Jagged Alliance 2: Wildfire

[eurohacker]

Anyone played this game? It was a mod for JA2 which, among other things, made all the guns realistic. And we all know how rare that is in computer games.

Anyway, I enjoyed it, but it was also damn hard at times. Some levels were pretty impossible. As it should be, when your 6 man team goes up against a small army.

The good thing is it forced you to learn proper tactics. Stuff like suppressing fire, laying down smoke screens, flanking, leap-frogging, looking for cover, posting sentries to cover you ass, sneaking, using silent methods etc.

I think my favorite mercenary was Shadow. This was an über-l337 ex-Green Beret guy who was permanently camouflaged and who, when bleeding, remarked "I gotta stop this bleeding, it's leaving a trail"

What tactical computer games do you enjoy?

 

[thebucket]

My dad's a fan of the Commandos series. I've played it too, and it's hard. You don't get second chances in that game. Enemy fire HURTS and you need to use your team as best you can because you only get 4 guys against all the nasty Germans.

 

[GregGry]

I love the cammandos series, they are very tough though. I remember using cheats and still having a very hard time

 

[eurohacker]

One nice thing about JA 2: Wildfire was that you basically had to drop the guy in your round, or be able to duck down into cover, or he would fubar you in his round. The average merc in the game could only do one aimed shot with a rifle per round (same with burst fire) so it was vital that you aim for the head. Also, pistols remained useful throughout the game since you could get off more shots in one round.

Also, it was vital that you got to take the initiative, ie get the first round upon contact with the enemy. Sneaking around at night with camouflage and night vision ensured this.

I also loved it when you would run into patrols on the map. I'd drop the entire squad down on their bellies and crawl towards the enemy in a V-shape. Maybe send one point man out who would fire off a few rounds into the distance and run back to the squad, thus luring in the enemy like sitting ducks.

It was also nice that you could blow everything up. If you were assaulting a heavily defended compound, you would just blow a hole in the wall, lay down smoke, put on gas masks and rush in, blitzkrieg-style, thus negating their entire outer defense perimeter.

The process for creating your own character was cool too. You would do this weird psychological evaluation and it'd assign skills and quirks based on that. There was this quirk that, at random, made you fire full-auto and laugh like a maniac (it also gave you an accuracy bonus, though).

Ah, what a nice game...

 

[RavenVT100]

If you liked JA, you will want to play Silent Storm or Silent Storm:Sentinels (I've played the former, not the latter). It's like X-Com meets WWII squad-level combat.

 

[eurohacker]

Cool, I'll look into it!

One pet peeve with JA2 was that shotguns and hand-to-hand weren't very effective. Sure, shotguns and H2H did plenty of damage (you could kill 3 guys in one round with a machete and a high knife skill) but you never got into range.