Jagged Alliance 2

Jagged Alliance 2 is as good as turn-based strategy games get. Already the first JA game gave me nights of great gaming fun, as the game featured truly interesting mercenaries with own personalities, allowing the player to create a team with different specialities (explosives, marksman, doctor, etc.). JA 2 takes this successful storyline, but adds to it a much advanced gameplay. Turn-based strategy fights had never been better - even more successful RPGs like the Fallout series did not match the handling and functionalities of the JA2 battles (e.g. night missions, crouching/swimming/climbing, very intuitive shooting). Enjoy this pearl!

If you've ever seen the films "The Dogs of War" or "The Wild Geese" you already know what Jagged Alliance 2 is all about. You are a mercenary commander with a contract to free the tropical state of Arulco from the tyranny of a brutal dictator. To that end, you are given a sum of starting money, access to soldiers for hire, and an online (virtual) equipment store. The rest is up to you. The game is played on two levels. On the strategic level, you move your units on the map of Arulco, which is divided into numerous sectors, some of which contain valuable assets such as towns, airports and mines. At any time you can switch to the tactical level. Here you are confined to the sector your mercenaries are currently located in. If enemies are present, the game switches to turn-based mode, and this is where this game truly shines. Here you battle your enemies turn by turn in detailed combat. Everything influences the success of your mercenaries, from their abilities to the condition of their weapons to their stance and the time of day. But the game doesn't stop there. It als contains a deep role-playing game aspect that has your mercenaries gain experience and level up. You can train local militias to aid you in the defense of your conquered sectors. You can seize vehicles to travel around the country quicker. You can repair your equipment or built new gadgets. etc. etc. Jagged Alliance is one of the most ingenious game designs ever devised, the this second installment represents the very best the entire genre of turn-based tactis has to offer. A timeless classic that has not in 13 years been met, much less surpassed.

I started playing this game when it game out as a teenager. I only play such games on the hardest settings with no hints, and last night I finally closed it out with tears streaming from my eyes! Hah, there were breaks over the decades of course. What an adventure. It comes down to taste when your picking greatest turn/squad based strategy games. This is mine. Though! I must say, there are some flaws. Read interviews from the developers\publishers as this game was coming out. They were closing down shop complety.. tragically. There are some epic ironies as they talk about other companies that were similarly doomed... like... Bethesda. This shows in the game. If this game was given more time and love, especially with the story and end game tactics, this would likely be the greatest game of all time. It has 1900's Russian novel vibes - it's hilarious, it's tragic', it's brutal, at times real, at times ridiculous. But! It does fizzle out.. there are no memorable end game interactions, and your characters accuracy seems to get a bit odd in the final stages. All and all, what can I say. This game is legendary, though I do wish the publishers understood they had a pot of gold in their hands. If they had stuck with it, the gaming world would be quite different today.

I am a huge fan of the original Jagged Alliance and tried to get into this game two or three times before but gave up because of a bit of a learning curve to the user interface and also that the game tends to crash on new systems. To fix the compatibility issues, do yourself a favor and download "Jagged Alliance 2 Stracciatella," which is a collection of libraries you feed the files of the game that you download here and then runs it with wonderful compatibility with new systems, including MacOS X, which is what I am playing it on. Lifesaver! Also, once you actually learn the interface and some of the game mechanics (just look up Jagged Alliance 2 fan wiki), this game is an absolute masterpiece and the interface is actually a joy to use. This has quickly become one of my favorite games of all time, the design is simply a work of love, starting from the vision the designer had, to the wonderfully drawn animations, and attentional to detail, the personalities of all the mercs that took a lot of time and creativity. One of the things I love most about how Jagged Alliance was designed was how you run into unique events during the storyline (during the first game, without saying anything too explicitly, the kidnapping, the picking up of delivered crates, the illness etc.), (during this 2nd game there are even more really fun sidebits that have that wonderful Jagged Alliance sense of humor). Can't say enough good things about this :)

My last playthrought was with "Wildfire" 15 years ago, and in my memory the game was very unstable and bugged. To my surprise, this version is very stable, it didn't crash or freeze once in the 50+ hours of my playthrough on Windows 10. Soundtrack and atmosphere are amazing, the graphics are obviously not up to date, but solid and aged better than 3D games of that time. Some fights in the early stages of the game take a bit too long, due to weak marksmanship and no precise weapons, but with high wisdom your soldiers learn very quick. One of the best turn-based tactic games, and still worth playing.