Jagged Alliance

[Dreadnought]

"My body is punctured and leaking!"

- Bobby 'Steroid' Gontalski





_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



I never played the first game - tell me if it's worth it.





I always tried to keep everybody alive or totally uninjured in JA2 and hated the part where you have to train militias and shit like that because it made me want to vomit things I already pooped out days ago.
The music has branded itself into my mind and would probably survive total amnesia, as it filled the empty space in my DNA. I have it on my iPod.
Anyone ever played the sci fi setting with the bugs or aliens or the fuck I know they are, because I never played sci fi?
I am also pretty positive I haven't played all of the add ons.





Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge is supposed to be a spiritual successor to JA 2, but I heard some negative reviews about it - then again I heard good ones about Fallout 3, so there's no reason to trust anybody else but a DACker.
If anyone of you filthy serfs has played HG: TJE, speak up and tell how bad/good it is or be punished!





Then there's the thing with <strike>Fallout</strike> Jagged Alliance 3. It has been worked on. Stopped. Worked on again. Only to be stopped and sold like MR Snake's mother back in the 80s.
Current status:

On March 9th, 2010, German outfit bitComposer Games picked up the rights to the [Jagged Alliance] series, and started "preliminary development" on the third full game for release next year.





This could be another ruse meant to confuse people. Or they'll do what Bethesda did and go in "a different direction" making it some FPS or something even worse, as the images seen above are from the "old" JA 3...
Expect an XBOX 360 release.

[Kashluk]

Don't bother with Hired Guns: Jagged Edge. It was almost as bad as Brigade E5: New Jagged Union. They try to be Jagged Alliance 3, but they both fail miserably.

Anyone else notice a naming pattern here, by the way?

[Jeff]

jagged alliance & deadly games are pretty darn dope (deadly games has multiplayer too) but might seem a bit primitive if you're used to ja2 what with the lack of crawling and climbing and particle physics and dragons. i dunno, give it a try perhaps. silent storms are the closest thing to a decent jagged game i've come across since ja2. not that i've actually bothered to look for one so whatever

are the ja2 expansions good? i just realised i've never played them

[Blargh]

I was fortunate in that I had the opportunity to play JA 1 and the expansion in 1997, before they had become 'dated'. Despite both being of high quality, I am able to recognise that much of my opinion is founded upon nostalgia. Personally, I believe JA 2 is a rare example of a sequel that has outdone its predecessor in every meaningful context. Still, worth it if only to see the origin of one of the best games ever made. Yes.

Have yet to bother with any of the pretenders, probable that I won't.

expansions

Unfinished Business was disappointing. Mainly due to stifling linearity.

Wildfire (the version I suffered through, at least) was a delightfully incoherent re-imagining of the Arulco scenario. Very buggy at that point (2005ish).

As for Urban Chaos/Deidranna Lives and the like ? Didn't enjoy them as much as replays of the basic game. They may be worth looking into if you're hard up for a fix, so to write.

1.13 is promising, if one can weather the gunporn.

[Dreadnought]

What's URBAN CHAOS/Deidranna Lives?
A mod? Never heard of it.

[Blargh]

This should enlighten you.

[jetbaby]

JA
JA2
Silent Storms
Panzer General II

Anyone know of how one might "acquire" these? PM. We'll be BFFs and shit.

[entertainer]

ja2 1.13 is where its at

JA
JA2
Silent Storms
Panzer General II

Anyone know of how one might "acquire" these? PM. We'll be BFFs and shit.

torrents

[Cimmerian Nights]

Panzer General II

Best game ever? Been playing PG2 for over a decade. Still has a robust community pumping out maps, mods and some great campaigns.

[Superhaze]

"My body is punctured and leaking!"

- Bobby 'Steroid' Gontalski





_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



I never played the first game - tell me if it's worth it.





I always tried to keep everybody alive or totally uninjured in JA2 and hated the part where you have to train militias and shit like that because it made me want to vomit things I already pooped out days ago.
The music has branded itself into my mind and would probably survive total amnesia, as it filled the empty space in my DNA. I have it on my iPod.
Anyone ever played the sci fi setting with the bugs or aliens or the fuck I know they are, because I never played sci fi?
I am also pretty positive I haven't played all of the add ons.





Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge is supposed to be a spiritual successor to JA 2, but I heard some negative reviews about it - then again I heard good ones about Fallout 3, so there's no reason to trust anybody else but a DACker.
If anyone of you filthy serfs has played HG: TJE, speak up and tell how bad/good it is or be punished!





Then there's the thing with <strike>Fallout</strike> Jagged Alliance 3. It has been worked on. Stopped. Worked on again. Only to be stopped and sold like MR Snake's mother back in the 80s.
Current status:

On March 9th, 2010, German outfit bitComposer Games picked up the rights to the [Jagged Alliance] series, and started "preliminary development" on the third full game for release next year.





This could be another ruse meant to confuse people. Or they'll do what Bethesda did and go in "a different direction" making it some FPS or something even worse, as the images seen above are from the "old" JA 3...
Expect an XBOX 360 release.

HOLY FUCK! If only this was a good game it would be awesome. But alas, I'm fairly confident that the game will suck beyond what is acceptable for me to play and enjoy a game. But there is always hope. Still playing JA2:Wildfire as we speak. X-box for life yo. Fanboy rave.

[Dr.Xen]

Ja2 1.13 + DBB mod
totally worth it

[jetbaby]

Panzer General II

Best game ever? Been playing PG2 for over a decade. Still has a robust community pumping out maps, mods and some great campaigns.

It's good shit, I lost (or had it stolen?) my disc a long time ago. A tragic, tragic loss.

[Tofu Man]

(...)
Silent Storms
(...)

Wow, was about to ask if any of you had played this. It's loads of fun.
Fallout-like AP based combat + 3d engine + destructible environments (well I say destructible, really obliterable is more the word i'm looking for) + WW2 weaponry + decent sound + hilarious battle commentary (actually, hilariously bad, but you still get a decent laugh).

Grabbing a mech equipped with a minigun and tearing down a house just to get to the enemy on the other side is positively grand.
Plus if you boost your Engineering skill into the thounsands, you can turn a stick of dynamite into a mini-nuke. Now ZAT ist verrry amuzzing.

[Cimmerian Nights]

SS was some pretty tight TB squad based action. I hate to sound like a philistine, but I wish they had done a more over-the-top characterization like JA. By that I mean a quirky cast of characters, not steampunk alien technology or whatever it introduced there.

SS had sequels/expansions IIRC, anybody know if they were worth trying?

[Kashluk]

SS Sentinels is pretty much Silent Storm +. You got more of everything and it's all better and shinier I wholly recommend it. And now it actually matters what you carry around, because stuff costs money.

Then there's Hammer & Sickle (2005). It's more of an RPG with dialogue and all. It's pretty fun, although really really hard towards the end, but contains tons of bugs.

[Tofu Man]

Yeah Sentinels, like Kashluk says, can't really do any harm.

More of the same, but with somehow better balance; Panzerkleines no longer equal god-mode; the economic system (you buy your weapons instead of just taking them -though you can still carry leftovers off the guys you've killed- , you get money for missions completed, you have to hire companions for money instead of just drafting them, you can sell every item you caught on the battlefield) was well introduced, and more importantly, just works.

Overall it feels a bit more polished than the original so if you liked that, you can't really go wrong with Sentinels.


Hammer & Sickle just destroyed the series.

They tried to adapt the engine to an RPG play-style, much like Fallout, in which you walk around and talk to people in real-time, then switch to TB during fights, but it doesn't really work.
Movement in RT is extremely jerky. Add to that, that you really can't tell what you're supposed to be doing most of the time, and the game just turns into visiting areas consecutively and at different times of day, waiting for something to happen.
And there's carry weight, so you can't take every tool you need otherwise you won't be able to fight properly.

But the worst, really, is that the thing is infuriatingly hard. Not to brag but I had no real trouble finishing SS in hard mode, and am about to finish Sentinels in hard too, so I think, hell I'll dominate this! Let's go for hard for an actual challenge.
Ten seconds in I'm dead.
It took me some 15 replays of the first level to actually get through, and by that time I'd already switched to easy (at which you're allowed to save and load during fights, essencialy breaking the game).

As an added kick to the crotch, the main character is voiced by one of the guys from oblivion (and one of the worst ones), so at one point you half-expect him to start raging about mudcrabs.

It's a shame but H&S (the game, not the shampoo) could have been a glorious throwback to the Fallouts, but as it stands, I couldn't stomach it.


There's also a 4th game, completely unrelated to these, based on the Nochnoi Doznor (Night Watch) films/books, that shares the same engine.

If memory serves (I only played the demo, and a long time ago) you have 3 chars to choose from (Shapeshifter, Magician and some other guy), you can fight in 2 or 3 different planes (kinda like Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, if you remember that), so basically, what you get is SS with modern styling + magic.

I'll have to track it down to see if it's actually worthwhile.


Btw (and yes, shame on me) I've never played any of the JAs, so is there any in particular you could recommend?

[Kashluk]

Oh yeah, I forgot Nightwatch.

For a reason.

It's awful! Never touch it. I actually managed to like Hammer & Sickle, but Nightwatch was just way too... ugh. Just don't. for the love of a Higher Power, don't.

[Tofu Man]

Jeez, if it makes H&S seem good in comparison, then....

Roger that!