I’m delighted to report the Steam version of Jagged Alliance 2 has been updated to version 1.12 and it’s now largely free of the problems that plagued the previous Steam version. You can actually save when playing the Unfinished Business expansion now and the bug in the original campaign which made money irrelevant has been fixed.
“Rock ‘n’ roll.”
I have little idea why it took Valve/Strategy First so long to replace the problematic Steam version of this classic game but I suspect the imminent launch of Good Old Games might have something to do with it. GOG, from intial reports, sounds like the ideal channel to get classic PC titles. It certainly sounds simpler than Steam’s clunky approach. (Why the hell does the Steam client want to connect online even in Offline Mode?)
I, however, felt an overwhelming urge to play Jagged Alliance 2 and play it now. This wasn’t a simple nostalgic longing for an experience from days gone by. I steadfastly believe some of the classic games remain unsurpassed in gameplay. Three months of JRPGs and their watered down tactical turn-based combat had my appetite well and truly whetted for something more substantial and JA2, to my mind, was it. I’ve yet to come across a combination of tactical-level turn-based combat and role-playing game mechanics as potent as JA2. And believe me, I’ve been looking.
Anyway, I paid USD29.99 for both JA2 and Disciples II and downloaded them from Steam yesterday. The game plays decently enough but gamers hankering for some firefights in Arulco should be warned of a few things.
Incredibly, the game still isn’t problem-free.
I get a Windows XP error message every time I exit the game. This is a known bug but nothing seems affected, though.
“Yeah, that could have been bad but I’ve got some kick-ass karma.”
The other issue is the game runs at 640×480 with the screen stretched to 1680×1050 on my Dell UltraSharp 2007WFP. I don’t consider this to be a major issue. If it is a major issue for you, there is a fix you could try. There’s a user mod for the game that not only improves some niggling gameplay issues but also implements support for multiple screen resolutions.
Finally, the manual, a 1.05MB PDF file, is stored in the game directory which in my installation is:
Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/jagged alliance 2 gold
Now, if you’ll pardon me, there’s a SAM site east of Drassen I need to take care of …
“It’s time to take out the trash.”
