Review - Jagged Alliance: Back in Action (PC)
Originally Published May 03, 2012 for Gaming Irresponsibly
Jagged Alliance: Back in Action, tasks you with the mission of freeing the country of Arluco from the grip of Queen Deirdanna. If this sounds familiar, that is because Back in Action is a remake of Jagged Alliance 2, originally a tactical RPG for the PC released in the late 90’s. The premise of this game is to re-master its graphics and rework its core mechanics around a Hybrid RTS frame-set. The original Jagged Alliance 2 was a hit with PC gamers, unfortunately for fans of the series this remake is not the place to take a stroll down memory lane.
The presentation of Jagged Alliance: Back in Action serves its purpose. There is nothing fancy here; it just gets the job done. There are two ways you can observe the traversal across the map. There is the classic top down view and the isometric view. During isometric view, you can use the scroll wheel of the mouse to pan the camera slightly down and get a more 3D feel for the environment. You will need both views in order to get through any map. This helps showcase how the maps have been revamped with 3D structures and terrain. The maps vary in scale and size and have been constructed with an open environment in mind. The characters on the other hand, seem to have been less of a priority. They all seem like randomly generated NPC’s from the pre-HD era. They are stiff and some characters literally look the same. Overall, there is nothing special here. This title looks as generic as they come.
The audio is somewhat repetitive, however the sound design is well done. The static 3D environments seem a little more alive due the audio. For example, in a swampy jungle map you will hear ambient sounds followed by the cries of birds. If your squad is crossing a stream or pond, you will hear the swooshing and bubbling of water. It is always a nice touch to have appropriate environmental cues to match your squad’s location. This is essential for a game that takes sound/noise into consideration during gameplay. But I’ll elaborate more on that later. The voice over in this game is completely a hit-or-miss. A lot of lines are delivered quite flatly. This could be an attempt to make the mercenaries appear gruff, tough and raw. But the delivery of those one-liners is so abysmal that at times it would be better if the characters did not talk at all.
But enough about the window dressing, after all it was the solid gameplay mechanics that made Jagged Alliance 2 a classic. The original title featured an assortment of gameplay styles fused together to create a great tactical RPG. The main premise of Back in Action is to revamp this installment by taking away the turn-based segments and replacing them with a real time strategy system. This is where things spiral out of control. The core mechanic of battle has been switched to real time, however other aspects of the game have remained the same. The original Jagged Alliance 2 featured a plethora of multitasking. You could build your own team of mercenaries (aka ‘mercs’), each one with different skills, weapons and stats. By equipping different items, each merc could enhance its own individual talents. These talents are spread across several categories, which included descriptive stats (level and health points), efficiency stats (strength, intelligence, etc), and skill stats (where character classes differentiate according to points allotted to medical, explosive, and other skills). Needless to say, the original Jagged Alliance 2 was super number-crunchy, but this was ok because it was turned based game. This allowed the player to use his time freely before or during battle. Unfortunately for Back in Action, the super-number-crunchy and super-micro-management aspect of the original is still present. This type of set up does not work in a real time setting. It is as simple as this: Squad Alpha is a mercenary task force composed of three characters; two damage mercs and a medic. One merc is a short range and melee specialist, the other merc specializes in burst fire at medium range. The medic can also damage an enemy or two, but its primary function is to keep the other two alive.
During an encounter against a large group, an enemy breaks through the firing range and advances towards the melee specialist. The stragglers of the enemy group inflict heavy damage on the burst-damage mercenary before he kills them all. It would be very useful if clicking on the medic and then clicking on the injured mercs would heal them, but that does not happen. For some reason, the medic has forgotten how to use a med-pac, so this means that a menu must be opened, the med-pac has to be equipped and then the order can be issued to heal the medic’s squad mates. Something similar happens to the attack units; remember that enemy unit that broke off the group and started attacking your melee specialist? Well, the enemy unit is now dead, but not before they were able to inflict severe damage to the melee unit. The melee specialist mercenary will not use its melee weapon unless a menu is opened and his firearm is exchanged for his melee weapon. Game mechanics that are done automatically in similar titles have to be manually done for Jagged Alliance: Back in Action. This really delays the “real time” aspect of the game, since there are simply too many clicks to perform one simple action.
In addition to the convoluted gameplay, there are times when the path finding algorithm for friendly units miserably fails. It is not game-breaking in anyway, since most of the time the mercenary squad is outside or in a spacious environment. However, due to the open nature of the maps, sometimes you will have to be indoors. This leads to close quarters combat, which can be a real pain when one of your squad mates pins his/her self between a structure and a mercenary. Suddenly the game morphs from an RTS to a game of rearrange your party units.
Even after all of the OCD multitasking and failed path-finding algorithms, there is an interesting approach to the RTS system in this game. Implemented into the HUD, to the right of each character portrait, there are four bars that indicate the status of each character. Each bar represents health, energy, visibility and noise level. Health, as usual, represents the number of hits a character can take before dying and can only be replenished by medicine. Energy is directly related to the amount of distance a character can travel across the map and regenerates itself over time. Visibility is affected by the characters affinity for camouflage and its current surroundings. Some characters are better suited for assignments in the jungle, while others blend in more effectively in modern settings. Last but not least, Noise levels waver based on how a character moves through an environment. Slow careful movements keep the noise levels steady, while charging towards the enemy makes the bar quiver erratically, possibly alerting any enemy units that are nearby.
In order have a successful mission, all four bars need to be evaluated along with the terrain where the mission takes place. In addition to this, character movement plays an important role in any tactical approach. Each character has four options to choose from: Ready weapon, run, crouch and go prone. Ready weapon and run will move a mercenary at a decent pace; the first one is focused on establishing a line of sight while the other one focuses on speed. Crouch and go prone will sacrifice speed in order to gain a reduction in visibility and noise levels. Evaluating the amount, proximity and type of enemies in each area will determine how to traverse through the map.
As explained in the previous paragraphs, Jagged Alliance 2: Back in Action, has plenty of mechanics that need to be kept in check in order to succeed at any stage of the game. Overall, the game has the potential to entertain fans of the series and provide a different flavor to a classic PC title. Unfortunately, the game is not as enjoyable to new comers due to design flaws or bugs within the game. If any gamer is looking for a real time strategy title, there are better options out there. If anybody is looking for an entry title to the series this is not the one to play first. The original Jagged Alliance 2 is a better recommendation than the Back in Action remake. Jagged Alliance: Back in Action is not broken, but there are too many factors that bog down the interesting part of this game, making it a long drawn affair instead of an enjoyable one.
It’s a nice take on a classic franchise
Not worth the asking price
Cringe worthy voice-overs
