Home » NEWS BOARD » Gaming Reviews » 8 Hour Review (Jagged Alliance: Back in Action)
| 8 Hour Review (Jagged Alliance: Back in Action)[message #298452]
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Fri, 10 February 2012 18:50 
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 WilsonMG |
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Messages:28
Registered:October 2011
Location: USA |
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Well, I gave Jagged Alliance: Back in Action a good, honest 8 hour run through before I cast any judgement about the game. I went in having played all the Jagged Alliance games and their clones, including the current Jagged Alliance Online Beta. I went in without bias, and even some optimism. I consider myself a more casual player overall, but I thoroughly enjoy realism, especially given my own military background as a combat vet. I'm not looking to waste anyone's time, nor my own, so this is a "down and dirty" review that will mostly just consist of positives and negatives about the game in bullet format from my own personal perspective/opinion.
Positives
-P&G (Pause & Go) is not as bad as it was first predicted to be. It's definitely not the "series killer" that many would have you believe. It actually makes for a real "firefight" feel at times and allows for some weapons to be represented as they should. BiA does a better job of P&G than Hired Guns or 7.62. I don't miss the turn-based gameplay while playing it. It also features a nice queuing system for actions while using P&G that actually works and things like chance to hit are calculated from the final position/stance, etc.
-The world graphics can actually be decent-looking at times. Environments/foliage could be a lot thicker given most gamers' systems are well above what is required to run this game.
-Decent character animations (most of the time). Characters do have several idle animations and the like so they don't feel entirely rigid/dead.
-Makes pretty good use of the obstacles and terrain model in the engine. I noticed very little clipping/AI "cheat shots" through cover/concealment.
-Auto-save immediately prior to engaging in combat is a really nice feature, but should be able to be turned off for those that want a harder experience. It has saved me from repeating a lot of actions just because I was being bone-headed or too tired. There's something to be said for saving a person's real life time and energy.
Negatives
-Ugly UI. Just because it says "laptop" doesn't mean it has that feel to it anymore.
-Cheap/sad attempt at renaming weapons to bypass copyright law and avoid paying licensing fees. (This is something modders can probably fix).
-No IMP character. Horrible, horrible call there. Where in the game do "I" exist? Without having my own avatar/alter ego in-game, a lot of immersion is lost.
-The faces are not as bad as some others have made them out to be, but they aren't great either, overall though I put this in the negatives because they could have done a better job of making the mercs look more unique and more like the original characters.
-The voice acting is not the worst I've heard, but they definitely don't resemble the original characters' at all, save for some more cheesy fake accents and similar one-liners.
-No weapon customization. One attachment slot on the character does not count. Weapon customization is one of the cornerstones of this series and even every clone yet did a better job with this.
-Lack of variety in attachments.
-Lack of variety in weapons. You can pretty much at least see every weapon in the game the first day, depending on what Bobby Ray has in the online shop.
-No varieties of ammo. AP, JHP, Tracer, etc.
-Jacked up inventory with no pockets or load-bearing equipment. Again, another key thing that made the JA series of games popular that does not exist. Half the fun of playing is setting up a merc's inventory to be as efficient as possible.
-No magazines, ammo just sits in odd piles with a random graphic to represent the caliber of ammo. (Again, this might be one thing that modders could improve, given developer support).
-No sector inventories. Running back to a sector to grab a weapon I had to leave behind because of the above lack of load-bearing equipment/storage gets real old, real fast.
-The camera was tweaked as of the last patch (Launch Day +1), but it's still wonky and needs more flexibility other than a tight top-down or tight horizontal view, both with limited field of vision. Why can't we freely decide where to aim the camera like in other games like the Total War series for example? Most of the clones did a better job with the camera as well.
-No key binding, configuration, or even keyboard layout explained in-game. Middle mouse button is bound to WASD panning and ALT is rotate and you can't change it. Big "WTF?!?" there. It's neither natural nor intuitive.
-No fog of war and radar shows every enemy in the zone. While I didn't care for how small the visible area was in JA 2, especially at night even with the best NVGs, I don't think showing every swinging **** on the map is a proper alternative. You cannot be surprised if you're paying attention. Maybe a clever modder can either remove enemies from the radar or find a way to disable it entirely.
-Paid DLC items are useless straight away as better options are accessible immediately. The only thing you might use for a bit are the SCARs and the helmets, just because helmets aren't cheap and armor breaks quickly. Sell them all for a quick bump to your starter funds.
Neutrals
-No hiring/training of militia, rather you give a weapon to a "blue fist guy", as I've taken to calling them based on their icons, and they turn into a "yellow fist guy". Militia numbers increase over time as your reputation goes up, but you can't move them on the strategy map. There's rarely enough of them to withstand even a small counterattack even when they all have AK-47s or better. Your first mine will get hit every day like clockwork, and when all of your militia die, you lose all those weapons you gave to them instead of selling for profit. Give them recovered/repaired weapons, don't buy anything to outfit them, or simply don't outfit them at all and just use your own mercs to take back the sectors after they get taken over again.
-Typical RPG-style XP leveling system vs. skill-based learning. This is neutral for me because while I prefer skill-based systems, at least this gives me the opportunity to "fix" weaker characters. No more training Ira for days on end just to get her up to a useable standard. Give her an assault rifle and put her to work immediately.
-Speaking of training, it's gone. I personally feel that's a good thing considering this allows you to actually use all mercs immediately as opposed to having to farm them up through training before they're viable.
-Almost none of the decent mercs, or rather the mercs without nasty disabilities, will work with you until your reputation increases substantially. However, this does not seem to be based on their starting level, but rather how useful the merc is/can be long-term, i.e. Igor. Igor was an awesome character once you developed him a little bit in JA 2. He's only level 2 in BiA, but he basically tells you to "piss off" if you try to recruit him immediately. Same goes for Grizzly. Instead I was only able to get Hitman and Wolf straight away and Hitman comes with a crappy stamina disability that will always affect him. One of these two (can't remember which) starts at level 4, so exactly what in the hell did they base the required reputation to hire a merc on? Multiple restarts for testing verified it's always the same and not random.
-Shoot me, but I like the fact that the recurring salaries are gone. No more worrying about whether or not I can buy ammo because I'm trying to pre-purchase contract time weeks in advance just to hold onto my favorite mercs.
-Even though difficulty is not adjustable, it can be challenging and seems to scale quickly based on your reputation/progress. The game gets pretty hard pretty quick. You will not be able to just line up on the edge of a sector and funnel enemies into a death trap. Once you're facing enemies with anything better than pistols, if you don't make effective use of cover and utilize grenades you're asking to get all of your characters one-shotted.
-The AI is not terrible. It does actually begin to try and flank you pretty hard early on.
Closing Thoughts
The game can be entertaining and even fun if you don't go into it expecting JA 2 1.13's extensive list of features. I have some small hope that it will be improved upon based on player feedback. I'm also holding out that they will make it somewhat easier to mod so that those things the developers didn't have the time/budget for can be fixed by fans. It has a lot of potential, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're a hardcore fan of the genre and are looking for something new. It's not worth the money at the moment, but once it hits the Steam discount bin, I would recommend it then.
I will play it again tonight and I'm even looking forward to it a bit. That said, I will not play it for more than a few more hours in total unless a lot of the above negatives listed above are fixed/improved. I will also never buy another Kalypso/Coreplay game unless they show an effort to improve their product to the point of making it worth the initial price tag.
[Updated on: Tue, 05 October 2021 02:09] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Private 1st Class
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| Re: 8 Hour Review[message #298453]
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Fri, 10 February 2012 19:00 
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| Necrotaur |
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Messages:7
Registered:October 2010 |
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WilsonMG-Almost none of the decent mercs, or rather the mercs without nasty disabilities, will work with you until your reputation increases substantially. However, this does not seem to be based on their starting level, but rather how useful the merc is/can be long-term, i.e. Igor. Igor was an awesome character once you developed him a little bit in JA 2. He's only level 2 in BiA, but he basically tells you to "piss off" if you try to recruit him immediately. Same goes for Grizzly. Instead I was only able to get Hitman and Wolf straight away and Hitman comes with a crappy stamina disability that will always affect him. One of these two (can't remember which) starts at level 4, so exactly what in the hell did they base the required reputation to hire a merc on? Multiple restarts for testing verified it's always the same and not random.
Good review. I just wanted to mention that you can hire Igor if you hire Grunty first, Igor will say something like he 'trusts Grunty's experience' and then will join. It's probably similar for other mercs. I also noticed the stamina penalty thing, it's very annoying hiring a merc that can't sprint 10 meters without getting winded. I thought it was a bug at first when I hired Bull and he had half a bar of stamina.
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Private
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| Re: 8 Hour Review[message #298516]
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Sat, 11 February 2012 05:10
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| CronoDroid |
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Messages:4
Registered:November 2010 |
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I played it for about four hours myself:
1. Axe wielding enemies are a bitch. Mainly because the targeting system is so unintuitive, WHY CAN'T YOU SHOOT AN ENEMY AT POINT BLANK RANGE? When a raging axe murderer takes out your entire squad and nobody bothers to shoot him because "I can't make the shot!" (yes you can son), I want to rage. Your axe vs. my shotgun should not be a contest when you're five meters away from me.
2. No IMP. Seriously, this was unforgivable considering how long the game's been in development. JA2 came out thirteen years ago, and 1.13 has been around for a couple of years too. Did they not look at the original game and think "Hmmm, maybe we should make sure every feature from JA2 is in this game before we start adding new features"?
3. Merc hiring is garbage. You can't sort by level, marksmanship or anything, it's just a list of faces. Now I know we've all been playing JA2 for so long that we know which mercs we like and which ones we don't, but still. Furthermore, you have to dial up to call any merc, and that takes five valuable seconds. Why are you wasting my time? Get some 4G fool, it's 2012 and you're a mercenary mastermind. This may seem like a minor quibble but it's evidence of poor game design. You should not be looking to waste the player's time with arbitrary nonsense. To compound on this, there are no tooltips on merc traits. For people who have been playing games for years and JA2 for years, you just want to jump in and start liberating people, it'd be nice to see what exactly the "nudist" trait does or what exact bonuses "melee mastery" gives. What, Fox fights better with no armor or clothing? Tell that to the two 9mm bullets in your chest cavity girlfriend.
4. No strategic gameplay. I haven't played very far so maybe there is expanded strategic elements, but basically from the point I'm at (just liberated Drassen, assaulted the farm west of Cambria), there isn't any sort of strategic GUI where you can assign mercs different tasks, check their inventories, check SECTOR inventories (really, who though this was a good idea?), etc.
5. Lack of items. Come on son, that's nonsense, I know the game has only been in development from probably around two years but what, thirty or so weapons doesn't cut it. I partially blame the publishers for this, the developers probably had a shitty budget, a small team and a very tight deadline which explains a lot of the unpolishedness. Honestly if I were the publishers, I would've done my research and discovered, oh hey there is an active modding community that has massively, MASSIVELY expanded JA2 over the years, maybe I should offer them a job or a role in making my new JA project? Or at least CONSULT with a core group of gamers that has kept JA2 alive well, well past its use by date.
6. The attachment system, as mentioned in the OP, is woeful. Even JA2 Vanilla had more than one slot, "oh no my rifle can only take a single sight and no suppressor!" This isn't Call of Duty multiplayer children, this is a tactical squad based game.
7. Inventory management as a whole is incredibly poor. As far as I can tell, you can't split up stacks of ammo, and every merc has a fixed inventory space. COME ON! Did none of these developers play through 1.13 first and at least attempt to implement a better inventory system? You can't carry loaded weapons either, every time you switch weapons, oh let's just unload my shotgun/pistol so if I have to deal with a close ranged target, GOTTA RELOAD. These mercs really care about firearm safety obviously, carrying loaded weapons is pretty unsafe in a combat situation I guess.
8. Pause and Go and real time combat is...well meh. It is actually somewhat functional compared to other game features, but I would've liked an option to switch between individual turn based, squad turn based and real time ala Fallout Tactics.
9. The ability to see every enemy on the map is not a huge drawback. Yes, it does make the game easier since you're unlikely to walk into five guys with shotguns pointed at your face, and it makes sense with the large maps and real time combat, but it is still difficult to clear maps when your enemies are in a defended position. But then again, the reason why X-COM and JA2 was so engaging was the fear factor of having some annoying little sectoid/soldier hiding in the shadows ready to blow your team away, forcing you to actually think before you move. One of the hard things in BiA is cleaning house, assaulting a room with more than two enemies is difficult mostly due to the shitty gameplay. It's hard to throw flashbangs without having them bounce off invisible environments into your squad and then their axe murderer chops your team into tonight's dinner.
10. Your merc's appearance changing based on his clothing and equipment is a nice feature. Too bad the rest of the game is so unpolished.
Overall, this game has all the hallmarks of a rushed, underfunded project from a small games studio who did not put much care into their work. Hopefully they'll improve it with patches and make the game extremely moddable, but as of right now, it is not worth buying in my opinion.
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Civilian
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| Re: 8 Hour Review[message #298783]
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Mon, 13 February 2012 06:03
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| WilsonMG |
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Messages:28
Registered:October 2011
Location: USA |
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Well I'm now 31 hours in according to Steam. Same arguments in my OP still hold true, but the game is still enjoyable, especially once you learn a few of the game's mechanics (like splitting inventory, etc.) which are generally found through trial and error. If they make the improvements that just about everyone agrees upon, the game will stand as a worthy remake of the series.
Further, can anyone confirm whether or not you can actually "lose" this version of JA by not progressing fast enough? The hate e-mails from old Enrico are still in. I was using Ira to scout for the SAM sites while my main squad held down Cambria. I've taken to not arming the militia of most locations at all simply because they can't hold off any attacks and they just waste my weapons when they die so better to just have the money for selling them to hire real mercs. Anyway, while she was out scouting, the hate mails from Enrico starting pouring in that I wasn't progressing fast enough. Personally, I want to play the game indefinitely (until I'm bored) on the same playthrough, so I intentionally drag out my campaigns for months (in JA 2 anyway). I'm still only a few weeks in in BiA. Point is, I don't want to be forced to progress and I enjoyed that about JA 2. After I finish this post I will just move all my mercs back to Drassen Airport and hit the fastest time speed and see if I can't verify that you can/can't lose for not progressing.
Toggle SpoilerI made the huge mistake of accepting the mission to capture the SAM sites so they could evacuate Cambria Hospital not realizing I only had 30 days to do this and that the location of the other SAM sites are very deep in enemy territory. One is right outside Meduna and you have to be extremely quick to slip in and get it and the force there is retarded strong, as it should be, considering its location. Due to the fact you access this mission very early in the campaign, the timer should be removed from this quest, or it should give you a more clear warning that it is timed and you should be able to back out of the convo and take it up again later with no penalty.
I restarted after I learned that Grunty gave you access to Igor. So far my squad consists of 1.) Wolf, 2.) Grunty, 3.) Igor, 4.) Ira, 5.) Ivan, 6.) Shadow. You can actually get Wolf, Grunty, and Igor by just taking Drassen Airport if you spend your money wisely. Having three decent mercs that have no penalties really makes the early game a lot faster/easier. I've taken on Wolf as my pseudo-IMP and the team leader, since we can't have IMPs and he's pretty much how I build mine anyway, minus the shotgun talent. I've progressed so far as taking everything in the NE quarter of the map, but because of the spoiler above, I've had to stop progressing and focus just on those specific locations mentioned so that I can accomplish that mission before the timer runs out.
I did make one error in my OP, where I said I would only log a few hours more. That isn't true, and I'm going to keep playing, however, I still wouldn't recommend this game to friends until the missing features/fixes are in.
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Private 1st Class
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| Re: 8 Hour Review[message #298833]
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Mon, 13 February 2012 18:24
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| WilsonMG |
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Messages:28
Registered:October 2011
Location: USA |
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DepressivesBrotSomeone who has more ingame days can probably give a more conclusive answer, I haven't seen it though. And given that in JA2, there we always some unavailable at day one so you often couldn't quite build your standard team every time ...
Somewhat related: Any of those with more ingame days noticed merchants disposing of your loot at some point? Still could buy back the stuff I sold Waldo 5 days ago.
I'm around 30-40 days in and they still have every single item I've sold them... ever. I really kinda wish they'd "refresh" every now and then, if for no other reason than to clean up the clutter and to renew some items they might have had at one point. Their money goes up by the day though until they get back up to around whatever their cap is so if you sell to them until they're out of funds, they slowly build back up.
I really wish they would have diversified the weapons a bit more. I'm building my second 6-man team now and I find myself using lower-end weapons just to add some variety and personality to the teams even at the cost of performance. With more weapons, I realize some of them may have almost identical stats, but sometimes it's nice just having some variety for appearances.
And whoever it was that said they should show what items do stat-wise (like 1.13), I totally agree. I have equipped my primary 6-man team with the helmets that come mounted with NVGs and gave them all goggles so I no longer have to keep switching them between sunglasses/NVGs (no hotkey yet like 1.13) and I'd like to see if I'm getting the benefits of both, not getting any benefit, hurting my stats, etc.
I still haven't verified if you can or can't lose by sitting stagnant for a prolonged period of time in this version. I did manage to complete the retarded mission I had in the spoiler above though.
If you want a real challenge, you can try and do what I'm doing... Win every battle without ever getting shot once.
I know repairing armor is not realistic, but that said, I could care less if it means I have to constantly micromanage keeping fresh armor coming in, especially when not all clothing items are always available in the shop and I have a theme and specific camo going for my squads. If armor or clothing could be repaired or couldn't be damaged, I wouldn't be doing this, but since it's currently a huge pain in the ass to get shot, especially considering a single hit takes durability off of every item head-to-toe, I decided I simply wouldn't get shot.
Obviously this wouldn't be possible without utilizing saved games, but even still, try taking on a dozen or more higher-level troops decked out in body armor, optics, and with top end weapons and walk away unscathed.
The reason why I say to try it if you want a challenge is because it makes you have to plan your tactics as if a single round could kill a merc instantly, kinda like in real life. Some of the moves I've planned and pulled off because of this, and the fact that you can't save while engaged, have made for some sick firefights.
I thought about Fraps-ing this one I did last night it was simply that frickin' cool and well-planned... I had three enemy holed up in a bunker covering both entrances and behind cover (Hick Farm). My answer? I "stacked" a 3-man team MOUT-style at the front door of the house above while a fourth crawled in and threw a smoke in the front door of the bunker and a fifth tossed a frag into the hole on the ladder side. As soon as the smoke billowed, I rushed the stairs facing the entry to the bunker and my team got into position on our side of the smoke. The point man had a Minimi and was in the prone, and I had him blind fire a couple of his 10-round bursts through the smoke-filled doorway. Behind him, the second man had a VSS and was kneeling and the third man had an M14 and was standing. All three were in a risky line formation but I managed to fire enough rounds through the smoke to wound the guys in the bunker and stagger them. Result? Three entrenched badguys down and they never even got a chance to fire a single round in return. The only thing that would have made it even sweeter would be if you could shoot on the move and actually perform real CQB room-clearing.
[Updated on: Mon, 13 February 2012 18:38] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Private 1st Class
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| Re: 8 Hour Review[message #299531]
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Mon, 20 February 2012 12:08
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| TrashMan |
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Messages:61
Registered:November 2005
Location: Croatia |
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WilsonMG
-Jacked up inventory with no pockets or load-bearing equipment. Again, another key thing that made the JA series of games popular that does not exist. Half the fun of playing is setting up a merc's inventory to be as efficient as possible.
That's 1.13, not the original game.
Quote:
-Speaking of training, it's gone. I personally feel that's a good thing considering this allows you to actually use all mercs immediately as opposed to having to farm them up through training before they're viable.
Frankly, I'd put trainign back. Having experienced mercenaries train newbies in usefull skills added depth adn a feelign of realism.
Pay for training and have it add a point or two to a skill. The thing with this systems is that a "lesser" merc will never catch up to a vet. By the time I hired Shadow in JA2, Ira could be a decent fighter.
Also, pay for traingin milita to increase their stats a bit.
Pay to have them equipped wiht weapons.
Quote:
-Almost none of the decent mercs, or rather the mercs without nasty disabilities, will work with you until your reputation increases substantially. However, this does not seem to be based on their starting level, but rather how useful the merc is/can be long-term, i.e. Igor. Igor was an awesome character once you developed him a little bit in JA 2. He's only level 2 in BiA, but he basically tells you to "piss off" if you try to recruit him immediately. Same goes for Grizzly. Instead I was only able to get Hitman and Wolf straight away and Hitman comes with a crappy stamina disability that will always affect him. One of these two (can't remember which) starts at level 4, so exactly what in the hell did they base the required reputation to hire a merc on? Multiple restarts for testing verified it's always the same and not random.
I can get Grizzly right away. I did notice mercs wil tell you piss off if you already hired a merc they don't like.
I'm more cencerend with how their stats and skills make no sense anymore in some cases - especially if you consider character bios. Removal of skills like trainer and heavy weapons really hurts the game.
Quote:
-Shoot me, but I like the fact that the recurring salaries are gone. No more worrying about whether or not I can buy ammo because I'm trying to pre-purchase contract time weeks in advance just to hold onto my favorite mercs.
Juggling finaces was the whole point.
I find it redicolous that a Merc will work for you forever for a paltry sum. Real Mercs work on timed contracts.
I liked hte fact that Mercs raised their price as tehy got better. Also raised the question - long-term hireing of a few merc or buy more mercs for a short period?
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Corporal
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| Re: 8 Hour Review[message #299549]
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Mon, 20 February 2012 13:52
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| masterstroggo |
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Messages:1
Registered:February 2012 |
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After playing Back in Action for a few hours, I kind of started to miss playing JA2..I think BiA is Ok as a game if don't consider it's JA2 heritage (which it doesn't live up to).
I do like the plan and go system, but hate that they didn't include co-op campaign.. ever since I played my first deathmatch on JA: Deadly games I have been wishing that you could play cooperatively.
JA:BiA feels to me like its in alpha stage, not bug-wise but considering the lack of functions and its rough edges. For instance, passing equipped things between characters is a tedious process in BiA. First un-equip, then start trade window, then transfer it, then equip it on other character.. 4 steps for a action which could be done in like two in JA2, just pass the thing and equip it!
I hope that the game is easily moddable. I don't know anything about programming and modding, but I hope that guys like many on this forum can work magic on BiA someday!
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| Re: 8 Hour Review[message #300839]
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Sat, 03 March 2012 10:37
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| capieluky |
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Messages:4
Registered:August 2010 |
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I played BiA ... its horrible game but i hope for good complexive mod or big patch with fog of war, global inventory, more aiming options ... i have not time to wait for load and search for weapons and run to every militia for me this game is waste of time.
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