't just feel it in the bank account...

As for weapons, there is a large selection that can be scrounged, stolen, looted or bought. There is even an option at the beginning of the game where you can use a larger range of weapons. There are handguns ranging from the Desert Eagle, to rifles such as the Colt Commando. Then of course there are the attachments. Bipods, scopes, silencers, even an underbarell grenade launcher!

The Bad
The AI in this game is very good. Sometimes too good. Even on the easy setting, the enemy is no pushover. The enemy will rarely fire a shot that they know will miss. Supposedly, this is due to the fact that the enemy always knows their chances of hitting, and will only fire when those chances are good. Its a fairly even trade-off to play on normal, so you can get the better guns earlier on. Like in any real-world conflict, weapon and armor quality mean a lot.

Another quirk is the line-of-sight. The manual states "you only see what your mercs see". There are some instances when you KNOW that they should see the enemy, but they don't. That and hiding behind trees/bushes is iffy. Sometimes it helps sometimes it doesn't.

My final gripe is damage rules. Some of those weapons should be dealing a lot more damage than they do. One shot to the head, maybe two should kill a man regardless of what kind of helmet they wear. Three! Four! I don't think so.

The Bottom Line
Jagged Alliance 2 is a very enjoyable game. Despite a few quirks here and there, it does provide a very good squad-tactics kind of game. Once again, I'll refer to that tactical great, X-COM. Anyone that enjoyed that game, will also enjoy this one.

Windows · by Narf! (132) · 2001

An outstanding update of the original

The Good
Jagged Alliance 2 takes the original Jagged Alliance and updates it with improved graphics, AI, bells and whistles, and everything else. If you're a fan of the original game, you'll feel right at home with the sequel (once you get used to the new interface, that is).

The gameplay is the same as the original: You guide a squad of mercenaries through a series of turn-based tactical combat missions. The updated game engine, however, provides exponentially more depth and variety than the original.

One of the interesting new developments is that you don't have the artificial time limit of playing only during the day. In the original game, your mercs hit the field at 5:00am and had to be finished by 5:00pm. In JA:2, you can play around the clock (assuming you have mercs available), and indeed some missions are particularly suited for night ops, using one or two stealthy mercs armed with knives and silenced pistols.

Your mercs also may have enhanced abilities with certain weapons or with non-combat skills. In the original Jagged Alliance, a skilled marksman was equally good with a pistol, a shotgun or an assault rifle. In JA:2, some of your mercs may be particularly adept with heavy weapons, or hand-to-hand combat, or night ops, etc. And they'll gain a bonus to their skill when the circumstances are appropriate. (Mercs with the Night Ops specialty, for example, see better in the dark than other mercs, and will therefore be more accurate with firearms.)

In addition to the combat aspects of the game, the non-combat "role playing" aspect has also been enhanced. The Jagged Alliance games have always touted themselves as "Role-playing Strategy" games. In the first game, the roleplaying was pretty limited, and mainly centered around the different personalities of your mercs. In JA:2, roleplaying has been enhanced by (A) the addition of a fully customizable merc that will join your squad for free; and (B) the ability to interact with NPCs, who can give you clues, quests, directions, misinformation, or simply background color.

In short, Jagged Alliance 2 is what a sequel should be: a game that captures the feel of the original game, but improves on the original to make a new, better game.

The Bad
My only complaints about JA:2 center around the absence of some non-critical features of the first game. For example, the original Jagged Alliance had voiceovers for the item descriptions, done in this smooth, mellow DJ announcer voice (don't know how else to describe it). It added nothing whatsoever to the gameplay, but it was fun to click on items and hear the guy say "A 10-bullet box of .357 ammo." or "A medical kit. It's almost half empty!" This feature is sadly lacking from Jagged Alliance 2.

Also, it's obvious that the sequel decided to get Serious(tm). In the original Jagged Alliance, you had a lot of competent, no-nonsense mercs, but you also had a lot of mercs that were clearly placed there for humor value. Pops and Moses were old geezers, Raffi was the "doctor" with no medical ability whatsoever, Reuben was the psycho who killed his whole family with an electric hedge trimmer, Tex was the Japanese guy who wanted to be a cowboy, etc. (And some of these humorous mercs actually turned out to be useful. Tex, for example, wasn't too bad of a merc for the start of the game, and if you used him heavily, his skills improved along with his level, allowing him to keep pace with the increasingly more challenging missions.)

Alas, in JA:2, you find that the humorous mercs have all left the A.I.M. roster. No more Raffi. No more Sparky. No more Vinny. No more Tex. They've either left A.I.M. for greener pastures, or retired, or resigned, or gotten killed, or were forced out for conduct violations. Their replacements are all serious, no-nonsense mercs who emphasize competence at the expense of humor. Again, this isn't something that affects gameplay (in fact, it probably improves it some since you don't have to worry about being saddled with flakes like Reuben and Raffi), but it's still something I miss.

The Bottom Line
Jagged Alliance 2 is a great, great game if you like turn-based strategic/tactical combat games.

Windows · by Afterburner (486) · 2001

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

One of the best squad-based combat games ever!

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.

Windows · by Frecklefoot (188) · 2004

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

Ugly mercenaries, great game

The Good
Graphics: Beautiful isometric 3D graphics (none of those silly polygons, mind you) with enough variation and well thought-out maps. Also nice rendered intro animation.

Sound: Talking mercenaries and NPC's (with really silly voice acting), only slightly annoying "combat music", and billiards of realistic sound effects.

Gameplay: JA2 lets you use any tactics you like to deal with the bad guys. Or not! - If you like, you can just have heaps of soldiers charge in head first with guns a-blazing, as opposed to all that boring stuff they teach in the army (and the myriad "stratagy giudes" you can read on the Internet).

Other stuff, just as important: Once you've gotten over the superb gameplay and presentation, you also start to notice the little things like the interesting sub-plots and all the not-so-important but well written background information on "Arulco", the different PC's and NPC's, and all the equipment.

The Bad
First of all, all through the game I expected "Hamous", the ice-cream truck thief to say "Me so horny", but he didn't! (Well, of course he didn't, but if the guy who did his voice had to fake such a preposterous accent, he really should have said "Me so horny".)

Second of all, you tend to miss a lot of the sub-plots and NPC's just because they don't show on the map screen and it really gets to be a pain in the arse just walking around on the real-time screens looking for people who might or might not be there.

The Bottom Line
Well balanced combat game - play the way you like to.

Windows · by Late (77) · 2001

Disappointing

The Good
Good graphics, the whole "personalize this and that" feature, good sfx and an attempt to keep old characters.

The Bad
This game is a complete insult to the original. It steps on all genius things from JA 1 and adds too many clichĂŠs and that nerdy feel that just keeps on and on in all "modern" games! How so? Well, for example, the voice talents and characters are so watered down they look and hear really cartoonish, when will game developers understand that a credible character and a believable voice talent make so much a difference just as a good or a bad actor does inside a movie!? Also the characters' relationship with others and personality traits don't matter much anymore as it used to in JA1, something that made the game be truly unique and added a fun strategy to deal with. Also the mobility and gameplay is completely different. JA1 made the player be in total control and gave you a great deal of free will, you could plan your strategy well and conquer your enemy step by step according to your strategy. JA 2 however, is way more linear, almost as if it would be a turn-based beat 'em up game with guns. The characters also seem weaker in the game and characters that used to be excellent mercenaries in the original game, now are soft and slow witted. Graphics in general are good, but really important thing such as the mercenaries faces are terribly cartoonish or simply unattractive.

The Bottom Line
Terrible Sequel, but can make a good game for players as a whole different game.

Windows · by andvari a (2) · 2007

Contributors to this Entry

Critic reviews added by Scaryfun, Jeanne, Cavalary, Zandan, Marko Poutiainen, Caliner, Rebound Boy, Patrick Bregger, Alaka, Klaster_1, PCGamer77, Wizo, Cantillon, Jess T, Tim Janssen, Plok, vedder, oct, Belboz, lights out party, Alsy.