Jagged Alliance 2: Unfinished Business

After playing and finishing Jagged Alliance 2, i decided to write a quick review - praising JA2 (and rightfully so) for the abundance of positive aspects this Turn Based Tactics title possessed. Playing that game on the hardest difficulty with Iron Man mode enabled was not only viable and very much possible, it was also ENTERTAINING despite obviously being difficult. The original game provided a real challenge, but the freedom of choice in JA2 also gave players some much needed breathing space, allowing various strategies and approaches in order to finally defeat Deidriana. In other words, JA2 was well balanced, a property that JA2 UB does not have by a long shot. So as mentioned earlier, after finishing JA2 on Expert Diffuclty with Iron Man Mode, i wanted to do the same thing for Unfinished Business... Let me tell you, if you plan on doing this also - save yourself some time and nerves. JA2 UB just takes the original game and its assets and squeezes the hell out of them with repetitious and gruelling combat. We basically get about a dozen maps where we are severely outgunned and outmanned by camping enemy troops and every battle becomes nothing more than a chore. Get ready to save and load a few dozen times for every battle, because JA UB was not scripted to have balanced enemies - rather it has passive enemies that are waiting in shadows to kill your mercs and urinate on their still barely warm corpses. There isn't much new when it comes to the additions for this expansion pack either. We have a few funny NPC's, a new map (a very small one) and 9 new guns,3 of which for some reason (i still ponder to this day) are wacky, odd Calico 9mm pistols in a handgun, rifle and smg configuration. How do you add 9 guns with 3 of them being sucky, puny Calico's is beyond me. By the end of the game,after you kill the Barrett wielding antagonist, you will genuinely breathe out with relief that you can finally uninstall this game. JA 2 UB is a clanky expansion for a great TBS.

People who say "don't buy this, buy JA2" aren't right. Yes this is short on its own, but there are fantastic mods, like Rubicon (my favorite JA2 mod ever) that extends the original campaign, or Vietnam SOG, and others. I had at least as much fun with this as with regular JA2.. at least.

I remember playing this years ago immediately after wrapping up JA2 and found this one really short. Unlike JA2 with tons of little side locations to liberate, NPC characters to talk to (convince locals to help you, find an NPC to chopper you around), different ways to enter sectors (I'll cut through this swamp to stay off the road and dodge their forces!), and a large meta game overlaid on the map (build up security forces, mine for gold, hidden events, eliminate anti-air batteries to chopper your forces around), this one lacked almost all of that. One of the biggest issues I had was there was only like 18 sectors and a few underground bits. It played out a lot more linearly, compared to JA2's ~15x15 grid -- definitely over a 100 sectors to find some interesting bits in. There were still NPCs to talk to, mostly merchants, but I found it didn't compare to JA2. The earliest JA2 choice you make concerns mercs -- you can hire up to 18 of them for daily/weekly/monthly contracts. Want to field a comedic 18 soup-sandwiches for 3 months? Go ahead--all missed shots you'll quickly discover you should have hired 6 medium rate mercs. This leads into the RPG elements a little bit more -- your mercs can level up and gain skills as the game progresses. The main key issue JA2UB has: you can only hire 6 mercs indefinitely for the duration of the mission -- a sign that this isn't necessarily balanced for longer gameplay. In addition, you'll receive late-game items fairly early which kind of ruins that feeling of longer progression. One last thing: JA2 had all major NPCs fully voiced. JA2's main antagonist had actual cutscenes whenever you liberated towns or major victories, berating her assistants. JA2UB's had text over the commander. Overall, it's not bad -- it's just a compressed version of JA2 but should definitely be enjoyed after.

I've heard some mixed reviews from people on this game. Mostly positive. Now, I have been playing this game since all the way back in the DOS days with Deadly Games. Jagged Alliance 2 was a huge improvement over the original. So much detail and nuance was added to the game engine. I always thought it was sad that there was no campaign editor or continuation of the series after that...or so I thought. Now, many fans are aware of the two sided story between the Russian game company and Sirtech. Sirtech was very disappointed with Wildfire to say the least. This new addition, Unfinished Business, I didn't even hear about! When I replayed JA2, I found this game. The game itself is a worthy addition to the series. Exactly what I wanted. More JA2. However, it's not just more JA2. They put all kinds of new guns in this game. The most satisfying of which is a Barret .50 M82A2 Sniper rifle. Man, I love that gun! At first, the game seems like it is going to be very, very short. Instead, it's deceptively long compared with what you initially think. In fact, the game is very surprising. You get a JA1 style "Mickey the arms dealer" type of deal once you get into town(If you can...it's really hard to start this mission!). The arms dealer is not nearly as endearing as the venerable IRA style Mickey. The main challenge I found in this game was medical kits and healing up. I found it was necessary to use a medic with better fighting abilities to survive. This was Thor. Anyway, overall, I would say this game is VERY worth playing. Especially if you love JA2. Normally, I don't like turn based combat games like this. Sirtech definitely did something cool and unique. Playing this even in 2021 it holds up as a great game! Goes to show you that a good game will almost always be good.

It's a good standalone expansion, many hours of gameplay, loads of new items. You get to choose your own specialty with the character creator unlike JA2 where you had to choose a bunch of answers. It's a pretty hard game in my opinon, even during night missions. Most of the opponents got night vision goggles,..some even got UV goggles so watch it. All in all, I'd say, get this game. It's alot of fun and there is some replaybility even though it's short compared to JA2.