Interface

Pre-Combat

There are three levels of game interface in Jagged Alliance 2. The basic map screen is where you'll do most of your organizing. On the right, you see the gridded territory of Arulco, and the cities and mines and airports across the country. There are icons to turn on or off different terrain types and troop movements on the map above. On the left, you see a list of your mercenaries and the status of whichever one you are focused on. The interface is simple, direct, intuitive; nothing you haven't seen pieces of in other games.

Enemy encounter.

Ah! The ease! The convenience of Sector Inventory!

Your Computer

I love the level above this map level - there's a laptop icon, and when you click on it, you're in your mercenary machine - a fully cellular laptop with web and email access. Sir-Tech has created a virtual internet here that simulates the real internet for the purposes of the game. There are ad banners, under construction web pages, ecommerce sites galore. Through the Association of International Mercenaries web page, you'll browse mercenary bios and have video teleconferences to invite certain men or women to join your team. After you have a few people selected, you can figure out your finances through a kind of running financial tabulation program. You can order mercenary insurance through an insurance site. You can even order flowers online for the Queen with your own snide message (and witness a funny in-game cut scene as a result). You receive email updates from Enrico, and invoices by email from your online ordering. There's even a gun shop online, that's conveniently under construction until you have liberated an airport where they can deliver your weaponry.

I bought this game and it has ad banners?

You've got mail!

Meeting the Enemy

Besides all these transactions, and the routing of troops and supplies on the map screen, the meat of the game rests in the tactical sector-by-sector battle screens. You can tell your troops where to go from the overhead map view, but whenever they encounter enemy troops, your screen shifts to a single map sector, an isometric/three-quarters view of your men and women amidst the structures and flora of Arulco. You can move your mercenaries around these screens in real time - click on a person, click on their destination (and hear them give an assent with each click - "yes?" "i hear yah"). When they come within shooting or shouting distance of a foe, Jagged Alliance 2 drops into its turn-based combat mode.

Is there really a site like this? Just imagine.

Bobby Ray's - service with a thumb.