I have not played BE5 far till now. To the first town or so.. But I can still recommend it, if you really like this kind of tactical turn-combat games and if you can get it CHEAP (!!!).
It is this typical russian style of game development. Really great ideas and lots of details but never finished to make a running product. BE5 has one of the best and most detailed tactical turn-combat sytem I have seen.
Another infamous game from this genre is
Alfa Antiterror: Advanced War Tactics.
It's a kind of 3d-Jagged Alliance (it's actually from the makers of JA-3D). But with russian alpha-commandos in Tchechnia (!!!11). The german version that I own, was never really finished, no patch and lot of bugs. The controls is a pain. Nothing to recommmend.
But I still love this game. It is so friggin DIFFICULT, you won't belief it. Kind of the
Wizardry IV - Return of Werdna of tactical turn combat games. You HAVE to save after every turn and reload till you get a good result to play on with. And the whole setting is so anti political correct in an facinating way. The maps are really 'beautiful'. It brings this feeling of fighting a dirty forgotten war with no rules...
It even had multiplayer deatmmatch and team deathmatch per hotseat/lan/and pbem if I remember correct. Found never someone to try it out...I still have it on my drive and can play it right away, it needs no disc and is not that large.
So both games are not a recommention for someone who seeks a good playable game to enjoy and have fun with. It's a recommention for real fans/freaks of this genre to make their collection complete. You need a serious amount of masochistic patience to get something out of this beauties:
