What's Good	What's Bad	4.5 out of 5.0
Superb turn based combat engine Nice graphics and animations Complex gameplay Violence can be toned down with game option	Extremely difficult No multiplayer

The premise of the game revolves around the hiring and coordination of a team of mercenaries with the end goal of liberating the country of Arulco from a nefarious queen. The storyline is rather uninspired, but in all honesty I didn't care one whit. The strength of the game is the turn based combat and the story is there merely to supply the conflict. The process of liberating Arulco involves taking control of various cities and mines and holding them against the forces of Queen Deidranna. This usually involves direct combat with her forces and the training of a militia to hold the fort once your mercs have secured the area and moved on. The mines are important to your cash flow. Each mine will divert its resources to your coffers so you can afford to pay your mercs and equip them properly.

The game starts up by using a laptop simulation as the game interface. It works surprisingly well. You have email and web access, a historical journal where you can record your exploits and track your missions -- the game generates your entries. There is a file area to store reconnaissance reports, a list of hired mercs and their skills, and a financial program where you can track you expenditures and income. All of this is handled very intuitively and presented in a clear manner. Your contact is an exiled freedom fighter who supplies you with some cash and asks that you put together a team of mercenaries (mercs) to wrest control of Arulco and return it to the people. The hiring of the mercs is done via a website called A.I.M. (the Association of International Mercenaries, sorry AOL). You are also allowed to create a personal character via a web site called I.M.P. (the Institute for Mercenary Profiling). They give you a questionnaire designed to match you with a merc that best fits your profile, based on the answers you give. The questions are interesting and very entertaining. I especially liked the one about the battle you would most like to witness. I chose Bill Gates v. Robocop. That would be a hoot.

The mercs themselves are a very interesting lot. There are specialties and skills such as marksmanship, health, agility, explosives, medical expertise, leadership and others that you must take into account when you put your team together. Each merc has his or her price per day that reflects their experience and qualifications. You can hire out for a day, a week, or two weeks. They even require an insurance deposit against future casualties and/or medical bills that will be refunded to your account (in whole or part) should they complete their contract without mishap. Nice little touch of reality. I was looking for a tax ID number for a second before the absurdity of that made me chuckle. Your expense account is not without its limits so you must choose wisely. This is a very difficult game and it is very important that you put together a crack team. There are even a few mercs who simply do not work well together. Hire feuding mercs and they will spend most of their time trading barbs and quips from the very extensive sound files included in the game. The box claims over 10,000 lines of digitized speech and I find no reason to believe otherwise.

Once you have your team of mercs, you will insert into the first of about a dozen different cities that you must free and defend from the forces of Deidranna's army. The battles are quite intense and you must rely on tactical and strategic maneuvering to do well. This is not a game where you can choose some bruisers and go toe-to-toe with the enemy. You will get shredded. Cover and stealth are the rules of the day. Use the environment for concealment and protection. Plant your mercs in an easily defended location and lure the enemy out with random gunfire, flank the opposing force, or just plain sneak up on them and put them down. There are many different techniques that you can employ to eliminate the enemy. This amazing flexibility in strategies is due to the superb combat engine. There was not one instance where I thought to myself, "I wish I could do ____." Also, being turn based, you have plenty of time to think. Good planning and patient setup will be rewarded with victory. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, of course. Like a jammed gun with a bad guy 10 feet away. I really liked that guy, too. I even laughed when the baddie came running up that close. The last guy that did that got his head literally blown off. Yep, there are some brutal animations and plenty of blood and gore, but with a game option to turn it off if you choose. The animations and graphics are all sprite based so no hardware acceleration is needed. Overall, the game looks good and should play well on most machines with minimal slowdown.

Movement during combat is controlled by way of Action Points (AP). Each merc has a specific number of AP's to spend per turn. Moving, crouching, changing weapons, reloading, etc. cost AP's. A typical move consists of moving a few steps to/away from cover, lining up a shot, steady aim (at expense of a few AP's), squeeze it off, and duck back behind cover. Any leftover AP's can be used as an 'interrupt'. An experienced merc can interrupt an enemy in the middle of his/her turn and perform whatever his/her remaining AP's will allow. This also holds true for the opposition. The consequences of ill-timed run for cover can be costly. When not in a combat situation, movement is free of constraints. There are some useful shortcuts and mouse maneuvers that make controlling your team easy. Most of the time is spent walking. Vehicles are available for travel between areas if you can find them or repair them into a usable condition. Weapons and equipment are varied and you will spend quite a bit of effort in outfitting your mercs with the best weapons you can afford or acquire from your dead enemies. You can also order from Bobby Ray's Guns 'N Things, a web site that delivers everything from H&K MP5's to lockpicks. Superior firepower means survival. Do not pinch pennies, you get what you pay for and it just might save your life.

Which brings me to the only disappointment I have with Jagged Alliance 2. It is hard. Very hard. Ordinarily, this does not bother me much. Hard just means I need to practice more or come up with a better approach. Failing that, most games have a difficulty setting to make a game a bit easier than normal. JA2 has just such a setting and I made use of it after my first team got chewed up after just a few days in combat. The problem is the Novice setting is not much better. The enemy still shoots better than you and wears better armor. This makes for a very frustrating game or very satisfying one depending on where you end up after a battle. I can't even imagine what it's like on Expert. Oh, yeah -- no multiplayer. None. Personally, I didn't miss it.

All in all, Jagged Alliance 2 was a pleasant surprise for me. I really did not expect a game with this much depth and playability. What was most surprising was the emphasis on tactical decision making that the game forces on you. Most of the strategy games on the market right now allow you to make a few bad choices and still survive to fight another day. A poor choice playing this game can get your whole crew perished. That is what is best in this game. The combat is intense and each move has serious consequences. Step lightly and make every shot count.