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Jagged Alliance 3 from Haemimont Games

Beowulf

Arcane
Joined
Mar 2, 2015
Messages
2,048
Is this the GOTY contender this year?
There's another RPG this year that I would imagine might be a little more popular as a choice ...

Most likely, but personally BG3 captivated me completely right from the beginning, but now (right after the first Act) I'm struggling to find motivation to sit down and finish the game. Whereas I already completed 2 playthroughs of JA3.
 

Modron

Arcane
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
11,177
Colony Ship is still on track to be released this year. Was Space Wreck on last year's goty vote? If not Space Wreck is scheduled to come out in October (it was in a bit of gray zone in that it was a feature complete release to ea in late '22 with the plan being to improve and quash bugs over the course of the EA rather than finish off content). I am also looking forward to Wandering Sword based off the demo.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

Filthy Kalinite
Patron
Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
20,993
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria
Colony Ship is still on track to be released this year. Was Space Wreck on last year's goty vote? If not Space Wreck is scheduled to come out in October (it was in a bit of gray zone in that it was a feature complete release to ea in late '22 with the plan being to improve and quash bugs over the course of the EA rather than finish off content). I am also looking forward to Wandering Sword based off the demo.
Yeah, I forgot about those while moping about that Urban Strife and Project Haven still don't have set release date.
 

0wca

Learned
Joined
Jan 27, 2021
Messages
546
Location
Not here
Alright I finally finished the game, here are my thoughts.

The good:
  • Cool story with a cool setting. The NPCs are fun to interact with and range from interesting to hilarious.
  • Lots of humorous moments throughout the game.
  • Great C&C with multiple endings.
  • Lots of fun quests.
  • Tactical combat very akin to JA2, no CtH just bonuses and minuses and your own evaluation.
  • Strategic gameplay faithful to JA2 for the most part.
  • Good AI for the most part (played on 2nd difficulty).
  • Mercs can move pretty much anywhere and jump over obstacles much like JA2.
  • Good weapon customization.
  • Decent range of classes and perks.

The meh:
  • Weapon variety is a little lacking. Could be addressed with a patch or mod.
  • Perk variety is a little lacking for IMP merc.
  • Militia can't move outside its sector even if in the same town.
  • Some timed quests which are pretty hard to complete in time.
  • No tanks to fight :(

The bad:
  • The old cheese exploit from JA2 still works where you can position your mercs in one spot and just mow down everyone in a chokepoint with overwatch. They start running towards you and dying. Although, the AI sometimes breaks this tactic with mortar fire.
  • Headshots don't debilitate the target as far as I can tell and just deals extra damage. Should severely debilitate anyone who survived one.
  • Rifles are pretty OP. With 3 snipers you can pretty much mow down any opposition.
  • Some performance drops on a few maps.
  • Sound tends to bug out sometimes.

Overall, I give it an 8,5/10 maybe even a 9. With further patches and mods we could get a 1.13 type of gameplay easily deserving of a 10.
 
Last edited:

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,618
Yeah, mobile militia is 1.13, however, being able to reallocate militias between individual squares in a city is a vanilla feature that is missed.
Then again, enemy attack patterns are very predictable.
 

0wca

Learned
Joined
Jan 27, 2021
Messages
546
Location
Not here
Yeah, mobile militia is 1.13, however, being able to reallocate militias between individual squares in a city is a vanilla feature that is missed.
Then again, enemy attack patterns are very predictable.
Yeah that's what I meant. Militia reallocation.
 
Last edited:

Krivol

Magister
Joined
Apr 21, 2012
Messages
2,196
Location
Potatoland aka Prussia
I have mixed feelings about this game. It is indeed a very good tactical, TB game with some 80's action movie quirks, but...

1. AR being close to useless, while in JA 2 FN FAL was THE GUN TO END ALL WARS... weird choice...
2. OTOH sniper rifles can be silenced cheaply and are the ultimate weapon of this game - one shoot, (usually) one kill.
3. Some characters changed in weird ways - Igor from a smart, sneaky guy to some Ruski idiot, Barry from a murky bomb guy to some kind of religious zealot, Thor to a flower child...

Point 1 is especially annoying - you came to the enemy very close and had a good line of sight? So what? Full auto will only make him angry... OTOH sniper rifles are a good choice even in close combat...
 

Gambler

Augur
Joined
Apr 3, 2006
Messages
767
I wouldn't say ARs are useless. They are conditionally good. A character with high marksmanship, appropriate perks and FN FAL can do some serious damage. However, sniper rifles are consistent, safe, don't require high marksmanship and save you ammo. Essentially, they are the default weapon in this game. It should be the other way around.

Good AI for the most part
In which way?
 

gogis

Scholar
Joined
Jun 9, 2018
Messages
100
I wouldn't say ARs are useless. They are conditionally good. A character with high marksmanship, appropriate perks and FN FAL can do some serious damage. However, sniper rifles are consistent, safe, don't require high marksmanship and save you ammo. Essentially, they are the default weapon in this game. It should be the other way around.

Good AI for the most part
In which way?

We already had this discussion many pages ago. Sniper rifle is one kill per round. Pretty much every other weapon in late game will score your multiple kills per round. Which makes sniper rifle specialist weapon, no more, no less. If you use more than 1-2(already questionable) dedicated snipers in your end game squad, you doing it wrong.

Wait, that's exactly how many sniper rifles you used in your JA2 alpha squad.
 

0wca

Learned
Joined
Jan 27, 2021
Messages
546
Location
Not here
I wouldn't say ARs are useless. They are conditionally good. A character with high marksmanship, appropriate perks and FN FAL can do some serious damage. However, sniper rifles are consistent, safe, don't require high marksmanship and save you ammo. Essentially, they are the default weapon in this game. It should be the other way around.

Good AI for the most part
In which way?
Well except for the bottleneck cheese (which they did in JA2 as well) the enemy generally does make decent use of cover, tries to flank you and tries to take out your weaker (low HP) members of the team. They also use mortars fairly well to break the camp cheese as well as other explosives. At least they did with me.

I wouldn't say ARs are useless. They are conditionally good. A character with high marksmanship, appropriate perks and FN FAL can do some serious damage. However, sniper rifles are consistent, safe, don't require high marksmanship and save you ammo. Essentially, they are the default weapon in this game. It should be the other way around.

Good AI for the most part
In which way?

We already had this discussion many pages ago. Sniper rifle is one kill per round. Pretty much every other weapon in late game will score your multiple kills per round. Which makes sniper rifle specialist weapon, no more, no less. If you use more than 1-2(already questionable) dedicated snipers in your end game squad, you doing it wrong.

Wait, that's exactly how many sniper rifles you used in your JA2 alpha squad.
I had 2 snipers in my team and they were constantly wiping out enemies. Yeah your other mercs can take out multiple targets in one turn, but their accuracy is questionable unless the enemy is in mid to close range while rifles take them out with one shot over a large distance.

To be fair, that's how rifles work IRL, so I'm suggesting maybe only a small CtH nerf for the headshots at large distances.
 

Krivol

Magister
Joined
Apr 21, 2012
Messages
2,196
Location
Potatoland aka Prussia
I wouldn't say ARs are useless. They are conditionally good. A character with high marksmanship, appropriate perks and FN FAL can do some serious damage. However, sniper rifles are consistent, safe, don't require high marksmanship and save you ammo. Essentially, they are the default weapon in this game. It should be the other way around.

Good AI for the most part
In which way?

We already had this discussion many pages ago. Sniper rifle is one kill per round. Pretty much every other weapon in late game will score your multiple kills per round. Which makes sniper rifle specialist weapon, no more, no less. If you use more than 1-2(already questionable) dedicated snipers in your end game squad, you doing it wrong.

Wait, that's exactly how many sniper rifles you used in your JA2 alpha squad.
I am still far from the endgame and decided to give Gwehr to all my mercs (except Barry, who uses grenades and shotgun if everything fuck ups). So are you saying ARs will be useful later?
 

0wca

Learned
Joined
Jan 27, 2021
Messages
546
Location
Not here
I wouldn't say ARs are useless. They are conditionally good. A character with high marksmanship, appropriate perks and FN FAL can do some serious damage. However, sniper rifles are consistent, safe, don't require high marksmanship and save you ammo. Essentially, they are the default weapon in this game. It should be the other way around.

Good AI for the most part
In which way?

We already had this discussion many pages ago. Sniper rifle is one kill per round. Pretty much every other weapon in late game will score your multiple kills per round. Which makes sniper rifle specialist weapon, no more, no less. If you use more than 1-2(already questionable) dedicated snipers in your end game squad, you doing it wrong.

Wait, that's exactly how many sniper rifles you used in your JA2 alpha squad.
I am still far from the endgame and decided to give Gwehr to all my mercs (except Barry, who uses grenades and shotgun if everything fuck ups). So are you saying ARs will be useful later?
I've used ARs with one character since start of game. They're a good balance for mid to close range bursts and long range single shots. Also good for suppression.
 

3 others

Augur
Joined
Aug 11, 2015
Messages
287
One issue with rifles is that they're just as capable in shorter ranges. There's nothing stopping you from storming cramped cellars with a squad using only scoped PSG-1s and mowing down enemies with point-blank shots from doorways. I'd really like to see a substantial aiming penalty in close range for rifles to make other weapon types - and especially SMGs / pistols - more viable in situations that should reflect their real-world usage.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,618
I think the source of many such problems is that facing/aiming direction only applies to overwatch and machineguns in JA3.
For everything else, even making a 180 to change targets doesn't even cost any AP, while it totally should, and the AP cost for it should be based on stance (but not necessarily weapon equipped, these need varied
AP costs to bring the sights up and setup the weapon if it's on a bipod). It's a very basic thing JA2 did, and it allowed for all sorts of shit like flanking as well as balancing sniper rifles against rifles, smgs and pistols.

IMO, JA3 game is also way too generous with giving everyone free movement AP, but I reckon that's good for the AI and they kinda hoped it will serve as a good-enough catch-all
alternative for a more nuanced system with variable AP costs.
 

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