Jagged Alliance: Back in Action Reviews
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Eurogamer, 6/10.
So, Back In Action doesn't manage to be either the joyous return of a lost king or a spangly new action toy for the uninitiated. Too simplified for the former and too cheap for the latter, this isn't the explosive Jagged Alliance comeback it needed to be, or even the equal of its revered forebear.
Nonetheless, it's a strategy game of uncommon substance. The painstaking management and honing of your team, the desperate push-and-pull war for territory, and the gradual incursion towards Arulco's heart of darkness offer a hearty feast for anyone who can make it past the more superficial disappointments.
GameReactor, 6/10.
Next time I boot up my PC in search of some strategy action, Jagged Alliance is going to have some tough competition. It's not a terrible game, it's just got so many flaws that it is difficult to ignore them all. Having said that, there are going to be people who like this game much more than I did. If you played the original back in the day, and remember it as a happy place, then there's a good chance that this remake will appeal to you. It's not an irredeemable mess; if you're prepared to look past its problems, underneath the clunky facade lies an engaging game. It's just a shame that Coreplay didn't make it easier to get at, because if they had, Jagged Alliance might have been able to step out from the shadow of its illustrious forebears and start attracting a cult following all of its own.
And finally Rock, Paper, Shotgun has their usual "Wot I Think" scoreless piece.
The campaign doesn't feel particularly arduous, in either a good or a bad way, because there's no sense of being entrenched in enemy territory, where every wound is potentially fatal, every weapon is only as good as the squad's mechanic and supplies are ever dwindling. As a squad-based tactical combat game, JA:BIA has its own approach and it's one that occasionally works well, but enjoying it requires an ability to play along with and around the quirks and clumsy artificial untelligence.
Starting with the name, so much of the game asks to be compared to Jagged Alliance but forget that, or at least forget that if you're interested in playing JA:BIA rather than tsking at it from afar. Slap it on the wrist, perhaps, for trying to hang out with someone so venerable, but then brush it down and look at what's actually in front of you. It's rough around the edges and sometimes a little rough in the middle as well, it's probably better suited to being a series of missions than a free-form campaign, but it does have its own, reasonably effective approach to modern day tactical combat.
The problem is, when you cut off so much, what remains needs to be lithe and effective. In this case, it's a shame that the ideas that are JA:BIA's own aren't executed more effectively, because at the moment a lot of them are still twitching, leaking and making a bit of a mess of things.
