From Swords and Sorcery to Guns and Grenades

[Malthaussen]

I've been idly wondering for a while how many BG fans are also fans of Jagged Alliance 2, one of the greatest games of all time. Not unlike BG, JA is one of the few games from the last century to still be played by a dedicated (and delighted) core of fanatics and has an active, international modding community. I've been playing it repeatedly for years, and in some ways find it superior to BG. Sacrilige, I know, but JA2 is one of the most perfect gems ever placed before the public, loaded with humor, easter eggs, detail, and fantastic characters. Well, there are something like 60 different characters you can have on your team (which can number as many as 18), and each of them is somebody's favorite, 'nuff sed. There are enough quests, weapons, battles and characters to keep you busy for weeks, and the victory sequence is the most satisfying I've ever experienced in a CRPG. Of course, the graphics are "only" 2D, and it is a turn-based tactics game, instead of a "Real-time strategy" game, but that hasn't kept us from loving BG for all these years, and it is no impediment to loving JA2. Interestingly, a 3D TBT game has been published, recently, called Silent Storm, which shows some indications of being a stab at creating a "Jagged Alliance 3," but S2 is a pale imitation of the classic, IMO, and the 3D engine doesn't add a thing to the experience.

That experience is determined by the outstanding job done on the characters, who cheer each other on, seem to respond to each other's quotes, and often come out with stuff that will have you falling off your chair laughing. JA2 is so much funnier than BG2, it... well, it isn't funny. And after a short time, you'll find yourself loving (or hating) Fox, Fidel, Meltdown, Steroid, Haywire... and all the rest, as much (or more so!) than Anomen or Minsc. Just for pure fun, I cannot recommend JA2 enough.

One of my recurring fantasies has some of the great BG modders (in their abundant spare time, lol) turning their hands to working on JA2. Or at least, creating a new voicepack for the egregious Ira, which would be a great service to the JA2 community.

-- Mal

[Lucern]

I'm glad to see another RPG gamer liked this game!

First off, you owe it to yourself to find and download Jagged Alliance 2: Urban Chaos mod. It's a total conversion of the original - with new weapons, some new mercenaries, new maps, etc. It's got mostly soviet-bloc weaponry, and much of the map is, you guessed it, urban. It makes for some scary "save and load" instant death combat. But that's nothing new to JA2 or Baldur's Gate lol. It's like playing a completely different campaign from the original. Ira isn't in the mod, btw

I always liked the Jagged Alliance series better than most (including BG, though I consider that a savior of the RPG genre in the late 90s), but I never really compared them. JA2 is first a turn-based strategy game, just one that lets you have an 18 member party with their own personalities, strenghts, and weaknesses. Still, that game has, what, 30,000-60,000 lines of speech?? Sir-Tech or Talonsoft, whichever made it were every bit as dedicated to making a brilliant piece of software as Black Isle.

Sadly, if I'm not mistaken both companies are defunct.

(JA 2: Urban Chaos maker's page...pretty sure it's on there somewhere)
http://www.ja-galaxy-forum.com/
(You'll just need the original cds with a fresh install before you load up the mod)

For the record...I liked Silent Storm before it turned into a bad sci-fi history book. The engine was every bit better, and the destructable environments and multiple stories were a couple of things I'd expect to see in any turn based strategy game from now on. I only wish the effective seeing distance was higher (something I wanted in JA2 as well), and better AI for when there are hidden snipers.

[ 03-14-2005, 05:01 AM: Message edited by: Lucern ]

[StigTC]

Jagged Alliance 1 and 2 are absolutely rocking games, although I have to admit that I was never very good at them, my men always seemed to miss the enemy and they dropped like flies.

[Svaerdhelgon]

I really love JA2,bought it as soon as it hit the stores here in sweden and have played it at least a couple of days a month since then