Squad-based tactical shooters that utilize a Real-Time with Pause system

[urmom]

Obviously there are tons of turn-based squad shooters out there.

I don't understand. How do you make a "turn-based shooter"?

 

[Beowulf]

ALFA: Antiterror, but I think it was one of those where you give orders for about 20 seconds of real-time before pausing for another orders phase. I've had it installed for years and never actually gave it a shot. brb

Yes, it's phase based as you describe. You issue orders in the planning phase and they are executed simultaneously in the execution phase.

 

[DraQ]

Obviously there are tons of turn-based squad shooters out there.

I don't think it means what you think it means.

 

[sser]

Jagged Alliance: Back in Action.

It operates on timers. So if you shoot a gun, there's a timed # of seconds to its next shot which never stops, but you can pause at any time. It actually allows for interesting sequencing if you want to get fancy with it. Obviously, it has a couple Jagged Alliance concepts cooked in there, but it's not much of a JA game beyond that. Still, I think BiA gets overlooked cause it bastardized the franchise when the core combat system is not bad at all. Once I was able to disassociate it from the franchise I came to enjoy it a lot more.

 

[80s Stallone]

enemy infestation... wait i think its without pause

 

[spectre]

Since pretty much all the good stuff were already posted, here's what you get scraping the bottom of the barrel:

Haven't played it in ages, so it's more of a vague recollection. It was marketed as being funded by the US military and used as a training tool.
From what I remember, it wasn't bad if you're into but military ops fantasy porn, gameplay could get repetitive (being mostly about positioning to cover, overwatch, suppression and flanking, with cover being super effective (can't remember if it was destructible
but there were sandniggers firing RPGs)).
Looking at the screens, a lot of folks assumed it's a FPS, leading to a lot of butthurt. What you actually do is have an over the shoulder view of a fireteam which you order around without assuming direct control.
Controls are what you'd expect from a mulitplatform release at that time (i.e. clunky and shit) and I hear audio is fug'd on modern systems, but should run fine if you're still on Win7.

 

[manassassas]

Since pretty much all the good stuff were already posted, here's what you get scraping the bottom of the barrel:

Haven't played it in ages, so it's more of a vague recollection. It was marketed as being funded by the US military and used as a training tool.
From what I remember, it wasn't bad if you're into but military ops fantasy porn, gameplay could get repetitive (being mostly about positioning to cover, overwatch, suppression and flanking, with cover being super effective (can't remember if it was destructible
but there were sandniggers firing RPGs)).
Looking at the screens, a lot of folks assumed it's a FPS, leading to a lot of butthurt. What you actually do is have an over the shoulder view of a fireteam which you order around without assuming direct control.
Controls are what you'd expect from a mulitplatform release at that time (i.e. clunky and shit) and I hear audio is fug'd on modern systems, but should run fine if you're still on Win7.

I liked FSW when it first came out. I remember playing it quite a lot as it was probably the closest thing you could get to a "strategy" game on console at the time (I had the XBox version). In hindsight it was probably more of a disguised puzzle game than a military sim, as it always seemed there was always a perfect way of getting through each mission which you just had to figure out through trial and error.

 

[gogis]

7.62 with hard life or blue sun mods. Can be infuriating at times, but it's incredibly complex/detailed. If you like guns and gear customization - this is your game

Ufo After-something games. Dated, but nuxcom basically stole all class/customization ideas from aftershock.

Horrible, horrible Jagged Alliance Back in Action. Pirate it, and suffer for a while

 

[Nortar]

One of the more obscure tactical RPGs - The Fall: Last Days of Gaia.
It's a post-apoc, something like a mix between JA2 and Fallout, but with RTwP squad combat.

 

[Galdred]

It also had shorter engagement ranges than Baldur's Gate iirc!
Is there any legal way of getting it now?

 

[JarlFrank]

Is there any legal way of getting it now?

Unless you like searching for used copies on ebay or third party sellers on Amazon, no.

 

[spectre]

I remember The Fall Last Days of Gaya being a thing, ended up skipping it without a second thought because of the overwhelmingly mediocre reviews. (Yeah, it was back when I would give a fuck about the press).
Felt pointless to try it when Fallout 1 and 2 were still fresh and good, Rome Total War just came out,
and IIRC Civilization 4 would be released as well.

It reminds me of Shadow Company (even more obscure thing), might even be the same engine, which kinda explains why it was bashed so much,
poor thing was rather dated. Here's a vid,

What reminds me of Last Days is the weird pace, as if the firefights play out either way too fast or much too slow.
One thing about it that impressed me was the size of the maps. Otherwise, the gameplay was rather repetitive. I think I might have gotten it in a bargain bin, same problem as above.
Why scrape the bottom of the barrel when Jagged Alliance 2 was just out, baby!

 

[Galdred]

Actually, The Fall: Last Days of Gaia was made by the devs of Soldiers of Anarchy iirc, which had a similar gameplay indeed.
SoA was cool : apocalyptic RT squad game, in which you could capture vehicles.
But it was also badly balanced, and reliant on finding "secret" characters and abusing vehicle capture : throwing a molotov or using any flaming ordnance on a damaged vehicle would cause the crew to bail out, and let you capture easily, which ended up in your squad all manning BMP instead of fighting as foot soldiers, which broke everything, but was pretty tedious (it was rather hard to avoid destroying the vehicles in the process).

Shadow Company and Gaia are both on the list of games I somewhat liked, but not to the point of finishing them.
I recall SC being mostly about getting all your guys together and killing opponents one by one.

 

[cretin]

Since pretty much all the good stuff were already posted, here's what you get scraping the bottom of the barrel:

Haven't played it in ages, so it's more of a vague recollection. It was marketed as being funded by the US military and used as a training tool.
From what I remember, it wasn't bad if you're into but military ops fantasy porn, gameplay could get repetitive (being mostly about positioning to cover, overwatch, suppression and flanking, with cover being super effective (can't remember if it was destructible
but there were sandniggers firing RPGs)).
Looking at the screens, a lot of folks assumed it's a FPS, leading to a lot of butthurt. What you actually do is have an over the shoulder view of a fireteam which you order around without assuming direct control.
Controls are what you'd expect from a mulitplatform release at that time (i.e. clunky and shit) and I hear audio is fug'd on modern systems, but should run fine if you're still on Win7.

I liked FSW when it first came out. I remember playing it quite a lot as it was probably the closest thing you could get to a "strategy" game on console at the time (I had the XBox version). In hindsight it was probably more of a disguised puzzle game than a military sim, as it always seemed there was always a perfect way of getting through each mission which you just had to figure out through trial and error.

Pretty much exactly what it was. There were a few games at that time that were marketed as us military sims i remember one that was all the usmc uses this game to train their elite warfighters, don't ya know! It was all bullshit of course. Fsw no different, there was a less commercial version of it it was evaluated as a training aid but it didnt get a contract predictably because it is useless as a training tool given how simple the simulated combat is vs the sheer complexity of real urban fighting. AFAIK the only "game" that has and is used by militaries worldwide as a simulator is VBS which is just an even more autistic and less polished version of ArmA..

Fsw was definitely a good title for the xbox. The gross simplification/distillation of the basic infantry principle of Find Fix Flank Finish was also a gimmick in another good xbox gen title Brothers In Arms. These were marketed as authentic combat, and in actuality they are extremely gamey with merely a veneer or paint of realism but none the less they were fresh approaches to war games that had become quite dull and repetitive.