PC Gamer reinstalls Jagged Alliance 2 and gives their opinion on how the game has hold up after all these years.
More information.Like other excellent TRPGs (Fallout, Dragon Age) JA2 isn’t afraid to make freedom (including the freedom to fail) a key trait of its combat system. Almost all the fighting you’ll do is unscripted. Heroics arise from planning, improvisation and a little luck. The fact that an automatic weapon can accidentally fire more rounds than you intended—as an interaction between the gun and your character—is such a sweet, surprising nuance.
The other side of that coin, of course, are the grueling, random situations you stumble into: turning a blind corner can reveal an SMG-wielding enemy ready to instantly send your top commando.But that fear of lost characters feels meaningfully frustrating to me. When my recon guy, Marty McFly, died in a swamp, I had a 10-minute debate with myself over whether to revert to my last save game. If a game’s goal is to stimulate emotion, JA2 succeeds.