User Rating: 8.9 | Jagged Alliance 2 PC
This is the Half-Life of turn-based tactical strategy. Of all of the dozens of games I've played, this is the one I've replayed the most (six months solid, at one point). Published in '99, the graphics are crap now, and the sound is nothing to write home about, but every other cylinder is here and firing great. When I play a fun RPG or strategy game today, it will inevitably occur to me at some point to compare it to JA2 (and almost nothing measures up). The Gamespot review provides most of the plot and gameplay details. Below are my own summaries of some of the game's high points. CHARACTERS: Building your own team of mercs is very well done. This isn't Ghost Recon, crunching math on a calculator to figure out which team members' stats add up to the best marksmanship+heavy weps+whatever. What you really care about is, who can you afford, and will they get along with everyone else. Once you have a team that likes each other (i.e., no fighting, climbing morale, etc.), then you can train (in and out of battle) and equip virtually anyone into a terrific soldier. Watching that peasant you recruited on Day 4 turning slowly into one of your point men by Day 70 is a fun, challenging, painless process. Plus, and definitely one of my favorite things about JA2 (and something that is blown miserably in every other TBTS game I've played): the character growth system is very realistic and fun. It works more like an RPG, where you actually have to use the skill/attribute to develop it (instead of, say, giving skill points away at the end of each mission). But unlike most RPGs, there is little incentive to camp out and grind levels (e.g., by shooting cans and tree over and over again). The difficulty of the sectors you enter grows steadily but not steeply, so you have great incentive to just learn by doing... WEAPONS/ITEMS: There are a ton of weapons, all enthusiastically though not always entirely accurately modeled. There are also lots of items to buy, win, find, or build (e.g., weapon enhancements that increase range or rate of fire), again adding a simple but fun RPG flavor. Weapons degrade and can be repaired. Collecting enemy equipment, repairing it, and selling them to pay for new ones is a very rewarding process. I liked how the items kept you interested in the maps and quests without disturbing the fast pace (unlike many RPGs). I've replayed the game dozens of times and still haven't found or built all the items... MAPS AND QUESTS: The best thing about the map is that even though the major landmarks are always the same (e.g., the army base is in the same spot, the airports, the SAM sites, etc.), the enemy placement is randomized, giving the hot spots great replayability. There are a number of smaller side quests, a number of which have effects on how you are treated in other parts of the country (e.g., how easy it is to train militia in the towns you have captured). One stand-out feature (and something terribly implemented by later games like Fallout Tactics and Silent Storm), is how the enemy patrols moving through the world map give every cross-country trek a unique feel: most of the time, you can see a patrol moving (although not always how big/strong it is), so you can arrange an ambush by getting in its path (allowing you to arrange your men in the tactical map before they arrive), dodge it by making a potentially exhausting detour, or charge straight in. The 200+ sectors are different enough that each of these encounters feels unique. (By way of comparison, the 2004 TBTS game Silent Storm only has a few "random" encounters that wait for you in plain view in the same spot on every map and which recycle a half-dozen small maps for the battles.) The fact that you can drop from the strategic map into the tactical level on any sector, battle or not, and often find side quests or clues or items just makes for a far, far better experience than any other game in the genre, previous or since. SUMMARY: A great turn-based squad-level tactical-strategy game with simple but well-implemented RPG-like elements. Graphics are now very dated. Similar games: Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel (2001); Silent Storm (2004); X-Com: UFO Defense (1995). See my Gamespot reviews for FOT:BOS (fun) and S2 (pretty but very weak).
