ShadowMagic

I'd wish to see more of JA2 and less from Xcom, Wasteland and Tropico. Perhaps build on a better engine. I'm just not feeling it. Miss the classic vibe.

Man, I remember Tony as being a lot smaller and heavier build (a bit of a Vitor Corleone meets Danny the Vito type with glasses) than this muscular German looking dude 😄 Nevertheless his face looks really good (and recognisable) thus much better than what HG did to the everlasting smirking Mercs so +1 from me.

Well I guess you can fill that out yourself if you read the forum posts I made earlier 😄 Spoiler: MERCS! Making them look decent. Removing annoying voices heck even removing most if not all new MERCS that I don't give two cents about. Never felt the need for new MERCS other than Monk to return since after all he's like a brother to Shadow 🙂 Oh and perhaps import Snake from JA1 who didn't die in my book. Adding def. camo suits for all three of them and you have your stealthy Ranger squad. Top notch.

Neah, Both the Tropico Alliance as the 1.13 mod (which is not some sort of holy grail to JA2 guys, c'mon) are inferior to the much simpler JA2 vanilla version. Too much micro managing. Who cares if ammunition is in top or lower pocket..

Of course all generations frown upon the next one for being spoiled, lazy and all. But there is one major difference with those perceptions in ancient times and nowadays... Industrial revolution, hence automation, robotics and social media (especially now with AI) increased the pace and intensity in which society dumbs down; at an expentional rate, so fast the previous generations can't do damage control any longer.

Social Media is what is killing society as we once knew it. And our 90's generation is part of the problem in making it happen. Many, if not all, of my friends use FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram and whatever. Whenever going out, many of them have their mobile phones in front of them on the table, constantly looking at it. It's freaking annoying. I myself stopped using FB after 1 week, never got into Twitter, Insta etc and hardly ever take the mobile phone out of my pocket when at a party or other social event. I am there to TALK to people IRL (yeah, that might sound very creepy to most Next gen kids out there). I'm there on the dancefloor to have fun instead of making selfies with a glass of booz all the time. I actually stopped reading the news and listening to news broadcasting on TV and radio. Only listing to add/news free radio and preferably music from the 70 until the 90's. I do appreciate some of the past 2000's music but most of it seems to be as you described. Drill rap just singing about drugs, money, b*tches and stuff like that. DJ's not able to come up with original tunes any more and just copying old stuff (looking at you David Guetta). I do however appreciate rare species such as Ed Sheeran; those that stay true to themselves and can actually sing without dubbing every single line. Yeah it might make the world a little smaller but that is how I like it. I have enough stuff to worry about already and don't constantly need to hear about masses of gold hunters from 3rd world countries pouring into the Western World, putting even more pressure on societies or the next climate demonstration resulting into more restrictions for humanity also affecting those (like me) already cleaning up their own mess. Or dictator X doing that for self enrichment.

Neither is this game Tropico Alliance really a JA game. It shares some similarities but also lends features from other games. I mean, they couldn't even remake the Mercs in a fashionable way to start with; the heart & soul of classical JA.

Simple? This doesn't make sense at all. Carrying more than 100% weight should impact stamina but not refrain you from adding more stuff to a backpack --> poor design.

That's because the replayability factor of this game is close to 0. There is just one optimal way in which you complete sectors (stealth sniping) to keep losses at a minimum and yield maximum results. This is simply poor writing and game programming, no matter in what way hyped fanboys try to bend it. In many ways Tropico Alliance is a pretty simplified version of JA2. Then again, this game is not a pure JA game but a game that shares similarities with JA1 and JA2 and many peeps (or is it just a marketing troll army from THQ?) seem to be happy about it. Either way just waiting for the price to drop and mods becoming available that give us decent Merc portraying. If it was for me, the same speech lines, images and voice recordings of JA2 are transferred.

Offtopic Cool, they have magnetic vests on which weapons clunk on their backs? It's like that AK47 is just hoovering behind him... It's also way to high up his back/shoulder. A tad poorly visualized no.🙈

It isn't an option in base JA2 no. Something I always wondered is if it mattered what weapons the Mercs are equipped with when training the militia. It always seemed that militia tend to be equipped with the same tier weapons e.g. when having Mercs armed with pistols training them, the militia gets pistols too. However, it might also be linked to the experience level of the militia. Something I'm going to check tonight when starting a new campaign with JA2.

The thing is, with JA3 they did not just stick with the good features from JA2 and improved the bad ones. Some good features have been either left out or altered in such a way it is more of a frustration than an improvement now really (Overwatch instead of interruption, the inventory system).. So you can't call this JA3 since it's more of an JA / Xcom / Wasteland / Tropico hybrid. It's clearly aimed at a wider audience than just those JA veterans like me that simply wished for an upgraded JA2.

Shadow in JA2 is like Shimmer & Shine in Tropico Alliance 3 🤪

Here comes Nick to glorify this broken game...

It was already clear on forehand this game would not resemble JA2 in many aspects. How often did I warn you guys. A meager 7 oo 10 score on Steam says enough. The more I have seen from non commercial ingame footage the less interested i became in buying it. It's just not JA.

#NoLife 😦 At least Shadow is portrayed much better than in here 😄

Awesome performance. Brings back good memories. Not sure I still have COD2 images lying around somewhere since previous harddisk crashed but do have enough PWN images from this game called Heroes and Generals which I picked up after my time with COD:MW on Clanbase 😄 Felt so sorry for those guys. Will look for it tonight when not at work.

Aye. In fact there was a huge community (for those times) united on Clanbase back then. That was one of the first (if not the first) online competitions in the EU; originated in Holland. It contained all sorts of competitions like TDM, CTF for both 5v5 and 3v3 (eventually also 1v1 DM) teams. There were even international tournaments for which the best players of each nation was picked by the community. It was such great times. A new world opened up back then. Playing matches for points (pretty much like with soccer competitions) with teams mostly from Western Europe, completely national or a mixture of different nationalities. I lost my virginity with online gaming there, eventually ending up playing for some of the best teams on CB with the game COD2. Anyway, this is completely off topic...

Howcome? They never had any personal touch. Shadow was a loner. Ice and Magic however had a mutual connection. I'm guessing in TA3 that'll be a shared interest in golf 😄

As far as I can remember the first to do that on a large scale was Pterodon in the game called Vietcong (1). Might try looking up footage of that; there is videos show casing the sounds of the M16, AK47, SKS, Degtarev and other weapons from the Vietnam war era. Pure eargasm and indeed something to appreciate since most of the times it's lame MIDI sounds these days.

Stop right there Nick. You are getting close to trolling. As someone already said, his vest looks gay and so does his haircut. Also you are comparing Korea war era with more modern times. Nobody would be wearing a vest like that anymore; especially not in the YMCA way as they have drawn. It's crystal clear that the one who drew the Mercs made some fundamental mistakes and quirky interpretations not shared by many fans but you it seems. Top 5 baddest drawn Mercs (in random order): 1: Reaper Used to be some sort of native indian / texas ranger / Steven Seagal type of guy and now looks like some dandy version of Vlad Dracula. 2: Scully They put a freaking yarn mop on his head and looks like a downie working on Drovers Ranch (McLoads Daughters, red.) now. 3: Magic: Tapdancer from the 50's or some jet-set golfer. Completely off and probably the worst interpretation we have seen. Even worse than in any other failed JA sequence. 4: Raven: She is supposed to be a trained sniper? More like a trained house wife who can wield dual steaming irons. Unbelievable. 5: Shadow -> enough said. An insult if I may say. Should have looked like Bob-Lee-Swagger. He was probably the easiest to recreate and still this is the best they could do? Actually we should also not forget about Vicki; who changed here garage for some carreer in a Jamaican Voodo cult it seems. And Ivan.. went to a plastic surgeon because he wanted to look like his idol Schwarzenegger? Man, If only they payed more attention to the Mercs this game would have gotten so much more of the classic JA vibe.

O.K. Let me, for once, start with a positive note in here.. It's clear you guys at Haemimont have great passion about the JA franchise and did your best in recapturing the nostalgia of the classic JA games, although bound to limitations of the engine. You guys obviously spend a lot of time in creating a lively environment and side quests. Unfortunately (I know I can't let go of this self made up title) it feels to much "Tropico Alliance 3" to me in all honesty. Since I maintain my view that the whole Merc section have gotten to little love. Not just the way in which you interpreted most of the Merc's looks (which really is a big let down to me - RIP Shadow, Magic, Scully e.g.) but I find their behaviour over the top in most cases and it's a real shame the interactions are so wooden. Voice acting is so/so; it's more like reading lines of text instead of a lively convo. To me, in JA the Mercs should have gotten top priority. Some choices like not having the interrupting mechanic but overwatch instead, is something I personally also dislike. To top it off the inventory system and especially the shared inventory feature just don't feel JA-ish. That is just my honest opinion and that is fine; you can't cater to every single fan out there. I might just have to wait another x years for a follow up that does have those classic features. Nevertheless, I wish you all the best with upcoming release. But I'll let this one pass.

I agree too that (obviously).. Unfortunately they turned Shadow into some bloke that would fit perfectly in the American Pie movies with his hairdryer wig. Among the top 5 worst interpreted Mercs in the game 😞

It's not the players it's the developers that set focus (I take the bait just to relocate the lure 😉) As with this game, it's the graphics (surroundings, environments, high res images) that gotten a lot of love. Other MORE important aspects (at least to me) such as Merc portraits (which is not just a mug shot but incl. their behaviour / interaction / voice acting / biography and story telling) have gotten to little. So, close but no cigar mate 😄

Let me put it this way. You have players that are: A: capable of taking many possible influence factors into account that might determine the end result, and B: less capable or plain lazy and let the computer do that for them. In both situations a player makes a decision based on 'knowledge'. However, it's about how to obtain that 'knowledge'. I personally prefer to do the thinking myself and learn from mistakes / previous situations (experience) and rinse, correct and repeat. I prefer a learning curve. Like I said, the problem with games these days is that these 'next gen' gamers do not have the patience anymore but want it all presented to them. Hence many games are dumbed down (perks, skill assists like auto aim on consoles) and focus is set on graphics rather than gameplay (a MOST heard complain on any game forum by the more demanding gamers still out there)