Jagged Alliance - Back in Action

[calapine]

Remake of the 1998 Jagged Alliance 2

Does anyone know anything about this?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/57740

I was a huuuuge fan of the originals (if you dont know: refinded X-com gameplay with lots of personality).

First impression is they greatly reduced complexity:  enemies always visible, no militia training, real-time-with-pause instead of turn based combat. 

[tgr]

enemies always visible

What the... why?

real-time-with-pause instead of turn based combat. 

I actually don't have a problem with this.

[koro]

I looked into this when it was first announced and popped on up Steam last year. While I love all things Jagged Alliance, I am a bit skittish about this remake. Every video I've seen of the gameplay's left me completely cold and makes me wonder why I'd bother with this when I have my perfectly good copy of Jagged Alliance 2 with the 1.13 fanpatch right here.

[calapine]

wonder why I'd bother with this when I have my perfectly good copy of Jagged Alliance 2 with the 1.13 fanpatch right here.

Because after 12 years even JA 2 gets old. And for "some people"* the fanpatch is too tough...

*me

[Sky]

Enemies always visible destroys one of the hallmarks of the series!

The merc portraits look dopey. 3D doesn't make things better, sometimes sprites are better.

[koro]

I'm curious if enemies always being visible is a design decision or if it has to do with some limitation of the engine they're using. If it's a design decision, then it's a stupid one that takes out much of the tension and lets you traverse a hostile map sector with abandon, since you don't have to be cautious for sentries or patrols or have to make decisions like splitting up your squad to cover more ground. If such a simple thing is an engine limitation, then it makes me worry for what else could be lacking.

[Mrbloodworth]

Has to be a design decision.

[tgr]

There's no way it can be an engine limitation.

[shiznitz]

Sold.

[Falconeer]

Impossibly hard or I am just so rusty. Honestly, I have so much trouble with line of sight. Hard to plan anything with enemies always visible. How am I supposed to know if I have a line of sight or not? Obviously, the AI knows it very well and makes ragdolls of me with alarming consistency.

Bottom line: seems fantastic so far, but (as anticipated) totally ruined by the always visible thing.

Also, anyone in the beta of the online version? http://jaggedalliance.gamigo.com/en/

[Ghambit]

I'm in but havent played yet as I kinda want to fool around with BiA 1st.
I believe I got a beta key from TTH if you're interested.

[shiznitz]

Are you playing a demo, Falconer?  Steam still says it hasn't been released.

[Ghambit]

Are you playing a demo, Falconer?  Steam still says it hasn't been released.

It's a beta. 
http://www.tentonhammer.com/giveaways/jagged-alliance-online-beta/story

yw

[Amarr HM]

Picked JA2 up a few times but didn't get into it until recently. Top game, close to on a par with X-com. Modernising the gameplay of either is probably a bad design choice imo. It just works the way it works.

[rk47]

Merc portraits are utter shit.
No fog of war ? Insane.
Downloaded demo off steam and it wouldn't run.

Verdict: No way in hell.

[Falconeer]

Yeah, game not released but demo up on Steam. And yes, no fog of war and line of sight fail = 

A wasted chance so far, cause the hybrid real-time/pause is actually well made. Damn.

[jakonovski]

Didn't like the demo at all, it felt generic. Also, pausable real time takes the spotlight off the characters. There's no time to appreciate the personalities of your mercs when you have to juggle all of their actions simultaneously.

[Falconeer]

pausable real time takes the spotlight off the characters. There's no time to appreciate the personalities of your mercs when you have to juggle all of their actions simultaneously.

I didn't realize that until you said it. Well spotted, you are absolutely right.

[shiznitz]

I cannot for the life of me figure out how to cancel my pre-order.  I tried the demo and it blows.

[koro]

A wasted chance so far, cause the hybrid real-time/pause is actually well made. Damn.

The more I mess with it, the less I like it. As someone who's more used to turn-based games, it feels so awkward and janky. Conditions change so often that it's an utter pain to play it without pretty much every auto-pause selection enabled; at that point, you may as well have just made the thing turn-based and called it a day. It's like an ugly top-down version of Full Spectrum Warrior.

There's also other details that chafe at me. As far as I can tell, you can't create a custom merc (which was one of the highlights of JA2). The AIM mercs can't be sorted by... well... anything. To add to it, many of the traditionally starter-tier Level Nothing mercs like Igor, Grizzly, and Fox won't even so much as look at you when you start a new game, leaving you to pick from such darlings as M.D. and fucking Steroid. At least Barry, my favorite merc, is still available. I'm also not fond of the game throwing you straight to the wolves by sending you directly to the Drassen airport, leaving the two or three mercs you can barely afford to hire to square off against over a dozen goons. Aiming's also a lot more finnicky that it should be since the target cursor snaps to awkward locations and it's frequently much easier to get someone to target an enemy's legs than their torso due to the way body part selection is done. Plus the environments are all kind of badly done; tree trunks frequently blend in with the ground and paths that should normally be obvious - like a huge section missing from a chain-link fence - are obscured by the lack of contrast.

It's just all so clumsy and awkward.

[shiznitz]

I haven't played one of these in a long time, so the novelty is keeping me going.  That said, the "kinks" described above are true.  The most frustrating part so far is that once combat restarts after you have paused and given orders, it is a pain in the ass to change those orders to adjust.  I end up have to delete all the orders I just did and give new orders.  The AI of my mercs is also annoying.  If you have a submachine pistol and a guy with an axe is running at you, you either fire or avoid melee.  My little lady merc, Fox, just stands in the spot I told her to guard and gets hacked by an axe, her gun never going off.


Melee is over powered, too.  Bull is a melee expert with a machete.  If he just bum rushes a guy with a gun, he kills him in two hits.  That same bad guy would take 3 .357 rounds and possibly still be standing.  I didn''t have the starting cash to hire a full melee squad, but with grenades and machetes, I bet they would slaughter every mission I have done with far less damage taken.  My best tactic is have Bull rush the bad guys while the other two snipe from flanking positions.  It is almost too easy now.

Lastly, buying on Steam means no manual.  The world map was clunky to figure out.  There is no way that I see to pick what time of day I run my mission. I went to the forums just now: not a single post by players.

[koro]

Finally got tired of wrangling with BiA's Plan-and-Go - which I think works much better in Frozen Synapse - and went back to JA2 with 1.13. Still a fantastic game, even if I have to get reacquainted with the controls after weeks of X-Com.

The New Chance to Hit system 1.13 recently added is utter garbage, though. Single shots made with any weapon are pretty much useless since automatics will have the same chance to hit, but with more lead flying, and unscoped rifles have ridiculously low accuracy due to 1.13 only taking scopes into account for accuracy and not a gun's iron sights. It'll probably be months to a year before it's fixed, if it ever gets fixed, due to the guy who spent months making the system leaving the JA2 mod scene. At least you can turn it off.

[tgr]

Sounds a bit like a no buy, then. Oh well.

[koro]

Well I wouldn't say it's a no buy, since from what I'm seeing in other places, I seem to be in the tiny minority of people who really didn't like Back in Action. But you really, really need to try the demo first.

I don't think it's remotely worth the price they're asking for it, though. If you play the demo and think it's okay but are still on the fence, wait a few months for the Summer sale and buy it when it's $15-20. By then the modding community for it should be in full swing (despite Kalypso's anti-mod stance) and many of its issues should be ironed out as best they can.

[Sky]

Or just go back to the originals. Who was that wimpy cheap doctor character, I can't remember his name. Fidel would always kill him off. I loved Fidel, the explosive expert with an explosive temper who would just lose it and start blowing shit up.

[rk47]

Put back Fog of War & Turn based in the game and it might turn out okay. This isn't rocket science.
The reason why they didn't put in Fog of War is because getting flanked in real time is automatic death if you can't see 360 degree around you in real time.

[shiznitz]

Hmm.  I have now run out of the bandages that my mercs so getting a bleeding wound is a death sentence. I haven't found more anywhere after 3 major engagements.  It just means I have to execute almost flawlessly! Me love some shotgun, btw.  Good AE implementation.  I had Bull shooting at a cluster of bad guys through a window while Fox came in the door spraying her sub-machine 9mm.  Beautiful. 

As far as a no buy, I think this is easily worth $15.  $40 is a stretch but I am stuck with it now.  I will never pre-order on Steam again since I was incapable of cancelling the pre-order.

[tgr]

I will never pre-order on Steam again since I was incapable of cancelling the pre-order.

I learned this lesson with Civ5.

[Sky]

I will never pre-order on Steam again since I was incapable of cancelling the pre-order.

I learned this lesson with Civ5.

[shiznitz]

If anyone cares, I found a link to the manual:

http://boards.jaggedalliance.com/index.php?/topic/1038-106-changlog/

Post #10.  Cleared a few things up.

[Falconeer]

Finally got to play with Jagged Alliance Online today and I have to say, despite the unfamiliar menus and look, this feels so much closer to what I remembered. I think I like it. But I only put an hour into it, so don't take me too serioulsy yet.

[koro]

So an upcoming patch for Back in Action has Fog of War enabled, among a litany of other things.

[shiznitz]

Fog of War just means more scouting time.  I always have mixed feelings about the trade-off.  Your sneakiest guy can clear most of the fog, but it isn't exactly fun to watch him fucking the ground for 20 minutes.

[rk47]

That isn't how FOW's supposed to work....

[jakonovski]

So an upcoming patch for Back in Action has Fog of War enabled, among a litany of other things.

Interest level rebound!