Jagged Alliance 3 from Haemimont Games

[Sweeper]

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Headshot Hue is wrong, problem with words as such is that underlying concept is inherently negative.

 

[Mortmal]

What disclaimer? This one?

How is anything in it woke? Also the story was more campy than woke. Most of the people are black as the location is fictional post colonial West African shithole, all of the random enemies are only african men, so no wahmen soldiers etc. On a scale of wokeness with Original Sin 3, JA3 is 14 out of 88.
I give you that the game piss easy after you get some snipers.

Sniper rifle with a silencer - the game is ruined. I see no reason to use anything else, i see no reason to make a melee char, hardly one to get a medic except for some quest. That's not great design. As for the woke part, I'll explain again. Wokeness often involves glorifying minorities, and by minorities, it's always black, not Navajo of course, nice, cultured people , quality people. In this case, the good guys, the president and her daughter, are portrayed as black. As you mentioned, it's a fictive African country. Then, explain to me why the evil character, the colonel who is grandchien military, who leads the Grand Chien army, commits war crimes, and is portrayed as white. Why isn't he black like ALL the others? At least the major, who is the lesser evil and also white, is a foreign mercenary, which makes a little sense. When other developers do the same things, when wotc do exactly the same thing people scream woke. Why should this one get a free pass?

 

[jaekl]

The real cringe of the game were the news emails where a third of the wartime news update was dedicated to the history of the amazing women of grand chien.

 

[Hellraiser]

The real cringe of the game were the news emails where a third of the wartime news update was dedicated to the history of the amazing women of grand chien.

Good thing I followed my IRL habbits from work regarding the emails in JA3, I just didn't read them.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Why should this one get a free pass?

I thought you were of the opinion that every game should get a free pass. Or do you make exceptions when there's a GOTY award on the line?

 

[ropetight]

The real cringe of the game were the news emails where a third of the wartime news update was dedicated to the history of the amazing women of grand chien.

Good thing I followed my IRL habbits from work regarding the emails in JA3, I just didn't read them.

Cringe, but somehow accurate of today reporting.
Hard to say if it is woke or satire of woke.

 

[jaekl]

Why should this one get a free pass?

I thought you were of the opinion that every game should get a free pass. Or do you make exceptions when there's a GOTY award on the line?

He became what he hated the most in the world out of spite, I'm sure there's a lesson we can all learn from the sad downfall of mortmal. F

 

[BlackAdderBG]

As for the woke part, I'll explain again. Wokeness often involves glorifying minorities, and by minorities, it's always black, not Navajo of course, nice, cultured people , quality people. In this case, the good guys, the president and her daughter, are portrayed as black. As you mentioned, it's a fictive African country. Then, explain to me why the evil character, the colonel who is grandchien military, who leads the Grand Chien army, commits war crimes, and is portrayed as white. Why isn't he black like ALL the others? At least the major, who is the lesser evil and also white, is a foreign mercenary, which makes a little sense. When other developers do the same things, when wotc do exactly the same thing people scream woke. Why should this one get a free pass?

Because we can find directly from history exactly the same scenarios. Rhodesia, Sierra Leone and countless other African countries could be given as examples. It's mainstream interpretation of history that has the tone of "the whites were in the wrong", this is not some new trait that only the Woke have. Even if we accept Haemimont wanted to push some woke anti-white message, I would say this is the way to do it. Hide the message behind something that is plausible- White war criminal leading an military group in Africa? Plausible even if cliche and on the nose. Black, Asian, gay, trans tolkienesque dwarfs living together with Black, Asian,gay, trans elfs, humans and daemons ? Impossible even if it's fantasy world.

 

[destinae vomitus]

Sniper rifle with a silencer - the game is ruined. I see no reason to use anything else, i see no reason to make a melee char

Uhuh, how about we compare and contrast my melee IMP with my dedicated stealth sniper from my last playthrough, can you guess which one was an overpowered one man army?

Spoiler

 

[Hellraiser]

After using Blood a lot the I am really considering going with one-man stealth machete rape gang for my second playthrough of this on my IMP merc.

Although Blood has a ridiculously OP unique active skill which helps. Not sure if anyone else has anything as ridiculously good.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Although Blood has a ridiculously OP unique active skill which helps. Not sure if anyone else has anything as ridiculously good.

I don't think anyone beats Blood for individual machete-rape performance, but the likes of Dr. Q and Igor are also very strong in different ways. The truth is that any merc with exceptional physical stats can be built to be a ridiculous killing machine with all the AP-, MP- and Grit-recuperating abilities you can pick up. I'm sure an IMP could do the job, although a solo playthrough will require a bunch of reloading and metagaming no matter what.

 

[Yosharian]

After using Blood a lot the I am really considering going with one-man stealth machete rape gang for my second playthrough of this on my IMP merc.

Although Blood has a ridiculously OP unique active skill which helps. Not sure if anyone else has anything as ridiculously good.

Yeah Blood is super underrated

 

[Yosharian]

Sniper rifle with a silencer - the game is ruined. I see no reason to use anything else, i see no reason to make a melee char

Uhuh, how about we compare and contrast my melee IMP with my dedicated stealth sniper from my last playthrough, can you guess which one was an overpowered one man army?

Spoiler

Once you get autocrit on melee, the game is pretty much over

Shit's insane

 

[Mortmal]

As for the woke part, I'll explain again. Wokeness often involves glorifying minorities, and by minorities, it's always black, not Navajo of course, nice, cultured people , quality people. In this case, the good guys, the president and her daughter, are portrayed as black. As you mentioned, it's a fictive African country. Then, explain to me why the evil character, the colonel who is grandchien military, who leads the Grand Chien army, commits war crimes, and is portrayed as white. Why isn't he black like ALL the others? At least the major, who is the lesser evil and also white, is a foreign mercenary, which makes a little sense. When other developers do the same things, when wotc do exactly the same thing people scream woke. Why should this one get a free pass?

Because we can find directly from history exactly the same scenarios. Rhodesia, Sierra Leone and countless other African countries could be given as examples. It's mainstream interpretation of history that has the tone of "the whites were in the wrong", this is not some new trait that only the Woke have. Even if we accept Haemimont wanted to push some woke anti-white message, I would say this is the way to do it. Hide the message behind something that is plausible- White war criminal leading an military group in Africa? Plausible even if cliche and on the nose. Black, Asian, gay, trans tolkienesque dwarfs living together with Black, Asian,gay, trans elfs, humans and daemons ? Impossible even if it's fantasy world.

The repentance and blaming whites for all evils is still something recent, directly imported from the United States, and yes, woke. We'll see in their next game, but I'm sure to be right just with their kowtow at the beginning of the game.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

blaming whites for all evils is still something recent, directly imported from the United States, and yes, woke.

Oh sweet summer child, open any soviet history book written during the cold war and weep.

their kowtow at the beginning of the game

Again can you show about what you are talking here?

 

[destinae vomitus]

The truth is that any merc with exceptional physical stats can be built to be a ridiculous killing machine with all the AP-, MP- and Grit-recuperating abilities you can pick up. I'm sure an IMP could do the job

Hand-to-Hand is what truly makes melee OP, and an IMP is the only one that can have it alongside the Martial Artist trait to guarantee that those attacks of opportunity will land and hurt even more. Once you're leveled up and have a machete you can just plant yourself into the middle of a bunch of enemies while initiating combat and get free kills as they try to shoot or scramble away, it's retarded and completely broken.

 

[gurugeorge]

Caught up with this finally. It's not really my favourite type of scenario (I prefer s-f and fantasy to cod rl), but I have to say it's enjoyable to play. I think it's one of those games where the developers prioritized getting the combat gameplay sitting right over the niceties - although they didn't do too badly with the niceties either, but there are still some too-basic elements and rough edges and I expect they'll be adjusting QOL things for a while yet (though they could conceivably just leave that up to modders, as the game seems to have a fairly healthy modding scene). It's still a teensy bit clunkier in the UI than one would wish for, but not too annoying.

At any rate, the combat gameplay has a great, moreish flow to it (max diff ofc, you need to be in a bit of danger of having great chunks blown out of you, and having to avoid that annoying injury downtime, in order to force you to do the kinds of more cautious gameplay things that make the game more interesting to play) and the drops and enemy groups are well paced enough to keep up a good feeling of getting more goodies and progression as the game goes on. The RPG side of it is surprisingly good too (e.g. there have been a few ponderable choices to make so far).

It's true that some things feel a bit OP in and of themselves (e.g. stealth sniping, melee), but the seeming OP-ness doesn't amount to imbalance (at least so far) because the enemies have decent AI and are no pushover, so the seeming OP-ness feels kind of right and satisfying in context. But that may change (I've just explored some of the coastal region and a bit inland, and gotten the North mine).

I rather like the militia mechanic (i.e. the counterattacks from the enemy) and in fact all the Operations are well balanced as immersive time sinks (e.g. the injury downtime being annoying enough to make you want to avoid it, but not so annoying as to be dispiriting). Again, there's a good flow to it all.

The music is interesting because while I don't think any of the orchestral stuff is very catchy tune-wise, it rattles along ok in the background, and the real orchestra sound gives it a quality feel, while the "native" music bits are surprisingly good and atmospheric.

Also, while I'm not that fond of comic banter in games, there are some great lines here and there, well delivered by the actors (e.g. Fox, "This is too hard for me - and that's not something I say very often" )

 

[Sweeper]

while the "native" music bits are surprisingly good and atmospheric.

Spoiler

 

[razvedchiki]

any mods for harder gameplay?

 

[geno]

any mods for harder gameplay?

You mean besides the extra campaign settings in the last patch? I'm not familiar with the mod scene.

 

[Alienman]

any mods for harder gameplay?

Probably the one that buff damage to all weapons, but it works both ways.

 

[gurugeorge]

Modding is funny with this, from looking at now, it seems the game had a healthy modding community for a while and then some updates broke the game and some of the modders gave up or left. But there are still modders making things, and some have taken up the task of revitalizing the mods that were doing well before. But it doesn't seem like a modding meta has set in yet for what's the best general upgrade to the gameplay itself. There are tons of merc mods of variable quality, and a few QOL things here and there, though again not so much since the last update (which ironically was supposed to be mod friendly ).

 

[Serus]

blaming whites for all evils is still something recent, directly imported from the United States, and yes, woke.

Oh sweet summer child, open any soviet history book written during the cold war and weep.

their kowtow at the beginning of the game

Again can you show about what you are talking here?

No one reads soviet history books from cold war era nowadays. Whatever you two are talking about has nothing to do with those.

 

[Old One]

There are tons of merc mods of variable quality

Have you tried any you though were very good?