TITLE: Jagged Alliance, or why I love Ivan AUTHOR: Jim9137 DATE: 2/24/2005 01:06:00 ap. ----- BODY:

Look, I found this lying on my harddisk. Enjoy! What can I say about Jagged Alliance? Its a X-Com clone. Definetly. But its a dang good one. Now where should I start... Hrm, perhaps overview would be nice for starters. The idea of the game, is to take control of the Island, Metavira, from Lucas, who was assistant to researcher who made research about the sap, and its medical capabilities. Lucas of course only saw the money, and hired some muscles and took over the island. YOU were hired to take control back, by using any means necessary. This is where A.I.M comes in. A.I.M = Mercenary organization, and your best friend. The mercenaries, are charismatic, unique and overall fun to play with. (Not in that way, mind you). The game starts in your room. Here you can hire/fire mercenaries and save/load game. The map section is where the major strategy lies, its hard to hire guards and place them in a way that enemy wont get your sectors. The A.I is very good at this scale. I for once got hold of key location, and the enemy flanked it from both sides as I advanced forward. You can also train mercenaries, and they get trained also if you use them in combat. Its pretty slow and when your mercenary level ups, so does his salary. First, the mercenaries, cant crawl, run or climb, and the maps are only 1 floored. This is of course fixed in the sequel, Jagged Alliance 2. One of the odd things is the line of sight. When youre inside the house, you cant always see from other end to another, which creates unwelcome situations when enemy is hiding outside of your LOS with a shotgun... And the save system, it is crap. First, you cant save the game while youre in action, only by quick-save and quitting the game. Why couldnt they just put a normal save/load? Now you'll lose your hair after 2 hours of playing and the game crashes. Another point to nag is the limit of 8 mercenaries. You cant get enough variety of skills to aid in your mission, and when youll could get those good mercenaries, you cant fire without losing the overall rating! In other hand, you will have to think what to buy and how it fits in your current situation. As I look at it now, it's pretty crap. Oh well. Live and learn.

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