like a multiheaded something hitting ass and leg at the same time o god its heaven
Its set in present day in a fictional country of Arulco which has been taking over by a merciless dictator and a dissatisfied expat has given you a mercenary money to aid the resistance and take back the island city by city.
Initially you start the game with having your laptop set up and connected to the internet with several options at the side of the screen, look at emails (you'll get notified emails regarding progress if its too slow doing well etc, increase in mercenary fees, mercenary deaths and shipment info) create a mercenary from 'I.M.P' by answering various psychological questions the result of which is sent to you in a email describing why the character youve created has those specific stats/skills , if you answer saying you wanted to be Bruce lee for example you're character will most likely be a martial arts expert and have benefits for unarmed combat.
Also you can hire mercenaries (initially only) from A.I.M which has the better selection of mercenaries but also the more expensive ones, you can examine mug shots and extra details and contact them to be hired with various contracts ranging from a few days to a couple of weeks.
It should be noted that the mercenaries have their own personality, voice and dont always get on with other mercenaries and will occasionally speak about their fellows in their squad.
Also depending on how well you're managing your mercenaries they may refuse to extend their contracts and you may not even be able to hire new mercenaries until you improve your progress - for example I lost two mercenaries taking Drassen Airport and I couldnt hire anyone else until i had taken more of the city and improved my standing.
Eventually though you'll be able to hire some pretty shoddy mercenaries from a rival mercenary business called M.E.R.C which have low cost paid by the day mercenaries, usually I would have them as a garrison continually training militia.
Also by the laptop internet you can access bobbys guns and order ammo etc which will be updated as you progress throughout the game, however you need somewhere for the deliveries and the rebels on arulco dont have a airport which leads me onto the gameplay
As I mentioned earlier the battles are done in turn based mode quite similar to say Fallout series, you're characters depending on stats will have some action points (AP's) and AP's are expending by moving, changing position , throwing things, passing items,reloading and attacking whether it be by unarmed combat or firing weapons in either single shot mode, aimed shots or burst fire.
Its a very tactical game you can crawl to reduce the chance of being spotted but move much more slowly and cost more AP's to face in a different direction, but being more difficult to shot at is a balanced trade off in some situations.
Also you can crouch again reduces the chance of being seen and potential to be hit but you move a little bit slower than standing upright, but if your standing upright and round a corner into a enemy with a colt commando dont expect your merc to dodge any bullets.
Furthermore positioning your mercenaries is critical to the game, you have to utilise cover otherwise you'll be in the open exposed and shot to pieces even if you have a high level merc they are not one man killing machines as seen in some RPG's they can be brought down by a lowly redshirt with a pistol if shot maybe 3,4 or sometimes 5 times.
By careful positioning you can block line of sight for some enemies and can say go from prone to crouch and fire a shot before retuning to prone to stop a counter shot by the enemy next turn, offcourse this requires the mercenary to have at least 2 spare AP's after getting up and firing to return to prone.
Also you should bunch up all your characters in one place because if an enemy throws a few grenades you'll end up with a neat pile of dead mercenaries, more so you can have mercenaries jump on roofs and try to take out the enemy that way, but cover even in the form of buildings is never guaranteed, all walls are destructible if there's explosives involved ,so theres quite a bit to mindful of in combat and this is just where to place your mercenaries.
Each mercenary has a limited number of Health Points, when theyre hit and being hit in various parts of the body will result in different types of wounds, for example a leg shot may reduce dexterity and cause a merc to collapse and miss a turn, a headshot might diminish perception and cause collapse etc, but when theyre are shot theyre HP bar which is red will loose some health points but the ones which were lost will now be represented in a yellow bar - this yellow bar represents theyre full health capacity but since theyve been shot theyre also bleeding to death , so you'll need a character with a good degree of medical knowledge to heal them up with either first aid kit or medical kit, if you do so this yellow bar will return to a lighter shade of red but the merc isnt fully healed theyre still badly wounded but youve stopped the blood loss but they'll move sluggishly, the merc will need further treatment after a sector is secured to fully heal up, which means you'll want to take care of your mercenaries during combat.
When a merc is hit in burst fire mode full on theyre 99% gonna die, likewise the enemy will aswell, but when a enemy is hit and nearly dead but not quite they'll pass out and bleed to death again unless you can stop the blood loss, many fights in the game will have you're mercs ending up nearly dead and requiring immediate medical attention so theres quite abit of suspense to the game.
For each kill , shot ,use of skill etc you're merc will gain experience or points to increase that specific skill they used - say a really good shot will earn your merc a point in marksmanship making them more accurate, once they have enough exp they'll level up and have general increases to stats etc, however as they get better mercenaries fees will increase to reflect this.
To get money the player must take sectors of towns which include mines to have a stable source of income to further the cause of the resistance (or do you want to take over the island?)
Next on gameplay theres the more real time but pausable strategic layer where you can assign mercs into squads, access laptop internet, move mercs, train them etc as you send a squad of up to 6 mercs off to a town they may spot something of interest in a sector and you can choose to enter it, the point of interest may be a bunch of farmers which can offer you a minor side quest - one funny one being giving a female merc a a bride. But more likely as you are moving a squad to a specific target they'll be ambushed by wild beats or bump into an enemy patrol at which point you can choose to auto resolve the encounter, retreat to another sector or fight them in turn based combat, - initially the combat will be real time but as soon as an enemy is spotted it goes into the turn based glorious mode.
After a sector is cleared it goes back into real time and you can heal up/loot etc and then skiddadle onto the original path you intended, eventually you'll also need to rest your characters, then when you reach a city sector you wish to take (most cities are 3 to 4 sectors big some even larger like Grumm and Meduna) you can wait for a night attack (very difficult in the beginning without night goggles) or for a day light attack and position your mercs where you can and proceed, at the start it'll be real time as mentioned then when an enemy is spotted turn based mode, you have a variety of tactics at your disposal, frontal attack, snipe, lure round corners and kill, maybe split up you're squads and attack from different directions, you can even have multiple squads all attack the same sector at once to achieve numerical superiority.
Each sector has alot enemies, in the beginning they'l be armed much as your own mercs, with pistols which means close quarter fights are going to occur, eventually though you'll be outclassed by them as they start wielding shotguns submachine guns and assault rifles accurate at twice the range as pistols so you'll be in for a struggle but eventually you'll loot these fine weapons for yourself and they'll become available for purchase on bobby rays via laptop internet - which leads back to the question from earlier, if you can order items how do you get them for your mercs with no airport? well you take over Drassen City from the queen dictator and you can have them delivered safely for your mercenaries to use.
It should also be noted that once youve taken over a sector you can acquire side quests in RPG fashion by talking to the locals who will have a task for you - escort missions, rescue missions , find a specific person etc each with their own rewards. Also by talking to ach character with some meaningful dialog there will appear a box with their face , they have their own voice the lip-synching is top notch and a few varieties of dialog you can be friendly, direct threatening make deals etc its hardly as sophisticated as RPG's but this is mainly a turn based strategy game and I was surprised to see a good RPG element implemented into the game.
Speaking of RPG elements, this game also has more choice and consequence for your actions than some RPG's made this day! quite amazing, you can actually kill the rebel leader and try take over the island yourself, you can choose not to do certain quests, you are free to attack whatever sectors you want theres no linear path and quite frankly, its great having the freedom like that but also a purpose to the course of the game.
As you progress through the game you'll take over sectors but you'll want to keep them protected as you move your mercenaries out, to do this you can leave a mercenary and train militia continuously for money, depending on leadership skill of mercenary eventually a group of militia will be trained , green coats at first for well, green troops then blue for veterans, you'll want to keep a sector protected because the arulco army will occasionally launch attacks to retake sectors and you dont want to see all your hard work undone just because you were too hasty and moved off all your mercenaries from a town do you?
As you can tell by the indepth analysis of the gameplay, its a very fun game certainly one of the classics and I cant help but feel also should have been more successful. (at least theirs going to be a jagged alliance 3 with turn based combat)
Now onto the graphics, well they're not exactly pretty, even on release the graphics were distinctly average and now they are what id still consider average but very basic with poor character sprites themselves. The characters have slightly different sizes depending on physiques but they're undetailed and a little blurry, buildings look basic with oddly thin walls , terrain looks fine in my view still and the animations throughout are pretty dam good, the graphics do not detract from the game.
Speaking of the animations the merc and character faces in dialog and taskbar at the bottom are very good and nicely detailed and theres a few death animations which are gory and reminiscent of fallout series critical shots, shooting someone in the head with a shotgun might make their head explode, shooting someone close range with a pistol or assault rifle might make the enemy fly backwards with a gaping hole in their chest but most often they'll collapse forward and a pool of blood form - o yea this game is quite gory too.
Sound wise, the music is pretty decent theres a few ambient style tracks which dont get in the way then the more action packed ones for fighting in enemy sectors - once a sector is cleared it'll change back again to the more peaceful ambient style tracks, theres a couple of tracks which may stick in your mind but overall id say its quite good fitting for the game but not exceptional.
Voiceovers are done very well and can also inject a little humour into hte game - everyone's favourite idiot Elliott for example as he tries to placate his queen even with the bad news of towns being taken over.
The complaints I have with the game, well its very difficult at times and battles can take hours to resolve but luckily you can save in mind battle, also the character sprites look basic, some of the music is merely ok not great and memorable and there's still a few bugs in the game such as turns not getting completed etc and there's doesn't quite feel like there's enough weapons and items in the game or some of the ones in the game are too similar more choice would be great and there's no multiplayer.
Overall a great game, a classic to be sure and Im so glad I managed to buy this game even though its quite old.
Pros:
.Excellent turn based combat blended with RPG moments and realtime management.
.Interesting setting
.Choice and Consequence gameplay
.RPG elements
.Challenging game
.Will last quite a while too
Neutral:
.Music is ok nothing fantastic, a few good tracks both action packed and ambient but some are just unremarkable.
Cons:
.At times it feels too difficult
.Graphically it can be considered to be downright poor
.No multiplayer mode
.Still abit buggy
.could do with a few more weapons especially more assault rifles
.sometimes the combat sectors feel like they take wayyy to long so you really have to be patient.