Game News Jagged Alliances on the Cheap

[flabbyjack]

After all these decades, JA2 is still the best we can do?

Yes.
Not only developers are worse but thanks to advanced technology (game engines) any attempt at recreating some features from old games (or adding anything new) turns out to be either impossible or too troublesome, with too much workarounds and potential bugs infestation. Combined with talentless developers you get disappointing combination.

Can you explain why it'd be too troublesome? Because one would THINK in THEORY it should be even easier these days than ever before to make something like Jagged Alliance from technical perspective. Devs back in the day had shitgines with far less colors available, hardware difficulties, with less people, so why is it that huge corporations worth tens of billions of dollars couldn't even do it as a hobby or a switch release in the cheapest way possible but still be on the same quality or better?

Well about half the good games nowadays are what I call 'labors of love'.

They are piece of art that the developer put their blood, sweat, and tears into, not expecting that it will turn into the next Minecraft and sell millions of copies. They do it because they love that type of game and want to see more of it in the world. You can't re-create that kind of expression in a lab.

But still, you're absolutely right. With advances in technology many workers are 100x more efficient than they were thirty years ago.

 

[Lord Commissar Alexer]

How hard can it be to remaster an over 20 year old game?

 

[Baron Dupek]

After all these decades, JA2 is still the best we can do?

Yes.
Not only developers are worse but thanks to advanced technology (game engines) any attempt at recreating some features from old games (or adding anything new) turns out to be either impossible or too troublesome, with too much workarounds and potential bugs infestation. Combined with talentless developers you get disappointing combination.

Can you explain why it'd be too troublesome? Because one would THINK in THEORY it should be even easier these days than ever before to make something like Jagged Alliance from technical perspective. Devs back in the day had shitgines with far less colors available, hardware difficulties, with less people, so why is it that huge corporations worth tens of billions of dollars couldn't even do it as a hobby or a switch release in the cheapest way possible but still be on the same quality or better?

It's combination of modern developers without vision, who make games with checklists ("hey, let's remake old ancient title for people who still remember this game, maybe they weren't fully assimilated into casualism"), who does not design games for certain groups (in this case - people enjoying tactical games) by giving them options and tools at their disposal. These "tools and options" require a lot of work and have high chance to be overlooked in the modern world of awesome buttons cinematic raiload experience. Unnecessary work is something that developers are actively avoiding because it's a cost, something that put them in a bad shade when they face publishers.
Modern game engines feels more limited than (modded?) old engines made from scratch, where you add more features with better control over whole package, knowing what may cause problems and what requires workarounds.

 

[Mangoose]

After all these decades, JA2 is still the best we can do?

Yes.
Not only developers are worse but thanks to advanced technology (game engines) any attempt at recreating some features from old games (or adding anything new) turns out to be either impossible or too troublesome, with too much workarounds and potential bugs infestation. Combined with talentless developers you get disappointing combination.

Can you explain why it'd be too troublesome? Because one would THINK in THEORY it should be even easier these days than ever before to make something like Jagged Alliance from technical perspective. Devs back in the day had shitgines with far less colors available, hardware difficulties, with less people, so why is it that huge corporations worth tens of billions of dollars couldn't even do it as a hobby or a switch release in the cheapest way possible but still be on the same quality or better?

I think your theory's correct but it'll take some time. Namely, moving towards some "norm" of crowdfunding instead of buying games funded by AAA publishers. (In other words, "real" capitalism vs. really-existing corporate "capitalism.") Besides that, you just have the old Interplay crew chugging along.

 

[Awakened_Yeti]

In many ways, Jagged Alliance 2 has never been bested