Anyway, the big idea is to reclaim Arulco from the dusky clutches of almost certain doom, and you’re going to do this by pushing squads of mercenaries around the place, shooting bad guys, and controlling cash-printing industries like the local mines. Hey, you might be liberating the peasants, but you’re going to take some of their cash for all the effort, thanks. What does this look like, NATO? Mercs cost money too.
Of course, the obvious and most immediate part of the game is combat. This is handled in turn-based play, very much like the original Fallout. That JA2 uses the Fallout engine is probably not entirely coincidental. Units use a limited number of Action Points to manoeuvre around, and the more complex the manoeuvre, the more AP it’s going to use up. Taking all those seconds and expertise to line up a perfect headshot, for example, will expend a lot more AP than simply spraying a goon with bullets and hoping something hits a big important vein somewhere. Logically too, moving units at a prone crawl instead of a brisk battle trot is going to take rather a bit longer, while trading off the very real possibility of getting a surprise shotgun to the eyeballs. Units are ordered individually, and encounters take some time, planning, and invariably a bit of saving and reloading to resolve. So kinda just like the real thing, but with saving and reloading.
The game world comprises a series of territories, and clearing these of enemy forces presents you with further opportunities. When your mercs aren’t on active duty, you can move them into free zones and rest them up, get them some medical attention, or direct them to get busy with something else useful. For example, you can give guns to the locals and teach them how to shoot bad guys, saving yourself the effort later on when Dee Dee marches her thugs back into town (because she will). Mercs can also spend this time swotting up their skills, or – if they’re especially talented in some area – by telling other mercs how to do it all properly. You can have up to 18 mercs deployed in Arulco at any time, so there’s a whole lot of management to be doing when you’re not shooting stuff in the face. If you pay attention to all this, you could probably pull off most of the war with el cheapo grunts instead of the outrageously expensive dark wizards on AIM’s roster – saving you money for cool stuff like more bullets.
Jagged Alliance 2 is not for everyone. You could play the game for three hours and only manage to conclude a single engagement. It’s possible to have to restart the game entirely halfway in, because you’ve bungled your finances somehow and gone bankrupt, or had everyone worth hiring accidentally killed off. If you’ve always wished chess had more petty third world dictatorships and hand grenades, you’re probably a good candidate.
