Jagged Alliance 3 from Haemimont Games

[Shaki]

lol at the retards who preordered this dogshit

 

[Beowulf]

I've reached the mainland, conquered some mines and I'm still having fun.
My biggest complains are small maps (even on the mainland) and bullet sponge enemies.
I don't know how much their stats changed, but suddenly they can withstand a couple of bursts from the trusty AK's.
There also minibosses in the form of exceptionally strong enemies and they are ridiculously resilient to damage dealed by your mercs.

I'm playing on the second difficulty level (Hard) and it is really hard sometimes, especially at the beginning, until you get better weapons.

But the JA charm is still there.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Bros, this game is good. Many small annoyances, but so far this is quality shit.

It reminds me a lot of Silent Storm, with sniper dudes racking up the headshots (and spending the opposition's turn aiming), heavy MG dudes spraying with abandon hitting everyone in sight, and grenade dudes blowing shit up. The environmental destruction is more limited than SS, but it's there, and it's great to see it back. I had a moment where a grenade blowed up the second floor of a building, and the pathfinding had my sniper standing up there do a little jump over the blown-away area to traverse it. That was pure SS right there.

 

[Beowulf]

Bros, this game is good. Many small annoyances, but so far this is quality shit.

It reminds me a lot of Silent Storm, with sniper dudes racking up the headshots (and spending the opposition's turn aiming), heavy MG dudes spraying with abandon hitting everyone in sight, and grenade dudes blowing shit up. The environmental destruction is more limited than SS, but it's there, and it's great to see it back. I had a moment where a grenade blowed up the second floor of a building, and the pathfinding had my sniper standing up there do a little jump over the blown-away area to traverse it. That was pure SS right there.

I blew the roof of one house to make the snipers up top fall down to the ground (there is no animation for that - the model just falls statically) and then finished them with another grenade along with the troops bunched up on the ground floor.

 

[ArchAngel]

Bros, this game is good. Many small annoyances, but so far this is quality shit.

It reminds me a lot of Silent Storm, with sniper dudes racking up the headshots (and spending the opposition's turn aiming), heavy MG dudes spraying with abandon hitting everyone in sight, and grenade dudes blowing shit up. The environmental destruction is more limited than SS, but it's there, and it's great to see it back. I had a moment where a grenade blowed up the second floor of a building, and the pathfinding had my sniper standing up there do a little jump over the blown-away area to traverse it. That was pure SS right there.

I have been watching streams and it is pretty shit and decline. And if you install hit chance mod and see how mechanics behind the game actually work you will fall on your ass laughing.

 

[Strange Fellow]

k

 

[Hobo Elf]

I've reached the mainland, conquered some mines and I'm still having fun.
My biggest complains are small maps (even on the mainland) and bullet sponge enemies.
I don't know how much their stats changed, but suddenly they can withstand a couple of bursts from the trusty AK's.
There also minibosses in the form of exceptionally strong enemies and they are ridiculously resilient to damage dealed by your mercs.

Have you tried using melee? It's absurdly strong. It also shreds armor (adds an Exposed debuff status) so that your guns do more damage when they hit. Seems like having at least 1 melee char is somewhat mandatory for the utility it brings, but also because they can just merc those tough boss types in a single turn if they can get close with lots of AP.

 

[Alienman]

Bros, this game is good. Many small annoyances, but so far this is quality shit.

It reminds me a lot of Silent Storm, with sniper dudes racking up the headshots (and spending the opposition's turn aiming), heavy MG dudes spraying with abandon hitting everyone in sight, and grenade dudes blowing shit up. The environmental destruction is more limited than SS, but it's there, and it's great to see it back. I had a moment where a grenade blowed up the second floor of a building, and the pathfinding had my sniper standing up there do a little jump over the blown-away area to traverse it. That was pure SS right there.

That's true. it's much more like Silent Storm, now that I got further in the combat. But I have discovered two major issues now, after fighting some tougher guys. Actually, I'm not sure they are tougher, they look the same. However, for some reason, they are tanky as fuck, and that is my first issue. Fucking health bloat, in a tactical game. Everyone is fine otherwise, except the shotgunners. The close-quarters guys almost honestly ruin the game. They keep rushing in, takes several burst to the face, and still live, and then they get a free shotgun action when fired upon. I mean, come on. It's so incredibly frustrating and gamey.

And then we have stealth. The stealth in real is so damn messed up. Why can't we force turn-based mode? Jesus H Christ, I would have made the sneaking really fun.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Why can't we force turn-based mode?

Yes, this is really pissing annoying.

 

[ArchAngel]

Truly unfortunate but it's a shit game with a silence of the lambs skinsuit on and I should have known from all those reviews. The 9 out of 10s from the fag brigade make sense now. Half baked with only superficial trappings on display and gunplay is ass. I've refunded and will buy Xenonauts 2, the demo was much better than this game for me. I'm really feeling the decline on this one.

I really hope AI will be able to hold a wrench because at this rate of decline, we'll be lucky to still have running water in 20 years.

The zombie one with the guy that carries enough prestige to post on these esteemed forums, Urban Strife, was also 10 times better and much much closer to carrying the torch on the legacy in comparison.

What it did do well is make me reinstall 2 and looking now at the current state of mods for a run tomorrow, lets go boys.

I will do that as well. Try 1.13 for 1st time as soon as I finish my BG:SoD evil run.

 

[lycanwarrior]

First user reviews are mixed, looks like performance issues and not working multiplayer (lmao sucks for multiplayer faggots i guess). But lets wait more for smoke to settle.

Im hoping for at least ok xcom clone with some ja2 atmosphere. You'd be an idiot to expect more.

In the "Mostly Positive" category now.

 

[Infinitron]

PSA: It will never be correct to call a game with fixed characters, open world travel and dialogue choices an "XCOM clone".

 

[ArchAngel]

First user reviews are mixed, looks like performance issues and not working multiplayer (lmao sucks for multiplayer faggots i guess). But lets wait more for smoke to settle.

Im hoping for at least ok xcom clone with some ja2 atmosphere. You'd be an idiot to expect more.

In the "Mostly Positive" category now.

That is actually good, if the game does well they will be able to afford to fix the bugs and UI issues and people will make mods for it that make it better for people that do not consider nuXcom the top of the TB genre.

 

[ArchAngel]

PSA: It will never be correct to call a game with fixed characters, open world travel and dialogue choices an "XCOM clone".

You forget you can create your own Mercs. You are not required to used fixed characters. Open world is also not that much different than how Xcom works, at least old UFO. It only lacks base building and research stuff but needing to scavenge things during missions, and options you have to do between missions is also kind of similar.
It is about as similar as BG and Fallout would be in cRPG genre.

 

[Jinn]

Archangel, aren't you omega-shill of Phoenix Point? A game that appears much more nuXcom than this?

 

[Strange Fellow]

There are bigger issues with the game, but I'd like to highlight the million billion little loot stashes that you have to manually comb each and every sector for, just because of how much pain they're probably causing Zombra right now.

 

[Surf Solar]

I gotta hand it to the devs, they tried. It is not a shit game. But it simply is not a Jagged Alliance game. Art direction is lifeless and boring, where is the pulp, where is the corny style? Looks way too safe, very 2023. Especially the UI. Typical '23 style. Music is forgettable.

Combat is Nu-Xcom, Inventory managment a mess but still dumbed down. It all feels very formulaic. Jagged Alliance, this is not.

It's a shame because occasionnaly it feels as if the devs KNOW how to capture that feel. Back to 1.13 it is.

 

[Shaki]

PSA: It will never be correct to call a game with fixed characters, open world travel and dialogue choices an "XCOM clone".

XCOM clones are called like that because they have XCOM combat, fighting is 95% of what you'll be doing in these games so it defines how the game feels, everything else is just fluff. This game's combat is 10x closer to XCOM than to JA2.

It's irrelevant if you add some minor mechanics known from other titles to an XCOM clone, it doesn't make it any less of an XCOM clone.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

so it's not pure crap, but a missed chance. even worse.

 

[ArchAngel]

Archangel, aren't you omega-shill of Phoenix Point? A game that appears much more nuXcom than this?

Nah, PP is way less NuXcom than this game. Only art style in PP is kind of similar to nuXcom and soldiers get special perks, the rest is pretty old school. It even has full bullet simulation unlike this game.

 

[Elthosian]

Bought this with the discount with the hope modders/patches fix most issues. At least they tried.

 

[Lemming42]

I'm enjoying this quite a bit but the combat just lacks a certain kind of punch, not sure what it is exactly.

Not being able to see hit chance is just annoying, one of the worst decisions.

 

[SmartCheetah]

Do not compare it to Silent Storm, not even mentioning good ol' JA2. Good thing I haven't bought it and decided to pirate it first.
- UI sucks. Keybinds and general gameplay mechanics also suck (click right, then click left, weird shit like that)
- Inventory system sucks. 1.13 felt like Christmas, while this abomination is just simple and bad. Shared ammunition just takes the fun away.
- Apparently there is no Bobby Ray or anything like this except some vendors in the cities. Whole laptop experience is an empty egg shell with 2-3 barely working "sites", AIM and pretty sad IMP.
- XCOM cancer in form of "you dicovered/shot at the enemies so they have chance to react!". It sucks. I wouldn't be mad if some enemies had such skill or it worked as some sort of reaction%, but when it happens every time it simply sucks.
- Bullet sponges everywhere. Stealth is barely working. AP system sucks (Not much shooting going on in a turn. It's probably because of the small maps)
- Characters look like clowns. That was actually expected so no hard feelings.

MEH/10

 

[Lemming42]

The freemove doesn't always activate, sometimes you can "surprise" an enemy, which starts combat but doesn't alert the whole enemy force and gives your squad a turn. If you silently kill the surprised enemies within that turn, you return to exploration mode.

Problem is I don't know what causes "surprised". I think it's just if you make a silent attack at someone which misses or isn't fatal, and nobody else sees/hears it.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Just removing the pod system/enemies running into cover would be great. It's pretty annoying and make the game very "un JA" like.

That being said I didn't miss inventory management altho this game is also kinda shit at that