This game is definitely one of these cult classics people only properly rediscover after a few years. Set in Paris during World War II, you play as an Irish car driver spurred to action against the Nazis after the death of his best friend. Said action involves a lot of explosions, gunfire, and cracked necks. All of these elements are fantastically put together - add Assassin's Creed style climbing, a dash of Hitman, and wrap it all an incredibly pulpy story, and you've got yourself a hell of a game. The story's very, very enjoyable and engaging, full of memorable setpieces - but if you're looking for a realistic, gritty take on French Resistance during WWII you probably should look somewhere else. It's not all perfect, of course. The game is slightly janky - unsurprisingly so, since Pandemic Games was never known for making perfectly polished products, and got unceremoniously killed off by Electronic Arts very soon after the game's release. The jank tends to mostly trend towards the weirdly charming kind, though - I can't recall stumbling upon any show-stopper bugs. Also, the vehicle handling is... perfectly serviceable. Despite these slight niggles, I'm still giving it 5/5 stars. Why? Not only is the game really fun to play, it also excels in the atmosphere department. The game employs a Sin City style black/white/vibrant accents color filter in territories you hadn't wrestled from Nazi control yet, giving off a sinister perpetual night time vibe. After conquering a territory, the constant night lifts, giving way to vibrant colors. A great soundtrack plays whenever you jump into a car - not always completely period accurate (a Leonard Cohen cover?) but always mood fitting. And on foot, you get accompanied by an ambient soundtrack that goes from wonderful slow, jazzy tunes in stealth and exploration to your standard period appropriate Nazi fightin' music when in combat. Get this. And GOG - thank you for bringing this game back for us all to enjoy!
If you're looking to buy this game, then you probably own the original Jagged Alliance 2. If you do, and want to experience the new maps and content, get the AIMNAS mod, installable on top of the famous 1.13. (version 21 is the latest complete one so far). If you don't, buy the original, play through it once (or just play enough to get a handle on the controls and stuff), and then install 1.13 and/or another of the numerous mods. You'll get better quality and more content for less money. Don't buy Wildfire.
This game is kind of a middle ground between true Role-Playing games, and the Squad-Based Tactics ones. It has almost all the RPG stuff the two first Fallout games had - unfortunately, the one thing that isn't in is the dialogue system (which also lead to the removal of the Speech skill). You just talk to people, listen what they have to say - sometimes you can also trade and/or gamble with them - and continue on your merry way. Fortunately, this rather large flaw is balanced out by the combat system. The combat is a massive improvement upon the previous Fallouts - you can change your stance to prone and crouch, set your troops to fire at will or not and also set a chance-to-hit percentage at which they'll start shooting. What's more, it' also possible to sacrifice a turn to enter the Overwatch mode, where the character will fire as soon as they see an enemy - useful when all the enemies are hiding. They can do the same, though. You can also choose between the real-time mode (where your action points replenish on their own when you're not doing anything), classic turn-based, which is what you had in Fallout 1 and 2, and squad turn-based, where your whole team can move at once. The weapons pack much more of a punch than they used to, so no more standing face to face with a bandit and emptying your pistol magazines until one of you hits the ground in a gruesome, hilariously over-the-top death animation (they're still around, though). There's a ton of status effects - from the regular stuff, like irradiation and crippled limbs, you can also get winded (which prevents you from running), concussed, blinded and so on. This makes the First Aid and Doctor skills much more useful. There are vehicles, too - ranging from the light buggy (which can only take one person, the driver) and the scout car, through an armored Hummer-alike, to an APC and even a tank (with a fully functioning cannon). You can fire from the vehicle - switching the combat mode to real time, giving everyone automatic weapons and switching them to fire at will anytime they see an enemy is a really satisfying and effective method to tackle the vehicle missions. The vehicles are available out of their missions, but unfortunately you cannot take them on a spin to some other maps - they'll simply disappear once you enter the map and appear again once you have finished the mission. The variety of weapons is really satisfying as well - there's tons of pistols, SMGs, Assault Rifles and so on. There are two problems with this, though. The first one is that the guns aren't really consistent with the lore of the series. You've got AK-47s, M16s, Beretta 92FSs and MP5s scattered over the wasteland. It's not really a big deal, though. The second is that there's a point fairly late in the game where your Small Guns cease to be useful, and you have to either switch to Big Guns or Energy weapons. I don't want to spoil why, but it is a problem (even if you modify the damage of the weapons). I just mentioned modifying the game - it's really easy to do, thanks to the editor which comes with the game. It's clear and easy to understand - just do what the editor readme file says and you'll be able to easily change the existing weapons, and even create your own from scratch! There's a map editor as well, if you want to create your custom campaign. All in all, FT is a brilliant game. If you like the Fallout universe and enjoy games like XCOM, Jagged Alliance and so on, you definitely should give it a spin. If you don't know a thing about them, you should play it nonetheless - despite all of the flaws listed above, it's still strangely satisfying to play. Maybe it's these death animations?
