Jagged Alliance 2: Unfinished Business

Rating:
Summary: Way too hard with no real strategy
Review: After playing and loving JA2, I looked forward to the Unfinished Business expansion pack. Unfortunately, after I getting it installed and importing my merc from JA2, I was disappointed to learn that 90% of what made JA2 great was gone.

JA2UB has the thinnest of plot lines and provides no flexibility in terms of exploration or order in which you accomplish tasks. When you crash land on the island, you must battle through 5 or 6 consecutive sectors with 20+ enemies waiting for you in each (all better armed than your 6 mercs). If you get hurt and want to rest up, go for it, but expect another group of 6-12 enemies to pop into your sector every few hours to disturb your rest.

Because you're forced through these sectors in order, there's no opportunity to attack from multiple sides, go exploring, retreat, etc. Every sector was the same thing -- come in at night (daytime attacks were suicide) and stumble around from one side of the map to the other until you find them. I don't know why they even bother with a map -- the game would have been virtually the same if they just gave you one random sector after another loaded with enemies. When you finished one, just start the next.

I played through to the first town and then quit -- just couldn't stay interested (which wasn't a problem with JA2).

Rating:
Summary: did they think this would be fun?
Review: i can't believe my very own cousin suggested this annoyingly frustrating game. if you enjoy fighting against all conceivable odds depending on your wit, if you enojoy a game that requires tactics and good strategy accompanied by good graphics and storylines then move along, there's nothing to see here. i truly believe this was created as a quick way to make a buck, there was absolutely no thought process involoved in the making of this game. if you do buy it don't panic, just tuck it under your arm, calmly walk outside, place it on the ground in the street, find a seat and take bets with your neighbor as to how many cars pass until one finally puts it out of your misery. now your talking fun.

Rating:
Summary: Good but Tough
Review: If you like the Jagged Alliance Series I'm not sure why you are even reading this when you could be playing JA2: Unfinished Business. UB is pretty much just more JA2, although that is a good thing. It sports some nice new features as well, and a few new items. For the hard core, it also has a mission editor that is already pretty darn popular. However it has been stripped of all elements except combat. No roleplaying, only 2 quests, no resource management for money, no militias to hire. Just combat. And there is *tons* of combat. You will be attacked every sector you go into. And you will be vastly outnumbered. And you will load saved games, many, many times. Everytime you turn around you will be attacked by between twice and four times as many enemies. This makes for a very difficult, and often, frustrating game. The reason this gets 4 stars and not 5 is the ridiculous difficulty. Its not "challenging hey this is fun" difficulty. This is "grit your teeth as that mortally wounded enemy with a pop gun hits your merc at 50 paces" difficult. My mercs with 99 marksmanship occasionally seem like they couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat! However, once you get some good guns as you progress, the game will grab you. Nothing like the feeling of a .50 cal sniper rifle dropping an enemy across the screen. One shot one kill, baby! If you are already a JA2 fan, I would recommend picking this up. The difficulty is tolerable once you progress into the game. If you are not familiar with the Jagged Alliance series do yourself a favour and pick up JA2 first. You'll be hooked and thank me for it. And you'll come back to UB for more.

Rating:
Summary: A worthy game any strategist should love.
Review: JA2: UB is not a complete sequel to JA2, nor can it truly be called a full game (and, to be honest, Sir-Tech has never advertised it as such). Sporting just 20 new sectors to explore, it is more a campaign than anything else. However, built around the JA2 engine, UB, like it's predecessors, does just about everything right.

Almost every sector requires severe fighting (4-to-1, in some cases) and the whole game is extremely combat intensive. Enemies are much smarter, and their skill will surprise you. With such odds, tactics and planning truly are the key to success in this game. Going in shooting will only get you killed very quickly. To aid you are two new tactical tools: one that helps you find adequate cover (something that was a little hard to do in JA2), and one that helps you determine your odds of hitting a target.

There are new mercs to choose from, and powerful new weapons to use (the Barret M82A2, for example). Beware, though! Your enemies also have weapons that will surprise (or perforate) you.

Probably the biggest plus is that UB comes with a campaign editor! Yes, you can create your own JA2 campaigns!

If this game has one flaw, it is that some of the plot seems just a little contrived, and a few things are a little too convenient. For example, there are no active mines in you area of operations, so you have no solid source of income. However, you can now hire mercenaries for as long as you want for a flat fee (surprise, surprise), so you don't really need a source of income.

The flaws, such as they were, were quiclky lost in the joy of playing a truly well crafted strategy game. As an add-on to JA2, this is a worthwhile purchase for any fan of the genre.

Rating:
Summary: The most frustrating game you'll buy...
Review: Playing JA 2:UB is like pulling out your own teeth with a screwdriver, its not only that pointless it is a flat out waste of time. JA 2 was an original game that certainly should be considered as one of the greatest strategy games of all time. This illegitimate child of JA 2 however fails to live up to its predecessors name...

First of all if you don't have JA 2 and have never played it out fully, don't bother playing this game. In the previous game you were ordered to take over a whole country in an attempt to depose of a dictator. While you cleaned out area after area of enemies your soldiers grew literally stronger, becoming better with the experience they gained. In JA 2 UB you could transfer those stronger players into the game you were playing now supposedly to make your job easier (I'll get to that in a minute). You can beat the game without this advantage, but doing so would waste your time since first of all, your missing out on playing the more enjoyable game, and secondly you'll be spending so much of your time saving and loading (otherwise known as "cheating") while wondering why you decided to waste your money on this garbage...

Secondly this game is a pain in the rear for experienced JA 2 players. I beat JA 2 on its hardest level, and found that only on Novice level do I actually stand a chance against "super-soldiers" who are clearly more powerful than the X-men, and the Justice League combined. Your guys don't start out with the guns they had in the last one, rather they are replaced with pathetic pistols than couldn't knock down a flower nonetheless a fully armored soldier. I found that even with my super mercs who I had brought over from the last game, my chances had actually DECREASED to hitting a shot. That's right it seemed to me that the more experience fighting my troops had, the more incompetent they were. This is on Novice mind you... the first time I played it on the second highest level of difficulty my soldiers were slaughtered without mercy by three guys armed better and trained better than my clearly more expensive mercs. Only after a while did I realize that no real strategy was involved, just flat out cheat until you reach the ending which is pretty crummy in itself...

Enough about Gameplay which is sure to drive you insane until the point where you try to light your hard drive on fire to erase any knowledge of you owning this game in the first place. JA 2 UB is filled with options that are sure to make you wonder why Interplay would pursue creating a game like this. The game, unlike its predecessor features virtually no side quests whatsoever, a big downer considering how much fun the side quests were to play in the original. This is replaced by a crummy "scenario" creator, which allows you to design additional maps with additional enemies for you to mow down. Basically this is where the creators say to you, "We made an unbeatable game, so here is your chance to create a bunch of soldiers you can cut very easily through take their guns and slaughter the game the way you should have." It would've been nice to see them add that into the instruction booklet beforehand. Since the actual game itself features very few levels and very few missions this might be worth going through, though it should be noted that the creators placed in ludicrously difficult requirements that would take someone hours to reach...

In conclusion if you like impossible games that you need to cheat at to win, game creators that take hours to use, and setting your own money on fire and throwing it down your toilet, JA 2 UB is the game for you. I can't believe that this game is actually related to its predecessor and I personally cannot wait until JA 2 Wildfire comes out in a few days so I can get back doing to what JA2 players do best. Freeing the worthless third world country of Arulco...

Rating:
Summary: Makes fans of the original want to cry
Review: This shoddily-constructed and haphazardly put togethor mini-sequel to one of the greatest strategy games of all time should be left on the shelf.

The game begins majestically; although I was dissapointed at the lack of an opening video, the frantic email from my employer in the last game, Enrico Chivaldori, urged me to quickly put a team togethor. I clicked a button to start the game and was treated to the shot of a helicopter soaring through snow over mountains. Suddenly the helicopter struck a mountainside and hurtled towards the earth while I drew close to my screen in anticipation

Sadly this was as good as the game got...and i hadn't even started the game. All of the brilliant story and brilliant strategy of the original game had been siphoned out, all that was left was a shell of the brilliance of JA2. The new weapons and characters couldn't even come close to redeeming the lack of a strategy aspect. Sure the game engine is the same, but what fun is it to fight the same battles over and over again? Would a roller-coaster be fun for two straight hours? Without towns to hold, militias to train, mines to defend, evil despots to destroy and a frightened populace to save, there's nothing here worth spending money on. It takes everything brilliant about the original and guts it, making me sad I ever played it.

Not reccomended to anyone, not even someone who loved Jagged Alliance 2 and wanted more (for that was me and here I sit bitter and annoyed). 2.5/10