Solaris_Wave

Due to being busy I completely forgot about the preview until after it had finished, even though I was thinking about it beforehand. However, I will check out the saved video on YouTube. For some reason though, I had a feeling that JA3 would get overlooked. Now, that might be because there was nothing to actually report, because the developers are more busy actually making the game than having something new to present. Or, it could be that it was overlooked due to the amount of games that were to be previewed, judging by the list shown, and as always, the larger profile games like Company Of Heroes get the most airtime.

I recently checked out another review of Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge. This time it was IGN's review. They also talked about the difficulty of the game, namely the superior enemy numbers who can outshoot you and even throw their grenades farther than you can shoot! I know GODSPEED and Hendrix said the grenades were bad but it sounds like you are facing a load of professional baseball and cricket players with their pitching skills! Not only that, but they can seemingly sprint back and forth at Olympic speeds, never tiring out (which I suspected, not having played the game myself), while your own mercs get tired quickly and apparently get out of breath firing their guns, causing them to collapse from exhaustion. In fact, forget the professional baseball and cricket players, it seems like your enemies are either Terminators or Replicants.

There are lots of games on that page that I am interested in, as well as JA3. It doesn't say how long the show goes on for, so I am wondering how much coverage each game will get? There are many titles due to be previewed, judging by that page. I wonder how much coverage JA3 will get itself?

You mentioned the later stages. Is that from a difficulty perspective or is it more down to something the game is missing, for instance?

That sounds like what I am hoping JA3 has. It was something I mentioned in my Weapon Characteristics thread because, as you pointed out, you can't just carry a load of items. Having a load-bearing vest doesn't just have pouches to make things easier to grab, it also allows the weight of what you are carrying to be evenly distributed. I checked out Marauder and had a look at the screenshots. I can certainly see a lot of weapons to choose from. It is a shame that from your description, it is a clunky game. Lack of funding, a larger team and available playtesters sound like they prevented it from being better. The problem is, if they had a bigger publisher with more resources, the publisher would probably encourage them to follow the trends that were big around the time of its release. As so often happens, you can have a great idea, only for some executive to say, "Nobody wants to play that kind of game anymore." And yet, you will read or hear people saying that they wish a certain kind of game existed but they aren't getting made. Sure, they've got the money and manpower, but the big publishers tend to have a close-minded view sometimes. Publisher: "Hey, why not make another battle royale/MOBA/multiplayer deathmatch/FPS with killstreaks and unlockables, etc.!? All the others are doing it, let's cash in!" Developer: "Why not make a tactical strategy shooter with the emphasis on realism and have lots of weapons for the gun nerds? We know people that would love that sort of thing!" Publisher: "Nah, nobody wants to play those games anymore! Now go and make a game with a six-foot banana holding a triple rocket launcher!"

The more I read about Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge, the more it really does sound like it was released too early, needing more time and playtesting. Maybe the publishers (or developers) decided it was 'good enough' or lacked funds to continue any tweaking and polishing. The issue with grenades would definitely aggravate me. It sounds like playing an earlier Call Of Duty game on Veteran difficulty, where you get five grenades thrown at you every few seconds. I know artificial intelligence is hard to make in games but usually if I am getting angry at a game, it is invariably down to the AI being allowed to do things you can't. Things like rubber-banding in racing games, being spotted through tall grass while prone because it isn't programmed in (while you can't see a thing) in FPS games, input reading in beat 'em-ups so they can block you like Neo from The Matrix, the list is endless. I've often quit playing games due to god-like AI or if playing through to completion, have been glad to finish it and forget all about it. Some of those have been renowned games that are heralded as classics, leaving me to wonder how it only seemed to be me that quickly spotted blatant AI cheating. Another negative comment made by the GamesRadar review, about Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge was its fatigue mechanic. It sounds like your mercs get tired too quick and end up collapsing as the battle nears the end. I made a comment about including fatigue in my Weapon Characteristics thread, thinking it would be a good inclusion. My idea was different. I can imagine exhaustion being a factor in the African climate so fatigue implementation is a good idea in some ways. My approach though was more focused on overall battle fatigue, where mercs can't just keep fighting battle after battle without rest, as their attributes would temporarily start going down. Given by the comments in this thread and in reviews, I wouldn't be surprised if the fatigue mechanic in Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge would 'conveniently' only affect your mercs and never the enemy!

It doesn't sound as if that game was properly playtested, from your description of it. The difficulty, the saturation of grenades, the UI and the camera, they all sound as if the developers didn't have enough Q&A on it. Maybe that is why it didn't keep the Jagged Alliance name, even if it looks clearly inspired by it. I've played some infuriatingly difficult games in my time and I don't just mean games like Ninja Gaiden, but turn-based strategy games and RPGs. It isn't fun to have to constantly quickload all the time just because the enemy keeps getting excellent hits, scoring lots of criticals or just raw damage, all the while your own efforts pale in comparison. I remember Fallout 1 and 2 having some annoying battles where you constantly needed to not only hit enemies every turn but also had to get a critical while they missed their shots. And that was just to break even. Fallout 1's finale with the super mutants was a difficult fight. I was not only trying to keep my character alive but also my dog. There were lots of super mutants, all with miniguns, rocket launchers and other heavy weapons. Fallout 2 had similar experiences and was not helped by one of your party often getting you and your other party members in his field of fire. He would only set his gun to automatic and not care who he hit. Laser Squad on the Amstrad CPC 464 was nasty on some of the battles because you had no means of saving and loading. There was one of the missions where you had to defend a base from incoming robots. They were more accurate than you, had a lot more health and in the case of the enemy Battle Droid, had a stupidly powerful area effect weapon. The amount of times I would have my soldier lie in wait, looking for opportunity fire and a hit on the Droid's side armour, only for him to miss every shot and then see the Battle Droid turn and blow away my soldier in one hit.

I might have a vague recollection of Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge. I was more into console gaming at the time, having only recently bought the XBox 360, while my PC gaming stopped for the most part, due to the age of my system. I say vague because the game seemed to have been briefly mentioned in terms of magazine coverage and then forgotten about. I checked out a review on GamesRadar (and will look at some others) and graphically, it looks fine. Their negatives were the weird and apparently erotic noises when you select female mercenaries (and I can only go by what they are saying, having not seen/heard it myself) and critically, how incredibly difficult the game is. They really emphasised on that part and I am guessing that it isn't so much as challenging as it is infuriating. I can visualise it being a case of having to quick save and load all the time, while the enemies have powerful weapons and accuracy that causes you to invent new swear words to shout. What is everyone else's experience with that game? Hendrix, you said you never really connected with it, unlike the classics. Can you remember the reasons why? How about you, GODSPEED, what is your opinion on that game?

I live in the South-East of England and in a large town so much of it is built up. There is a really nice park here however, with lots of paths and several lakes. You get to see wildlife every so often such as deer and rabbits. It is different to where I grew up though, in another county (county, not country), where there is lots of woodland to go for walks. I lived in a village for many years, so even though the county is right next to the one I am living in now, it was more rural. That is a fantastic view in the photo you have taken!

It is possible that .357 and .44 Magnum calibres will be in the game, if only for the use of revolvers. To have a rifle use that calibre as well, shouldn't really be a problem as it would be a case of increasing range and damage, due to the extra velocity from a long barrel. I don't know how the developers code each weapon entry but to create one more weapon that uses an existing calibre shouldn't be too much of a nuisance. I think it makes more sense to not have too many guns using too many unique calibres, like Hendrix pointed out earlier. Lots will use 9mm Parabellum, for instance but how many different guns will use .380 Auto?

I have said it a few times now but I don't think it hurts to repeat it. I hope that JA3's developers don't follow the current trend of smaller environments because it is 'what modern gamers expect', or that there is the belief that everyone these days has a short attention span and needs quicker gratification, lest they apparently get bored and start using their phone to check InstaTok and TwitBook in the middle of PC gaming. I saw so much praise for the XCOM reboot and only one person said to me that they didn't like it. They hadn't played the original and I assumed that turn-based squad games weren't their thing. I was late in getting round to buying the reboot and its revised expansion. As soon as I played it though, it immediately became apparent to me that it was a pale imitation of the original. Less soldiers to be deployed, smaller environments (even corridor-like at times), having cover clearly labelled with icons instead of it being natural observation due to decent map design. Then there is the truly stupid idea of being able to equip one kind of item but not another, different item (you can take a medkit or a grenade). My time with it didn't last long and I quit near the beginning due to the whole thing feeling 'gamey', restrictive and too stripped down. Compare that to the original X-COM, where the maps were large (but due to movement and animations, were covered at a comfortable pace). You would deploy and immediately have to secure your landing site, check your surroundings and use covering fire while spreading out. The aliens could be anywhere so you had to be careful. Tactics were always important, full use of your squad was necessary but regardless of all of that, there was always suspense. You never knew what enemies you'd be facing, where they were and if it was a crashed UFO, where it was likely to be. Equipping your soldiers felt like a purpose. Primary weapon, medkit, one or two anti-personnel grenades, smoke grenade, spare magazines, maybe a secondary weapon, motion tracker, deployable flare. That was just one soldier in a squad of at least 8. More like 10-15, depending on the scale of the mission. As you quite rightly said, the reboot felt like it was a boardgame. I love boardgames myself but unless the computer game I am playing is specifically a boardgame adaptation, I want them to remain separate. I want my battlefields to feel like environments and not something that is smaller because your table won't be large enough for it. Computer games don't have that limitation. If JA3 has the same battlefield scale as JA2, then the developers are to be congratulated. Yes, JA2 was over 20 years ago but fans of Jagged Alliance in general will be from its most highly regarded game in the series. Follow that trend, not the current bandwagon. As for action movies, lots of those can be good but ones with plot and a tense build-up are more enjoyable for me too. It makes the action sequences stand out more. Think of the movie, Heat. Whenever there was an action scene, it felt tense, volatile and utterly lethal. That was because of the build-up and events that were going on around those action scenes (and I enjoyed all the scenes just as much). I can compare that with one or two action movies where it is non-stop carnage and bigger and bigger destruction. It gets to the point where I can get bored because it is just one explosion after another, often in slow motion with people flying through the air. Either that or they are shot 40 times out of a 30-round mag, only for them to remain standing until they are roundhouse kicked off a cliff. Finally, you mentioned the game, Hired Guns. Do you mean the first one, with four independently controlled characters, in a first-person view that moved a tile at a time? If so, that was one of my all-time favourites on the Amiga. I never played the sequels though.

Those are wonderful photos you have taken! I'm not into Autumn as a season because where I live, nothing turns a golden or reddish colour here. The leaves just turn yellow, die and fall to the ground as it gets more and more windy and rainy. I should imagine it looks great where you are, when Spring arrives. The photos you took of late Summer were very nice.

A secret location in a game like this, whether it is a hidden facility in some unknown sector, or a hidden basement, always adds to the suspense. You don't know what lies hidden within but you know damn well that you intend to find out! Even if JA3 doesn't copy its prequel's optional sci-fi element, there is scope for various things such as a hidden prison, a lab where experiments are being carried out, an underground drugs lab (like in the movie, Clear & Present Danger), a weapons storage site or stash of stolen fortunes. There are lots of things the developers could come up with.

It reminds me of Rambo II with the Russian soldiers wearing an inappropriate choice of camo and the ushanka for their stay in Vietnam! I expect the developers are trying to make each merc look distinct in terms of both character and ease of identification. That said, I did comment elsewhere about Smiley's appearance. He didn't look like he was prepared for combat and instead looked as if he had just stepped out of a nightclub in Thailand.

That was a good video. He mentioned the clothing and equipment not showing up on the 3D model, which has been talked about in other forum threads. The developers might change that but that would mean for a lot of model combinations. One thing I am not keen on is the blood cloud whenever anybody gets hit. It is way too exaggerated and cartoony. I think that should be toned down a lot. The blood that lands on the ground is okay though. Other than that, the game looks excellent with nice effects, smoke, dust and what appears to be dynamic environmental damage. It looks like the gameplay isn't too zoomed in either (an initial concern I had) as longer ranged gameplay is important if you really want to differentiate battle rifles, assault rifles and bolt-action rifles to sub-machine guns.

That really does look good from the screenshots! I believe I already have that game on my Steam wishlist. It is also nice to see MicroProse around again. They were my favourite games publisher back in the '80s and '90s. My first MicroProse game was Silent Service on the Amstrad CPC 464. Before then, all of my other Amstrad games were usually in small cassette tape boxes, with the exception of strategy games from another favourite publisher called PSS. Silent Service came in a large box, with a thick manual covering the game and real history, blowing nearly everything else away in terms of content. It also came with a games catalogue showing loads of other games that I instantly wanted to buy (and were either not out yet or only on another computer system). Games like Gunship, F-15 Strike Eagle, Airborne Ranger and Project: Stealth Fighter. When I moved onto the Commodore Amiga, I bought Pirates!, F-19 Stealth Fighter, M1 Tank Platoon, Formula 1 Grand Prix, Special Forces, Midwinter, Gunship 2000, B-17 Flying Fortress and Civilisation (and that is only a few). They all came in huge boxes, had fold-out maps, keyboard overlays and thick manuals. I really felt like they were more serious games. That all continued into my move over to PC gaming, with more simulations such as 1942: Pacific Air War, Covert Action, Master Of Orion 1 and 2, Master Of Magic and the original X-COM trilogy. I think without a doubt, MicroProse has most of my favourite games on each system I owned, so it was both a surprise and a true shame when they went under. It is good to see the name and logo again, even if they are different today.

Great video! I was watching it with a grin on my face and fond memories of JA2. It was a big game and yet had no bloat, was well put together (I still think it looks good and don't mind the now retro graphics) and was from a time when no company 'suit' mentioned anything about micro-transactions, season passes, live services or kill streaks. Simply because those sorts of things didn't exist.

That definitely sounds like weapon familiarisation taken too far! I can see that sort of thing happening fairly easily though, if all you have used for such a long time is one gun (maybe through being in the military) and then never using anything else. A similar thing happens when you are used to a weapon due to its build and style, or being used to a certain calibre…then something new comes along and all the old hands scoff at the replacement being like a toy. It happened when assault rifles replaced the battle rifles that soldiers were used to (eg. M16 replacing the M14, SA80 replacing the SLR (semi-auto FN FAL)) and 5.56mm replacing 7.62mm NATO. You've also got the guys who would never use anything but a M1911 (original or variant) and the .45 ACP cartridge. 9mm for them is too weak. Talking slightly off-topic but also referring back to my earlier post about games always wanting to have .50 BMG rifles in them, another weapon I am bored of seeing now is the Minigun, whatever calibre it is in (it isn't always 7.62mm NATO). The first time I saw it, I was watching the movie, Predator for the first time, back in the late '80s. Being young, I thought it was amazing to see it being carried by one man, having no clue about the weight, recoil, need for electrical power (completely hidden in the movie), ammo requirements and so on. I became slightly obsessed with it and getting into Warhammer 40K at around the same time, I thought of the 'amazing' idea of soldiers carrying miniguns with under-barrel flame-throwers ("Just put the canisters on either side of the ammo backpack! Why hasn't the army done this?"). Obviously, I am older and a lot wiser now but that film, amongst several others, notably Terminator 2, has been a large influence on video games, to the point that every game now seems to have a minigun in it, usually able to be carried by yourself or some heavily armoured bad guy. Yes, the minigun looks and sounds mean, is very powerful due to the sheer volume of bullets, but unless you are shooting from or shooting at an aircraft that isn't in the same space for very long, and need to get as many bullets into the target as possible while you (or they) are in that space, it is entirely overkill. It isn't anything that a LMG or SAW wouldn't better, and more realistically, provide. If you need anything bigger and have it on a static or ground-mobile platform to shoot something likewise, there is always the good old M2HB or DShK heavy machine guns. Hopefully, JA3 will avoid having any miniguns at all, unless it features armed helicopters.

I would be surprised if JA3 didn't have an anti-materiel rifle in the game, either chambered for .50 BMG (12.7x99mm), M200 Intervention (less likely) or something bigger such as a 14mm cartridge. They tend to get featured in games due to having some kind of pop culture or fame but then they are used to take out personnel rather than their intended purpose of destroying equipment, engines or light military targets. Either way, any of those guns can't be expected to be fired effectively unless lying prone, or crouched but supporting the rifle on something at the same time. I agree with this as well, despite saying in an earlier post that I wouldn't mind seeing hunting rifles and other guns, more attributed to civilian use, to appear, if only for the sake of atmosphere of an African environment. You can saturate a game with too many guns and calibres, creating more work for developers and indecision, due to too much choice, for the player. As the player, you don't know what to pick and so end up picking something for the sake of it. There are so many guns in real life and plenty of calibres and cartridges. A lot of that doesn't always translate into a game, as lots of guns produce the same effect in terms of cartridge but are tailored for that nation's requirements. Meanwhile, certain calibres might only be slightly different in ballistics and to put them in a game and give them a slight alteration in damage or range, for instance, is ok until you are doing it over and over. In terms of game purposes, a SIG Sauer P226 isn't going to behave too much differently to a Beretta 92, Glock 17 or H&K USP 9. They are all 9mm pistols and apart from any slight difference in magazine capacity, in a game they will act the same. You can't really program whether one gun feels better to one shooter or another (unless weapon familiarisation is added). They are similar in reliability as well. You are only really putting them all in a game for purpose of inclusion and people will be fans of one gun over another. It's difficult to know what guns the developers are going to put in the game, short of them posting in this forum what will be in and what won't be. As long as the main calibres are in (what is in common use) and the most likely guns, I think that will be good enough. If anyone wants to add in others through a mod after the game's release, then that is fine (as long as they balance it realistically).

Some great suggestions there, Hendrix. I think larger calibre hunting rifles would be an interesting addition to the game. They would balance quite nicely because I can see the guns being affordable, while the ammo is costlier. They would cause a lot of damage but would need a large amount of action points to fire. If the merc misses, then they are possibly going to be in trouble as they might not not have enough action points left for another shot that turn. High recoil and the need to operate the bolt handle afterwards will need a skilled shooter in a combat situation. Likewise, they are not going to be effective when assaulting a position or entering a building. All that sounds like a waste of time and that you might as well choose an AKM. However, you get a lot of power per bullet, causing plenty of damage (even over-penetration through a human target), shooting comfortably through cover, being effective against angry fauna and having excellent range. They would be reliable too with lower degradation. If weapon familiarisation is a thing in JA3, the more a merc uses the hunting rifle, the better their aim and the less action points needed. While not really much more powerful than battle rifles in 7.62x51mm, there could also be rifles in .30-06, .303 and 7.92mm Mauser. I can visualise lower quality enemy soldiers armed with those. They certainly wouldn't be weak if they hit one of your mercs either. Come to think of it, I don't know that the outcome would be good for one of your mercs if the enemy had an elephant gun!

While AK type rifles (especially the AK-47 and AKM) will be common amongst the general military forces, along with battle rifles such as the FN FAL and H&K G3 (and CETME), I was thinking about the availability of bolt-action rifles. Many of those would be available and see common use in Africa, due to hunting big game or defence. They wouldn't necessarily have telescopic sights as they aren't considered sniper rifles in the capacity I am thinking about. I don't know how appealing they would be for equipping your mercenaries but while they have their drawbacks (slow to aim and fire, slow to cycle and slow to reload), they would nonetheless fire powerful cartridges and be a common alternative. I wouldn't mind seeing them included in JA3 for the sake of authenticity.

Sorry, I got Ivan and Igor mixed up. I was looking at Igor's model in a cropped image without any portrait to go with it.

I have been checking out the screenshots as best as I can, as they aren't too clear in terms of resolution. It is all looking very nice so far, however. There was talk in The Portraits thread about whether your mercs will wear different outfits or camo. It is hard to say, even from these screenshots but I am guessing that looking at Ivan with his blue shirt and Smiley, who looks like he just came from a country club before tooling up, their outfits might remain the same throughout the game, purely as a means of identification and individuality. Then again, there may be change or alternatively, character model presets to choose from. Ivan's icon shows him wearing a ushanka, whereas his 3D model shows his wearing a blue beret.

I am liking the overgrown and rundown look. It suggests that the balance of power keeps changing from one faction to another, so all money is spent on military equipment and personnel. Everything left over is just what is looted and kept as personal fortune.

I was just thinking about that, regarding the red outfit. It was okay for JA2 because the graphics had a slight cartoon quality to them. For JA3's fidelity, I would have thought that the enemies would look better in the following way: Enemy militia, poorly trained troops or armed civilians to wear random clothing, with possible and occasional addition of load-bearing webbing. Standard enemy soldiers to wear African camo battledress, load-bearing apparel and beret. Officers wear a beret with a different colour. Experienced enemy troops or hired enemy mercenaries to wear more fancy camo, body armour and helmets. There could also be the inclusion of a rank above the soldier's 3D model.