As the title says, I removed the game from my HD once I finished the game. Took me like an hour or so. The strategic game is a bit boring and repetitive but alright but the controls setup for keyboard in the mini games make them cumbersome to play. You definitely need a game pad. I missed the good old music/sounds from the original game from back in the 80's.
Man, don't know where to start. Just have a look at the characters and their portraits to start with and it screams "amateuristic designers" all over the place. In no way do they represent the good old characters from the first 2 JA games. It's an insult seeing Shadow, Ice and Magic this way; the latter looking like a freaking mime player. What about Raven? She a freaking housewife now? Fidel looks like a drunken sailor instead of an Arabian terrorists/bomb expert but hey.. political correctness took over. The game mechanics are obnoxious and the storyline a complete mess. The AI cheats and there is just very little resemblance with the original games. The interrupt system is broken and they borrowed some stuff from the Commando games which don't work here. Graphics are meh, voices are downright annoying and NOT funny. It's all to clear this amateurstic studio and it's publisher never ever played the original games and did not have a clue what Jagged Alliance should look nor feel like. Such a shame this once brilliant franchise has been molested by some barely known studio. That is asking for trouble and it shows...
Personally I like HOMM2 better due to it's catchy artwork (this one is more dark) but nonetheless it shares the same classic gameplay which is great. Everything that came after this went downhill.
This edition is the best in the entire franchise to me. It stays true to it's original DNA from the very first Setllers but with enhanced graphics and a very challenging campaign with great replay value. Unfortunately ever since Ubisoft took over Settlers, no other game that came after offered the same game play and atmosphere. The graphics still > many other games that are developed almost 20 years later and the music is simply stunning and beautiful. I'm one of the lucky few to get my hands on the Vikings expansion, including English voice over. The Viking campaign is a lot tougher but equally fun to play and replay over and over again. Now just waiting for Pioneers of Pagonia to be released, which tries to go back to the roots of the Settlers series; something Ubisoft failed to deliver.
