Jagged Alliance 2

The greatest tactics game ever made, you have to experience this to understand just how amazing it really is. Massive game (especially with the v1.13 mod) with so many possibilities, tactics and characters. Truly the pinnacle of military tactics games rivalled only by the original XCOM series.

Your team is holed up in a small house surrounded by heavily armed villains. You are VASTLY outnumbered. They are closing in. Peering & shooting through windows, storming through the front door. And even though you use your Quickload button to make sure every bullet finds a head, you are slowly forced to retreat towards the only room without windows: the bathroom. Can you hold your ground... the bathroom, that is? Great times.

I have been a fan of JA2 since it was first released, and it is one of the few games I keep going back to even after having completed it more than a dozen times. Where many of my other old favorites are hard on the eyes with their crude 3D graphics, I believe Sir-Tech made a brilliant choice with the cartoonish animation approach, as it still comes of as seamless and gentle to both the eyes and the ears (As long as you remember to mute Ira!). It is in fact so great that fans around the world are still developing mods and improvements to the game in order to improve realism and increase difficulty. So the first thing you should do after buying this, is to download the unofficial 1.13 version. Furthermore I would also recommend going to Bear's Pit community on ja-galaxy-forum.com and find the latest build of compiled mods. This will give you the latest improvements from the most hardcore fans.

I installed this game on three seperate somewhat modern computers (one was actually 10 years old, which is still 10 years younger than the game itself ;) the two others were a laptop that i use for work (lower/mid range) and a gaming laptop (high end). I managed to make it work smoothly on all three, so with a little bit of googling and some 15-20 minutes of work, you should be able to make it work correctly, with no framerate drops. It was easy for me - and i'm no computer expert - so it shouldn't be hard for you, unless you're really unlucky. :::::::::::::::::::::::: and booooy, is it worth it! The game still has it! It's amazing, how you sit down to some of the old wonderfull titles with your nostalgia goggles and they pop right of your face when you see how the game doesn't stand up to today standards at all - but not JA2. The story is fun and interesting, nicely balancing it's serious and quirky tones (something that Sri-Tech were always very skilled at), the strategy is still on a decent level (especially on the higher difficulties - but be warned, they can be killer!) and it manages to be enjoyable throughout. It might get a bit tedious at times though, so be warned - don't put your Napoleon hat to all of the battles, because some of them can be easily rushed with a big and strong enough crew (and then healed quickly at Cambria). What this game does best though, are those little touches, that turn a good TBS into a magical experience. A surprise interaction between characters here, a fun NPC there, some hidden mechanics that you may not even notice the frist time you play through, maybe a completely reduntant (yet hillarious) in-game website that you can unlock via links... there's seemingly an unending supply of small yet interesting additional content, that didn't need to be in the game, but is there nonetheless. And it all makes the game impossible not to love.

Honestly, if you like modern games like XCOM, give this a chance. Story, humor, art.