Jagged Alliance 2: Unfinished Business

It's a standalone campaign based on Jagged Alliance 2's combat mechanics. Compared to vanilla JA2, Unfinished Business is linear, easier and stripped of some mechanics. In UB, you only pay your mercenaries once (instead of daily or weekly in vanilla), there is only one town in the game and you don't train militia to defend it, there is no control of mines for profit, and there are no tanks or aliens. This game is also considerably shorter than the base one - about 8-20 hours, depending on whether you visit the few optional areas and whether you gun straight for the exit in each sector or thoroughly kill and pillage. Personally, I enjoy Unfinished Business. It's my favourite game in the series, because it strips JA2 down to what I enjoyed about it the most: simple yet tense tactical combat.

I owned this game years ago as part of a compilation, but never really gave it too much attention (I was too busy still playing X-Com and M.A.X. at the time)! So when I saw it here I thought that I would give it another go. It's incredibly deep and every single thing that you do makes a huge difference throughout the entire length of the game. For example, you'll get ruined if you don't hire a doctor early on as you cant recruit for a long time at first and your men are going to get hit! Add to that the fact that you have to win locals / rebels over, pick stuff up, get on / into buildings and then start making money this game is going to last you a long time! One problem might be just that; I've been playing it for some time now and you need to invest a lot of hours getting things together and fighting the various battles. I like RPG's but the story line on this one is a 'little' lengthy and oppressing; a bit less chat and more action would probably have been better, but it's the first game that I feel has captured the suspense and tension of games like X-Com when you turn around a corner and someone appears or starts firing at your. I'm sure a lot of you know that feeling and have looked for it in games ever since?! However, if you liked the X-Com series and like turn-based strategies this is absolutely awesome. One slight issue I have had has been with the game crashing, but it's only happened twice and I now save regularly so it's not a major issue. Also, due to it being isometric and not pure 3D you sometimes struggle to see quite what's going on and what line of sight you (or your enemy!) might have. But overall it's a brilliant game and well worth $5.99! My Spec: XP Pro SP3 E6600 2.5Ghz 2 Gb RAM nVidia 7900 GTX

Jagged Alliance 2 was a masterpiece. What made it a masterpiece, you ask? Beats me. Really, I have no clue. It may have been the brilliant voice acting, which, admittedly, is mostly present in UB as well. It may have been the detailed-yet-minimalistic graphics, which are still seen in UB as well. But for me, UB felt lacking. It cannot even begin to touch the absolute brilliance that was the original game. Granted, it's a highly playable and enjoyable (to some extent, anyway) experience, completely unlike Wildfire. But it really is lacking. Maybe it's the fact that it's a heckuva lot shorter and more linear, something which did NOT sit well with me at all. No sir-ee! I REALLY don't like games which introduces me to a vast, open world (JA2) and then stuffs me into a tunnel-like linear experience afterwards (UB). And make no mistake, Unfinished Business is NOWHERE NEAR as free and sprawling as JA2 is. It's playable, and even enjoyable with all the new characters, weapons and even upgrades, but frankly, it's just not as satisfying of an experience as Jagged Alliance 2 was and forever will be.

This still is an awesome game ...if you are a fan of the X-com series you really should give JA2 a try. The game's story is not at the same level as the original JA and JA2 ...but the gameplay more than makes up for that. Two thumbs up.