Jagged Alliance 2

Its one of the most time consuming games that I ever played. You can go straight and complete your mission or you can endlessly (especially with 1.13) sandbox around. For me it always was kind of a dress-up-game. I'd stuff my mercs into the nicest body armor and give them the fanciest accessoires one could find on the battlefield and then show up against Deidrannas red shirts. As you progress throughout the game your gear gets better and better and when you finally enter the evil queens palace you'll be the Kim Kardashian of daydream commandos and wall ninjas... if they do not kick you in the butt before you get there.

Turn-based games have been around for some time. From original XCom to Heroes of Might and magic. One day, guys at Sir-tech took that forumula, built upon their original title and perfected it to a level no game on planet has ever reached. That's Jagged Alliance 2. A game that hundreds of developers have tried to follow, but have miserably failed to get even remotely close. Even 9 years later, JA2 is the absolutely top1 TBS that everyone should play. The amount of complexity, the mood, the mature vibe, the play on 80's brawler movies, memorable characters, so-called "gun porn", delightful isometric art and fantastic gameplay is something any strategy game lover has to experience in this lifetime. I have little doubt anything so well done exists or would exist in any foreseeable future. JA2 is perfect at what it does and how it's implemented. Once you go through Vanilla, install 1.13 community patch or any of the numerous mods and add hundreds of more layers to it.

Game is great get it (get wined3d.dll to get it to work on modern machines)

this is a great fun tactical and resource-management game, however, a bit slow... and very funny :)

could write a novel but won't. it's a lesser-known x-com (the original) with both a strategic and tactical layer, sci-fi elements only if you opt in (it's worth it, really satisfying quests). there's a huge island to explore, tons of unique and memorable characters (unlike x-com), lots of humor, it's sir-tech at its best. and once you're done, check out the 1.13 mod, which turns it into a whole new game, or peruse tons of user-created campaigns. I can recommend deidranna lives but urban chaos is good too if very difficult.