Metacritic score of 59: https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/jagged-alliance-rage! (max 80, min 30)
I've seen worse.

I was trying to get information without having to search the rest of the 'net. I guess that was stupid of me. The only review on gog is the usual troll review, by the person who specializes in troll reviews. This thread isn't any help, either.

The other site's reviews, even the positive ones, paint a pretty clear picture, though. Not a game I'm interested in, especially since I would have to put effort into making it work at all on Linux. Some of the key elements that bother me are the whole "old mercenaries" bit with their extra baggage, their decision of what are the "favorite" mercs (apparently only 7 of them, most of which I probably never used myself), small maps, lack of skill points, "missions" rather than "encounters" on a map, lack of a custom merc, but especially that whole "old mercenaries" thing.

Of course I also have little faith in programmers who can't be bothered to do network multiplayer without Steam holding their hands, even though I don't play multiplayer myself.

Grimoire is a better Jagged Alliance game than this!

Quite the release-a-ma-doo it seems.

*edit*: nothing to see here, sorry.

Hm, I remember this game on Kickstarter. When it popped up yesterday here I was glad, but surprised to learn that fans have such a strong aversion reaction to it, which is never a good sign, but for which I thank you - you saved my money.

Will withhold the purchase for now, maybe I will buy it later, if it is gonna improve.

I know nothing about the game. But there seems to always a bunch of whiners to be found no matter what the game is...
Just saying that sometimes it's not worth listening to the critique. Sometimes it's helpful. Deciding which is worth listening is harder these days...

Well if the following reviews are true, then I guess I can understand why people are getting tired of dumbing down established franchises "for the casual audience":-

- "Everything we loved is gone - the custom merc we got to make, the huge choice of mercenaries (there are SEVEN total in this game), the militia training, the chopper, the used gun shop, the detailed artwork, the laptop with all the extra value features, actually managing income/salaries/gear. Everything that made Jagged Alliance a deep and rewarding experience is missing in this game"

- "Limited to two mercs instead of having multiple squads of up to 6 mercs. Small maps and repetition depending on how you play. Another thing that is incredibly stupid is the fact that its turn based out of combat. Ruins the fluidity of the gameplay when sneaking around. There's no "real time free roam" outside of combat anymore".

- "Weapon degradation, an awesome feature implemented so badly. How many modern assault rifles stop working every 3 shots?"

- "There is so much wrong here, from bad design choices (no sector looting, laborious "maintenance" of your soldiers) to balancing issues (item durability, thirst, armour and damage) to simple bugs (line of sight issues, crashes, AI droputs) that I very much doubt that Rage will ever become the game it tries to be".

Honestly if JA2 were like that I'd have dumped that too.

Thanks, I read through the entire thread just cos I wanted to know WHY the game sucks. Normally if a bad game is released on GOG, you will find someone posting actual reasons before the 3rd page. I'm guessing this game triggers the GOG community so badly they can't make useful posts.

Edit: Okay, second page, not third page. Gamesfreak64 did post a link to reviews on why this game is bad on the second page

Okay now it just sounds bad... :D
Me too. Wait, I did!
Maybe some day...

And sometimes reviewer can genuenly like the game.

I see what you're saying, it's not a problem limited to big gamers either. Have you ever played a game that had massive potential but was let down severely by a few game mechanics? A game you want to like so much but just can't? Games with both really good and really bad aspects are hard to rate sometimes people want to focus on the good (though others do tend to focus on the negatives). Here's a few of mine

Dragon Age: Origins, I loved the world, the way it was presented, how the characters acted (mostly) the fact most choices were not black and white etc but the relentless combat made playing the game a slog, even when you put the difficulty on easy.

X-Rebirth had some very ambtious ideas behind it, it looked beautiful but was very dull to play. The controls were also wonky if you were playing with a joystick. If you were using a joystick and moved the mouse, the joystick cuts out for a second.

Far Cry 2 had an excellent setting, a very believable conflict between two factions which were as bad as each other and some very fun weapons to use. but it was let down by the respawning enemies, unbalanced loadout system and nonsensical narrative.

Beyond Good and Evil is an excellent game but is very frustrating to play with a Keyboard and Mouse. The PC version doesn't support the gamepad either and makes the console versions considerably better.

I could go on. But this is why I like reviews that actually mention both the positives and negatives of a game. Reviews like "This game is garbage, why is it even on GOG" or "This game rocks, buy in nao!!!" are useless. But I can see if you bring the negatives to light on a game people like, people are going to downvote you, especially when such things are viewed as an attack on their nostalgia.