Rating

A-

Specific Ratings

GameplayA
GraphicsA-
Learning CurveA
Replay ValueA+
SoundA

Pros and Cons

Pros
  • Vehicles
  • Plenty of save slots
  • Challenging combat
  • Large game with much to do
  • Can have many mercs
  • Very addictive gameplay
  • Awesome weapons
  • Realistic control of resources and mercs
Cons
  • Mercs incompatibility can get annoying
  • Slow turn-based combat

Jagged Alliance 2 (PC)

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Summary

Jagged Alliance 2 is the second game in a series of addictive and entertaining strategy RPG's.

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Description

The tiny nation of Arulco has been taken over by a ruthless dictator. It's population is terrified, and the leader of the Rebel army has hired you to put together a group of mercenaries to take the country back so that the people Arulco can live in freedom again.

Jagged Alliance 2 is a squad-based strategy RPG. There is plenty of tactical combat in the game, but it also has elements of role-playing and strategy as well. This game was actually recommended to me by another member of this site (forget who). We were in the chat room talking about the game Fallout Tactics, and he brought up this one and how similar they are. Now after playing Jagged Alliance 2, I would absolutely agree with him. There are many similarities, but Fallout Tactics will still remain one of my ALL time favorites.

Gameplay
This game can become addictive. I don't mean to the point of needing a warning label stamped on it, but you may find yourself staying up late trying to get through a particular sector.

The ability to use vehicles in a game is always a big plus with me, and Jagged Alliance 2
had some nice rides. They included a Helicopter, Hummer, and Ice Cream truck. I used the Helicopter most often; mainly because it was quicker. Do keep in mind that you have to find these vehicles before you can use them, and in the Helicopter's case, you have to find a pilot.

The roster of mercenaries that you can have working for you can be up to 18. There can be up to 6 mercs in each squad, so you can figure at least 3 squads, and maybe more depending on how you want to divide them up. These men and women can be purchased from two different sites off of your laptop, either A.I.M. or M.E.R.C. There will also be men and women who will offer their services during your travels throughout Arulco. Whenever you start dialogue with an NPC (Non Playing Character), there will be an option in the dialogue box that says "recruit". If you click on that option, then the character will let you know if they desire to be part of your team or not.

That brings me to the laptop feature. I considered this to be one of the best features of this game. I thought it was a realistic and modern way of managing your resources and mercs. The laptop had all the different sections to it that you would find in a real laptop computer. It had e-mail, a files folder, and bookmark links to important sites (like A.I.M. and M.E.R.C.). At times I felt like I was actually on my computer hiring mercs, instead of playing a game.

This is a large game with much to do in it, and that is always a good thing. I spent many hours playing this game, and I have not done that in awhile. You will be trying to manage your team, gain the loyalty of towns, taking control of mines for income, and completing side quests. So as you can imagine, your hands will be quite full.

Don't think that because you can keep such a large group of mercs, that combat is going to be easy. On the contrary, the fire-fights in Jagged Alliance 2 can become very hectic at times. Once you learn what tactics and strategies work best for you, then the combat will not seem so daunting.

This game does offer a wide range of great weapons to use, so that will also help take care of those nasty thugs. I must have plenty of save slots in a game, and Jagged Alliance 2 delivered in this category. It had a quick save option as well as your normal save slots.

I only had two complaints about this game, and they both had to do with gameplay. The first being the slow turn-based combat system. It was not the actual turn-based system that was annoying to me, because I was very used to that from the Fallout games, but in the Fallout games, the turns went by relatively quickly. In this game, it seemed to drag on. The second gameplay con was the fact that at times the mercs from the two hiring agencies did not get along very well, and they would sometimes just decide to quit on you. There were a few mercs who would list on their bio page who they would not work with, but that was not always the case, and sometimes you would not find out until after you hired them.

Graphics and Sound
The graphics were fairly decent in the game. Most of the environments you will be visiting are urban cities or country side landscapes with light brush and trees. There are a few underground places that you will explore, but they are mainly mines or basements. I considered the sound to be slightly better than the graphics. I think this was due to the fact that there are so many different voices for the mercs, and each type of gun seemed to have it's own unique sound. The box claims that there is more than 10,000 lines of digitized speech, so that should give you an idea of how much work went into perfecting the sound in this game.

Learning Curve
Learning how to use the controls and functions of this game was easy. The game is totally mouse driven with the exception of a few keyboard shortcuts. The manual has a tutorial section that goes over how to get your initial team together and a few pointers on combat. There will also be several pop-up help screens when you start the game, which will describe in detail the different tools at your disposal. These screens can be accessed anytime, or set too not show up again.

Replay Value
Replay value is excellent for this game. I don't see how you can do everything and experience everything that this game has too offer within your first time of playing it. I never did finish some of the side quests, and I know there were several locations yet to be explored. This game deserves another go around, just so that I can find out what all I missed the first time playing.

Pick this one up, and I am sure you will be entertained for hours.
You might also be interested to know that a Jagged Alliance 3 is currently in the making, and should be ready soon.

Bobby

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