My thoughts on JA3

[uhausbrand]

Hi all readers,

I've not played any beta or so, so keep that in mind regarding my following comments.

First of all, I want to thank THQ and Haemimont for just making the game and keeping Turn Based Combat as a key element of JA.
I've played almost all JA titles beginning from JA2 (oh no, he didn't play JA1) and I never understood the decision of many other installments to use RTwP.

Second thing is I like what I see in the many reviews, the whole flow of the game is like I would like a successor of JA2. But I also accept certain things and can live with it. I'm looking at you, Bobby Rays. So I don't share the criticism like "It isn't grim enough", "oh no magical ammo boxes" and so on. Sure I would like to see some things like ammo management but I am inclined to give it a shot ("har har").

But for two things I would like to give my thinking about them to you:

1. Character models and the decision of making them recognizable in tactical combat ("No, we don't render your Kevlar vest")

In the dev diary you talked about how rendering the equipment on person made all mercs too indistinguishably.
I don't think this is a bad point. In JA2 it conveyed the experience of the team and it  didn't make me not connect with Ivan or shadow emotionally. It just felt right for immersion. The character portrait was enough for me and I would have no problem with showing the character model in conversations. Maybe you make an dlc for that if you just cut it because of dev time constraints, I have no problem in supporting such development.

2. Militia only combat

I remember that JA2 initially also allowed you to show militia only combat in tactical view instead of forcing auto resolve and I so loved it watching these battles. Yes it could take some time if only 2 guys remained and they didn't find/hit each other. But I just liked watching my trained guys trying to keep up with the enemy force.
And then a patch came and it was not to be done anymore (was it a patch? Or some Gold version thingy, I don't remember)
What did little old me? I stationed/moved an merc into the sector of fighting just to see the auto combat. (and to help sometimes, yes, that too)

So long story: I would like to have the option to waste my time with tactical auto combat instead of auto resolve.

So, not much to say for me now,

Bye all