Jagged Alliance 2 is a turnbased tactical strategy roleplaying game with the goal to free the state of "Arulco" of its evil Queen Deidranna. It is widely cited as the best of its genre even today and other than most titles of the era, is just as playable today as back in the day. Even the graphics are still pretty to look at, thanks to the rich details of the cities and landscapes, the smooth animation and everything in the game looking distinguishable from each other, even if it does not have to. There are for example tons of unique looks to the standard red-shirt Soldier that you will face as the main enemy, showing off his body strengh, weapon, different skin and haircolor and even camouflage. During the gameplay you will free different cities to earn money for weapons and Mercenaries, each one with its own Personality, Stats, Equipment and fully voiced. You can even make your own one at the beginning of the game. The difficulty, number of weapons or realism of the game is tweakable to your personal desire, its easily approachable, never too complicated and supports every style you want to use. The Controls are thought out and very easy to understand, even though there are tons of things to do you can play the whole game only with a mouse and nothing else. You can use keyboard shortcuts, but you dont have to. The Gameplay consists of two Parts. Part One plays out on the overview map, on which one moves Mercenaries between sectors of a grid based map, trains Mercs or Milita in free cities or visits the "World Wide Web". There you can hire new Mercenaries, buy weapons, repair your items or read emails concerning ingame Events. Most Mercs have people they like or dislike and tasks they prefer, as well as unique reactions to many situations or PCs and NPCs. The Meat of the Game however is the second Part. And that one is HUGE! With Mercs in a sector, you will at first move them around in real time. You can talk to people, buy stuff from local shops, build your own equipment from junk, buy a car to get around faster, pick locks to enter civilian homes, find clues to secret places, equip your mercs, visit the whorehouse or get some extra missions. Should one of your soldiers then spot an enemy , or an enemy see or hear you, it will change to tactical turn based combat. Unlike any other game I have ever played, Jagged Alliance 2 has this part FULLY REALISED. First off, you have three different stances. Standing, crouching and lying on the ground. You can move and shoot in all of these stances, but a rocket launcher or throwing a grenade will require you standing. You can also hide behind rocks and bushes or climb on a flat roof, aim, using more or less Action Points each round to shoot more precisely or more often, sneak around, run or walk and a whole lot more. You can apply camouflage and boost your own ability too see during day(sunglasses), night(nightvision googles) or hear(headphone with sound enhancing). You can shoot, stab or punch, use tear gas, mustard gas or explosive grenades or even use rocket launchers and Dynamite. Using Explosives or Rocket launchers will alter the landscapes for the rest of the game, as you blast away walls with enemies behind them or to make a new route and your enemies will do the same. And thats the most fun part, as you can use one merc with camouflage and silenced machine guns to sneak through the night and kill the enemy without him ever noticing you were there or go in guns blazing with as many guys you like, to lay waste to the houses and blow the enemy out of his holes. You may even combine the two and flank the enemy with your stealthy merc. That part never gets old and as you progress and your Mercenaries get better at the tasks they do, so do the enemies. You will get tons of new weapons and recruit some unique NPCs, but the enemy will send better equipped troups too and has many unique NPCs in his ranks to make the Combat more personal. By the end of the game you may have fought Giant Tigers(Blood Cats), four kinds of soldiers, a ton of NPCs, a whole different army of a another party in the Land, tanks and of course the queen and her personal assistants. If you activated the Science Fiction Mode of the Game, there will even be 4 types of giant Alien Cockroaches and a big Mother-Alien type thing. You will have freed cities , build up a milita and fought alongside them agains invading enemy forces. You will have met many colorful NPCs with sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but always good storys and personalitys. You will have discovered tons of weapons and Items and trained your mercs in all kinds of things, including bandaging, lock picking, kicking in doors, using explosives, shooting, etc. and freed cities and anti Air bases, get captured only to free yourself again... or maybe you will miss half of the stuff from this list because your style of play does not require it. Its completely up to you, but its always fun :)
