X-Com & Jagged Alliance
 

:hmm: I've been thinking I haven't looked around lately to see what's become of the Jagged Alliance and/or X-Com series...

I recall having some fun with JA2 after waiting around for a decent X-Com followup. But it's been years since I've gone looking for squad-based tactical games. Looks like I may have to give this one a try.

Brigade E5 is a JA2 clone but with a far smaller and dumbed down map, both strategic and in sectors: there are few enterable buildings, not to mention the inexistance of cool dungeons, secret bases, caves and everything else that made the JA2 so wild, varied, large and fun.

A follow-up to Brigade E5 is in the works: 7.62

While it will look better than E5, neither of these can come close to the gameplay of JA2. The only problem with that game is the crappy graphics, but it's definitely the best squad-based game to this date, though perhaps tied to the first two X-Com games.

"ELLIOT, YOU IDIOT!!!" :rotfl:

JA2 = :rock:

There a Jagged Alliance 2 mod that I just picked up the other day. I haven't had the chance to get everything installed and give it a try, but it sounds like it makes quite a few changes. Not sure if it included a no-cd executable or not -- which is one of my primary considerations.
http://ja2v113.schtuff.com/

Xcom 1 has been remade. I have it somewhere and just haven't gotten the chance to give it a try. There's also a speed-run of Xcom 1 which was pretty crazy to see.

As for the new game, it looks interesting. UFO:Aftermath looked interesting -- almost unplayable from all the crash and mission-critical bugs, but it had a few interesting things to it.

Update...

I picked up "UFO: Extraterrestrials" by Chaos Concept the other day. Hoping to maybe recapture some of that XCom/JA2 gaming experience.

What an utter piece of crap it turned out to be.

The graphics are juvenile in their implementation, to the point that I just can't look past it. I played it for about 20 mins before uninstalling it. I swear all the soldier graphics look like the Willis & Grommet claymation characters. It just comes across as goofy... and for some reason, no one dies in this game. The whole point of the original was that you were so technologically outmatched that you expected half your units to get killed every mission in the beginning. Your research was overshadowed by this hopeless life & death struggle. That all seems lost in this so-called remake.

I'll probably reinstall JA2 before I bother to put this one back on the drive.

Aye, I read some reviews of the remake and nobody seems to like it too much. I'm looking at my JA2 box atm...

*Pops the cd into the driver*

:up:

One pretty decent remake of UFO 1 is UFO Alien Invasion. It's open source too: http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/

Did someone played UFO Apocalypse to death as I did ?

It took me a while to get used to operate only in one city but then I learned to appreciate the benefit of it. The city had its own life in which I loved to participate. This own life added so much to the game play. There was a bug though when I advanced far into the game that lets the game crash and I can't continue to play it anymore. Was there ever a fix to it ?

Do you refer to the X-Com Apocalypse released back in 1997 IIRC? The last great game for MS-DOS, before Windows took the monopoly of gaming? If yes, then I played it a lot, many times, from beginning to end, and I still miss the complexity of such a game even now.
Remember just when you collapsed a building by shooting its walls, with the aliens inside. What a treat...

Ah man. X-COM consumed more hours of my life than I care to admit. I played the freakin' demo until the 3.5 inch disk it was on was scratched terribly by my carnivorous floppy drive, and then spent weeks hunting for the full game.

JA an JA2 did similar things to me, though I, regretfully, have never gotten my hands on a full CD copy of the original JA.

I used to play the Brigade E 5 demo. The action part is quite interesting with all its equipment management.

Have you ever sent Deidranna some flowers in JA2 and waited some days? :D

:rotfl:

OW god, I love that game.

This still makes me laugh my butt off:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noSIaRzVN4o

- "Elliot, you idiot!! Are you so stupid that you dont even know how to die properly!?"
- "Ahem... apparently not my Highness. I will try harder..."

Just priceless! :D

OMG, JA2 cutscenes are on youtube. Well shouldn't be a big surprise but whatever :D
Can you actually meet Elliot before finishing off Deidranne?

Cant remember, havent played it for years. I have the CD somewhere around, should install it again. :yep:

I definitely won't install it now, I am addicted to Day of Defeat again since I downloaded the beta 3.1 and 1.0 with Sturmbot 1.5 and 1.6 :lol:
I wish there would be any servers for these DoD Versions.

Did you play Sci-Fi or realistic mode in JA2? The - how were the things called that haunted your mines in Sci-Fi mode?

I played both. Usually played first thru it in realistic mode, then next time used the Sci-fi. No idea what the bugs were called... Bugs? :88)