RPGWatch - JA:Flashback Review

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After the announcement from Full Control about their financial troubles Forgottenlor decided to review Jagged Alliance: Flashback, and tell us about the state of the game.

I backed this game. I'm not sure why anyone else would have bought it. The early access reviews were dismal. The release reviews were just as bad. I didn't play either of these builds. I waited till the current version (1.2, which logically is the second post release patch) to play it, and quite honestly came with no expectations.
More information.
 
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Sadly I think that 2 star ratting is more than what the game deserves and that the studio didn't approach with good faith to the kickstarters and community hopes.

They had 1.13, they only needed to copy that and make a visual upgrade. Simple as that and most of the backers will be happy, but they couldn't even do it
 
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Sorry, but instead a copy/paste of 1.13, i would have loved something better.

And, no they could not make a copy/paste of 1.13 with their budget.

It's like the IP is cursed. None of the attempts to revive the franchise succeeded, so far. Which makes me a sad cat. I enjoyed in certain limits Flashback, but indeed there are too many things to keep you away. Still, because the game wasn't what the rabid fans expected there was no need to bash the game to the death. And here comes the Steam stupidity that allows posting reviews for games in EA. Steam needs an Impressions tab with no ability to rate a game in EA. Reviews should be allowed only after the game's launch. But that's only my personal opinion
 
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Sorry, but instead a copy/paste of 1.13, i would have loved something better.

And, no they could not make a copy/paste of 1.13 with their budget.

It's like the IP is cursed. None of the attempts to revive the franchise succeeded, so far. Which makes me a sad cat. I enjoyed in certain limits Flashback, but indeed there are too many things to keep you away. Still, because the game wasn't what the rabid fans expected there was no need to bash the game to the death. And here comes the Steam stupidity that allows posting reviews for games in EA. Steam needs an Impressions tab with no ability to rate a game in EA. Reviews should be allowed only after the game's launch. But that's only my personal opinion

I disagree, I backed the project and I would be happy if it was a 1.13 clon with updated graphics for new systems.

Also, if you want to sell the game, you should accept criticism so reviews of EA are essential and you can't blame people for not purchasing it because the game was crap. If someone is the culprit is the developer, don't blame the comsumer
 
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irst there is the incredibly sloppy bug where all female characters (mercs, enemy soldiers, and NPCS) start on every map in the lying position.
Most sexist bug ever.

But seriously, this bug alone speaks volumes about the professionality of the developer (likely the coder in this case).
In any sane implementation, a character would just be an abstract object that has animations, a position, a 3D model, etc. Gender should not play a role at all.
If setting some Gender flag somewhere in the Unity editor (I guess) leads to such an absurd bug, the code behind it all must be most horrible spaghetti code.

Well... good programmers are rare.
 
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Reviewing an alpha or beta version is not exactly okay.

First, do not forget that is a tremendous amount of people that doesn't know much about what EA means. Hence, they assume that is the final game. Seen that countless times, so that's why i'm against reviewing in EA.

Second: most people that are reviewing in EA never update their reviews with a review of the launch release.

That's why i believe that there should be only an Impressions area. Criticism is fine, but rating a beta and alpha in the current Steam environment...

What is most puzzling to me, is that Space Hulk games ended in decent entertainment, while Flashback had almost no testing. The mentioned bug was flagrant, if they just launched the bloody game after creating that patch, they could see it.
 
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To me modding (mostly the changes I did myself) bring the game up to 6/10. I agree the tactical battles are the strength of this game, and with some modding can be very entertaining. Once I got over the fact that Flashback was not JA3, and I modded the game to my pleasure, I found that it was worthy the money and gave me about 50 hrs of 'solid' fun... it's not 7/10 just because of those damn bugs....
 
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I'm curious if the peeps at Bear's Pit can do anything noteworthy with Flashback. Certainly seems more mod friendly than JABIA and i understand that Full Control will release some materials for modding purposes.
 
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I kind of agree that you shouldn't present a review until the product claims to be gold. Not saying the 'gold' version of this game was any better (no clue haven't played yet) but if you review an EA game while it is in EA as if it were a finished product it is unjust.
 
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When I backed this game I had really high hopes (yeah, it looks like I'm naive). The high hopes were maintained when they released really funny trailer about guns and eighties (BTW: JA series and especially the JA2 and 1.13 is nicked i Australia as "gun porn"... go figure out why...) and I thought everything will be alright.
It turned out that the dev didn't have enough money to make this game shine and what the gamers got is... well... nothing even close to the quality of JA2) - and that really sucks - in times when gamers have more games than they will have time in their life to play them, we get lots of half-finished, half-thought products that shouldn't be released to general public, as nobody wants to pay money for something tat doesn't deserved it... That's our reality in 2015...
I truly wish that something would be done with the Jagged alliance series - I am dreaming about a proper JA3, but I know that it will take something about $10 million and a proper developer to make my dream come true... But I for one I am willing to pay $100 for a game that will bring the excitement of JA2 in 3D environment and there will be lots and lots of guns and heaps of interesting mercs.... I guess I can only dream...
 
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Reviewing an alpha or beta version is not exactly okay.

First, do not forget that is a tremendous amount of people that doesn't know much about what EA means. Hence, they assume that is the final game. Seen that countless times, so that's why i'm against reviewing in EA.

Second: most people that are reviewing in EA never update their reviews with a review of the launch release.

First: I'm glad not to have played JA:F in Early Access. The game is buggy as is now. While I agree that many EA reviews are unfair, because of people's expectations, I still think that if Steam is going to allow early access, they need to allow early access reviews. A developer should very clearly state what they are putting on early access and what one should expect. Also some Steam early access games have super reviews. Go look at Bloodlust : Shadowhunter, if you don't believe me.
 
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I'd never heard of that Bloodlust game till I read this thread, has anyone tried it? It looked kind of decent to me, but then I've fallen for the banana in the tailpipe on more than one occasion.
 
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Have a mate that bought it. He was kind of thrilled, me not so much.

It has a serious chunk of hack and slash and i'm not the biggest fan of the genre. I prefer my RPG in a slower pace and a lot more tactical.
 
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Thanks for the review it just gets bumped further back in the que.

I too have to agree about the Steam EA reviews - they should just be a written review with no thumbs up or down, this would separate the released game reviews from the EA reviews. It is most annoying to sort through many many reviews that are potentially irrelevant because the game has seen many improvements. If after release a review you made in EA still stands cut it and paste it in to an official post release review, the effort this would take will weed out the .1 h played rage reviews which add nothing to the process as a whole.
 
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More than thumbs in, out or don't allow reviews, what they should do is reset all of them upon launch.

But if you can sell a beta, you should be responsible for the quality of the product you are selling. If you don't think is good and that the early reviews can do more harm than good, then don't sell it and continue working on your product until is in good condition
 
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Valve's fault as well. They should not allow early beta/alpha versions of the game for sale.
 
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I love turn based tactical games but I find JAF to be kind of bland and bleh. I actually like JABIA more and played it longer before screwy AI behaviors and walls and walls of uber aiming ruffians got to be a bit much. I actually like the combat and gameplay in JABIA, the game just felt like it needed a couple of major patches to tidy it up and balance it a bit.
 
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Thank you for this review as this made me NOT play JAF.
But instead made me install JA2 1.13 version build 7609 and enjoy nostalgic feelings.
 
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