This game is simply insulting to each and every gamer on this planet!!!
To put it simply, I hate this game! Not because it's a pure Jagged Alliance rip-off. Not because GFI Russia is trying to make a quick buck with it, thanks to the fact that tactical turn-based strategies are extremely few and far in-between. Not because I'm insulted, as a Jagged Alliance fan, with the fact that they're staining the name of the best turn-based strategy ever released. Heck, I was really excited when I first heard about this game. I yelled "Thank god! Finally, a modern Jagged Alliance-style game!" when I got it. No, my friends, I was never quick to judge, but when I do judge, you can be sure I have a darn good reason for that.
I hate this game simply because it's frustrating to the point of madness, full of bugs, technical issues and design flaws, with unresponsive camera, horrible pathfinding and graphics so darn slow despite the fact that I should be able to run this game smoothly with my hardware. AND it's a Jagged Alliance rip-off.
But let's start from the beginning. You are a mercenary. You hire other mercenaries. You purchase guns, ammo and equipment. You kill a lot of people. Well, mostly they kill you, but hey... AND you do it all on your in-game laptop. That's right, you even receive e-mails, surf the web, and create your own mercenary profile by typing the same code as you did in Jagged Alliance 2 and answering some funny questions. And that's about all that's good in this game. Simply because they took it all from Jagged Alliance. Did I mention this is a jagged Alliance rip-off? Nah, I probably did... Anyways, this time you're off to Africa, to help some dethroned dictator who wants to regain his power. Allegedly, the story in this game is really great, but I never had a chance to check it out, because I gave up after 10 hours or so.
So, you created your character, now it's time to hire some mercs and buy some guns. First of all, you'll be stunned by a tiny number of mercs available for hire. They're also quite ugly, incompetent and with zero personality. I don't know who the heck is responsible for character design, but this world will never be at peace until we launch that guy to Jupiter or something, never again to return... And those who are somewhat competent (at least on paper) will refuse to work with you for no reason at all. Oh yeah, they will utter some mumbo-jumbo about not wanting to deal with you because they don't like your personality, or your ideals, or your hair... COME ON! They're mercenaries, for Christ's sake! They kill for money! And no, I'm not making this up, they really say bollocks like that. Is this a way of making the game more "challenging" for you? It's difficult enough as it is, I don't know why they have to make it even worse. As for weapons, don't even think about some awesome selection. All you have to work with are a few underpowered SMGs, an old Garand rifle and a pistol. At least that's what you begin with, but make no mistake, you won't scrap anything from the foes you killed, and guns selection doesn't get much better as the game progresses.
Ammo is also scarce, and despite the fact that your enemies are using assault rifles and grenades, you can't pick up any of those. Why? Beats me. As for the fights, well... all the time you're underpowered, outnumbered and outgunned. And your expensive mercs, who charge thousands of dollars per week, can't even hit the ground with their own helmets. Just think of a situation... you're facing off 3 enemies, you have 4 mercs, you're armed with crappy 9 mm SMGs, and your enemies have assault rifles and grenades. Out of 5 shots, your merc misses 4. Out of 5 shots, your every enemy missed 2. Your enemies deal 20 damage per shot, 40 per headshot. Your mercs deal 2 per headshot. Man, that's some tough head! Your enemies throw grenades as far as an RPG. Strong arm the have, they should play baseball. But hey, let's say you do manage to kill them. Wanna take those cool weapons and ammo they carried? Forget it! Wait for 20 more hours until you "unlock" them in the shop.
It's also fascinating how incompetent your mercs are. They will often miss their target which is only a few feet away, a shot anyone can pull off if they can find a trigger. But these hardcore military tough guys manage even to mess that up. They're fragile, they spend way too much action points on the simplest stance change, they tire quickly, and they're horrible shots, even if their marksmanship skill far exceeds 70. And when they do hit something, they do no significant damage... If, by some chance, you decide to skip turn and save your action points, don't be surprised if you have less action points next turn. Or more, depends on the game. Really, there's no way to know. How many action points will it actually take to perform an action? Don't know that either. Wow, what fun!
Also expect some worst pathfinding you've seen in years. Very often you will have some character stuck on a tree, or rushing ahead of the others. Either gettting him/herself killed, or missing all the action because he/she got left behind. Also, friendly and enemy AI is simply horrible, but they're all great shots and they're telepathically able to locate you and see you, while you can't see them. That wouldn't be much of an issue, if it didn't happen on every occasion when your merc is lying in the grass, and the enemy is right in front of him. Wow, I like this game already!
Want more? The camera is abysmal, mouse controls are slow, inaccurate and frustrating. Selection methods and map management will make you cry in horror, and except for some Jagged Alliance references, there really is no reason to play this game AT ALL! It also crashes very often, it's extremely unstable, and it feels entirely like a beta version of some half-baked product. I tried patching it up, so the game didn't crash so often, but it didn't help much. If you have a rifle, and you bought this game, there's only one thing to do... put the game DVD on the wall and shoot it!
Review edit 1.0:
So you may be wondering why am I editing my review after such a long time. Well, the reason for that is very simple, really. I managed to get my hands on the latest update patch that was supposed to fix all the game's big issues (Thanks, GODSPEEDseven!). So I decided to give it a try and see how it turns out. Who knows, maybe Hired Guns could turn out to be a decent game after all. Wishful thinking, I know, but a man can only hope... So anyway, I installed the game, watched it devour my precious gigabytes of hard disc space (my computer is a kickass machine by 2004 standards, mind you) for an hour, and then finally applied the new patch. I tune the graphics a little, close the curtains, and here I go! Diamond Coast, here I come!
I have to say, the first impression was actually pretty good. The game wasn't as slow as before, frame rate went significantly up, and pathfinding was fixed, mostly. The enemies didn't seem so unbeatable, and they didn't take 10 rounds between the eyes before dropping dead on the ground. So far so good. Hey, looks like I'm finally gonna get my fair share of squad-based fun!
After beating the first mission, I was left in doubt. Sure, the game has improved significantly. But there were still a hell of a lot of issues that plagued it. For one, you still couldn't pick up all the weapons your enemies carried. You could only pick up some weapons and ammo, depending on how lucky you are. Yes, everything in the game happens at random. Even looting the dead enemies is ruined by the "randomness" factor, which clearly states: "After killing an enemy, all the weapons and ammo he used will be either available for you to pick up, or will magically disappear from the map. For no f***ing reason at all, except because I felt like it. Period." One word: F-R-U-S-T-R-A-T-I-O-N!
OK, so that's one problem that is NOT fixed. Moving on to other issues. Graphics? Yeah, as I said, the frame rate was boosted significantly, and for a short while it seemed like the game would run smoothly. Until I left the first area. The more I played after that, the more did the performance degrade. Turns out they patched only the first 1% of the game. Great work, guys! Because, you know, after the first mission, nobody would notice that the graphics is still crappy and that the frame rate is as slow as snail. After a few missions, I simply gave up.
But did I mention the "randomness" factor? Oh yes, it also applies to combat. You see, no matter how hard you try, you still luck your way through missions most of the time. Let's say you save your game, then perform a successful action, like scoring a headshot. Now load that save game again, and try to preform the exact IDENTICAL action as before, and see if you score that kickass headshot again. Did it work? Do I even need to answer that question? Also, the game still doesn't let you know just what are your chances of hitting the target. And believe it or not, that thing is crucial to the entire game. Even Silent Storm had that, for Christ's sake, so I can't understand why didn't they didn't do the same thing here! This way, there's no way of knowing how much of a chance you have to score a good shot. Will you rather spend your action points on aiming, taking cover, or moving to a better position? Or go ahead and take the shot anyway? I hope you like quicksaving, because you'll do that a lot here. But then again, this is more of a design flaw then bug. Still, a frekin' patch should've fixed that!
But hey, at least the patch allowed me to discover more design flaws of this game, due to the fact that I managed not to hurl this game into a wall for a whole week. First of all, there is no "day" and "night" in this game. Which, for a person who based his entire tactics on night raids in Jagged Alliance 2, is enough of a letdown. Second, there is no cover. Even if you do manage to find something that would otherwise be a good cover spot (like a tree, a wall, or a vehicle), that won't help you much, because... well, "randomness", remember? I'm not even going to mention some other retarded decisions that the developers decided to follow. Like making an abandoned roadblock a source of income. Yes, that really happened in the game.
And one last thing... don't be surprised if I'm comparing this game to Jagged Alliance 2 every 2 seconds, because this game WAS supposed to be it's sequel. That's right, somebody took an abandoned Jagged Alliance 3 project and released it as Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge. I mean, what the heck were they thinking?! SFI decided to axe the project, and if the creators of the best strategy game of all time decided to cancel the SEQUEL of their most successful game ever... Hell, you know they're onto something! If THEY decided to kill that game, then by God, it should've stayed dead!