Stupidly addictive (Jagged Alliance 2 (PS))

Member Name: Burning_Darkness

Product:	Jagged Alliance 2 (PS)
Date:	30/07/09 (33 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Varied, full of character, immersive, tense and exciting, addictive

Disadvantages: graphics are dated looking

First released back 1999, Jagged Alliance 2 has you play as a soldier-for-hire who has taken on a mission to rid a small independent island republic in the Pacific of its tyrannical ruler Diedrianna and her murderous army, who are terrorising the starving population whilst she lives in the lap of luxury on her palatial estate.

The game is split into two main sections- a resource-management section and a combat section. The resource management section is accessed via your character's laptop, from which you can hire and fire mercenaries, order weapons and equipment and buy life insurance for your team, all by accessing a series of websites. There are around seventy different mercenaries to choose from, all of which have their own weapons, specialist skills, role-playing-game-style statistics and unique personalities, complete with hundreds of lines of voice-acted dialogue each. There's a vast array of equipment to choose from as well, including dozens of real-world pistols, shotguns and machineguns, as well as knives, grenades, body armour and even mortars. There's lots of fun to be had picking and equipping your team, ensuring your mercs have a suitable mix of marksmanship, medical, engineering, explosives, agility skills amongst others, whilst striking a balance between highly trained but high-salaried troops and unskilled but cheap cannon fodder.

Your laptop also allows you to access to a map of the island, from which you can send your mercs out in squads across its numerous sectors in a bid to gain control of local towns and their associated silver mines in order to attain a sustainable income with which to pay your troops. When you enter a sector that is enemy-occupied the game changes to a isometric 3D battlefield view similar to that of early 90s real time strategy classics UFO Enemy Unknown and XCOM- Terror From The Deep, allowing you to at first control your troops in real time until an enemy soldier is encountered, at which point the game shifts into turn-based mode, at which point your team and the enemy team begin taking turns at trying to wipe eachother out. Each combatant has a certain number of 'action points' per turn that they can use to fire their weapons, reload, move around and so forth, and the battle sections can be incredibly tense and exciting as your team hide behind cover and exchange fire with the numerous and gung-ho enemy, your mercs barking out their own unique phrases and quips informing you when they have run out of ammo, are surrounded, have taken a hit, or are just plain scared.

Its a very cerebral game that requires tactics and planning, and is extremely deep and open ended, allowing you to play however you like and ensuring that no two games (or battles) are ever the same, affording it endless longevity. Its also brimming over with charm and character and is clearly a labour of love, and there are plenty of sub-stories and quests for you to discover throughout, as well as innovative touches such as being able to travel about by car or by helicopter, being able to train militia to defend your township outposts for you, as well as the ability of your mercs to develop their skills throughout the game depending on the training and combat experience you put them through. Certain mercs will refuse to work with eachother, and if things go badly enough for you their morale will suffer and they might refuse to work for you any more the moment their current contract has expired.

Jagged Alliance 2 is an incredibly addictive and hugely immersive tactical strategy game that has kept me entertained for many years now, and is so full of variety and charm that it has lost none of its appeal since its initial release a full decade ago. Its true that the VGA graphics are crude and dated looking, but then this was the case even when the game first came out, and the gameplay is so strong that the poor graphics are of very little consequence. Whilst quite basic they are also full of character however, and the character animation and music are both excellent.

Jagged Alliance 2 is a cracking game that will appeal to any strategy game fan willing to overlook its tired visuals, and is especially recommended to anyone with fond memories of UFO and XCOM. A lost gem and a sad reminder of how truly fantastic PC games used to be.

Summary: One of the best strategy games of all time- a much overlooked classic