The People Factor

Your Team

Liberating a single sector in Jagged Alliance 2 can take half a day, and this would really be a drag if it wasn't for the people helping you do it. Your mercenaries are real personalities, much as you'd expect from people who kill for money in foreign countries - you gotta be a little weird to make a living like that. Accordingly Jagged Alliance 2 is peopled by former ANC members, straight-laced soldier types, backwoods boneheads, motorcycle gang graduates, spiritual seekers - a real random assortment of people for a computer game. And each of them has a drawn portrait that makes faces at you, and each has their own set of verbal remarks, retorts and exclamations. You're almost guaranteed to smile at least once per battle, as your hired guns say stuff like "Jelly Dog!" or "Go to sleep, creep" when they dispatch a foe. Or when they share a little bit of their philosophy or personal issues with you; "I don't know why everybody thinks I'm psychotic. I'm not psychotic, I just got a passion for my job."

More wounded bodies than grammar skills.

It takes a very steady hand...

Keeping them Happy

Some computer games are good because they become your friend - they talk to you, interact with you, you share common interests and goals. Jagged Alliance is filled with friends, because you have a common foe, and when they see that common foe, they say "sonsa bitches" which is just about how you'll feel most of the time you see those bad guys. The characters aren't all fun - there's enough different types of people involved that someone's bound to bother you just a little bit. In addition, just when you think you've put together your perfect team, they'll find a reason not to get along and your well-trained well-equipped killing machine will retire because they can't stand the newbie you've hired. All along the way you're going to hear grumbling and even cussing - Jagged Alliance 2 is one of the first games I've seen where the players unabashedly swear. Not with asterisks; genuine cusswords. It took me many hours of gameplay, but one of my mercenaries finally referred to the badguys as assholes. Meltdown, a mercenary known for her temper, called one of the other complaining mercs a pussy. After seeing many insanely tough gun-toting brutes tiptoe around naughty words, it is positively refreshing to hear someone who is supposed to be a killer swear when they were pissed off (maybe I should show Kingpin to Justin and see if he still feels the same way -ed).

Tell me about your pump action.

A very loud scream might mean such things, yes.