It's like X-Com, only instead of coordinating the men in black, you control a band of mercenaries, and instead of aliens, you fight against some third world country. There are probably other differences too. I don't know, you tell me.
So anyway, this game looks pretty cool, but the interface sucks and it doesn't bother to explain its intricacies at all, some of which are vital. For example, the manual says that stuff you leave on the ground will disappear after a while, but doesn't offer any alternatives. Can I stuff all my things in a locker and expect it to be there when I come back, or will it disappear in a similar manner?
. On the other hand, the manual also says that a merc holding over 100% of their carrying capacity will be overburdened, but says nothing about anything in between. Will my mercs somehow perform better at 20% than at 50%? Again,
.
Wouldn't it be fun to keep all my shit on my mercs, only to find out later on that it was hampering them the whole time? Or maybe if I put it all in a locker instead, and find out that it all went missing while I was gone? I posit that no, it would not.
That was only two (connected) examples, but the game is filled to the brim with important details that you can only find out the hard way. Can somebody enlighten me on some of these?
Posts
Forums for the fan made (and pretty much accepted as required) JA 2 1.13 mod. It adds tons to the game and is still being worked on, in fact they just released their new inventory system to open beta.
Wiki, and good old installer link. A few months old, but quite stable.
How to download the newest most up-to-date revision
Thread all about the new inventory system (its glorious).
That said, I love JA2. Never played Xcom when I was younger so this was really my first introduction to the turn based strategy genre. One of the best examples of it imo.
As to your questions, as far as I know stuff on the ground won't decay or disappear over time, it'll stay there forever. EXCEPT if bad guys retake the sector, assume they see this stuff lying around and loot it for themselves. An overburdened merc will burn their energy (blue bar) much faster as well as (I believe) move slower. In 1.13 traveling around overburdened increases the merc's stregnth and health stats over time, in JA2 it just burns that old energy.
Oops, skipped that. There is no difference in merc proformance be it 1% or 99% weight.
But now that I have a taste of Xcom turn base combat...I want more. Is this available on steam? I'm just gonna have to pick it up after Xcom.
Pretty sure it is, but the Steam version doesn't allow you to give it the fan patch to fix a number of bugs.
Also, try getting the first if you can, its aged well and feels more X-Commish than JA2 did.
Are you sure about this? I'm pretty sure I read that Steam is compatible with most if not all fan patches - specifically for Jagged Alliance 2 but for other games as well.
It is compatible. However to make it work requires an arduous undertaking. There is a step-by-step instruction on how to do it somewhere. Its been awhile since I had to do it.
Anyway, JA2 is awesome all around, even if some of the character voices do irritate me. Really awesome squad level tactical game. Although I have a real terror of ever doing an iron-man run. Most of the time is fine but the end of a mission can be a pain where you're hunting down that one guy hiding around a corner somwhere and as soon as you round that corner, you KNOW he'll get the initiative and riddle you with holes.
I just wish the gas grenades worked more in the later stages. It seems everyone had gas masks.
Besides, the learning curve is part of the fun of the game.
I stepped on and broke my JA2 disk.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
If you glue or tape the pieces together, would the disc itself not then become a jagged alliance?
The fan patch fixes quite a few major bugs, adds higher resolution, more guns, lets you make more custom mercs, train roving militia that patrol around the countryside, sell items to the locals for cash, and a whole slew of other things.
The steam version isn't all that buggy, the fan patch includes a custom JA2 executable that is built off of the final offical JA2 release source code so that gets past problems a modified exe that is distributed with the downloaded game might have. For instance the Strategy First download has a modified exe to support 'trial mode' and entering the key they give you when you buy the game to unlock the full mode. Quite buggy, and doesn't work with vista at all. Installing the fan patch got rid of all of those problems and made it quite stable on Vista.
Maybe once I finish my replay of Xcom ill throw in my JA2:Gold disc and play through with the patch. Mmm... higher resolution.
The first time you pop an enemy's head is pretty sweet too.
I prefer the chest explosion personally.
Gotta love those point blank interrupts with a shotgun.
I really should go back to my one man Shadow only (<3 Shadow) run I was doing. I took drassen easily but chitzena was being a bitch.
Oh and the fan Patch wins on so many levels, higher resolution for a start.
In playing through old games I missed, I'm trying to limit myself to playing 1 FPS, 1 strategy, and 1 RPG in parallel. (Right now it's SS, Q4, and ToEE if you're curious.)
I loved Xcom and even enjoyed Incubation. Not sure why I never pulled the trigger and bought JA2 back in the day.
JA2 wins so hard. Dual automags were my personal weapons of choice, how about yours?
Seriously, were you trying to say that you're still working on X-Com? Or did you just type in my quote and make a mistake? I'm curious now.
Auto-shot doesn't compare to firing a burst at someone's head from point blank range, as you watch them live JUST long enough to get brain damage before dying.
Macguyvering a weapon upgrade by combining random junk, glue, and duct tape.
Sneaking up on a guard and clobbering him with a crowbar.
Or even better, sneaking up on him and getting an instant kill with a throwing knife.
Being able to attack at night with both advantages and disadvantages for doing so.
I have some issues with JA, but a lack of options to try is seldom one of them.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Used to be that around here it was common to change a quote and either highlight the change it or bring attention to the edit by saying something like "fixed that for you". These days this seems to be optional. And yes he is saying that he agrees with you but is working on X-Com.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Yeah, this. Thing is, I don't remember X-Com being anywhere near this hard, so I think I may just say fuck it and install JA2 again.
I sure am cranky, huh? Back to games! :P
I got a job working QA for a company. Some software we relicense, so I got handed a stack of Strategy First titles and was asked to find out which was fun.
Jagged Alliance 2 and Expansion were at the top of my list. Turn Based Strategy Squad Awesomeness. I played the Commandos series, it was nice to see its roots.
Probably will relicense them for cheap next year sometime. I work for a company called Cosmi.
Anyways this game was a blast, never heard of it until I played it, and its good to see a thread pop up about it too.
Final Fantasy XI -> Carbuncle - Samash
:^:
Someone has the beginnings of multiplayer support working in JA2.
Or any word on JA3? Or JA3 alt? (There's some legal things going on as to who exactly has the rights and who's developing the true sequel).
from earlier in this thread:
Holy shit indeed... That's really awesome.