Jagged Alliance 2 remake in 3D by bitComposer

Edwin wrote:
ebarstad wrote:

Is there a way to make your guys fire automatically, when they see an enemy?

The shield puts them in guard mode. You can orient their cone of vision in planning mode (spacebar).

Sweet, thanks.

I've really enjoyed the demo so far, except when throwing grenades that hit obstacles and kill my own guys.

One of my guys levelled up while I was playing, but I couldn't figure out how to get to the character screen to change his attributes. Anyone know if that's available in the demo?

Certis wrote:
Redhwk wrote:
Sparhawk wrote:

If someone doesn't want the TF2 Promo items, then please let me know :)

Just finished the demo, really liked it.

I'm really close to breaking my own rule of not buying single player games upon release with this one, and if I do I won't need the TF2 items. All yours if I break, just let me know how to get them to you.

How did you tackle the mission? I haven't put too much time in yet, but I can't even take out the first house near the launch point.

Your weapons vastly outdistance those the defenders have, so if you can find some firing positions and lure them out you have the advantage. Also, you can take the sniper rifle or assault rifle off Lynx at the start and give it to Fidel. His accuracy is good enough to make him an effective third shooter.

If you leave the starting area and go south towards the road where the guard house is, you can setup the guy with the Steyr AUG and the M14/Dragonuv to pick people off. Once everyone is dead, there is a guy with a FN Fal that gives you good distance. This effectively gives you four long distance shooters since you can give the medic the last rifle.

Also the medic's shotgun with the silencer is quite fun when you are clearing out a room.

Edwin wrote:

The shield puts them in guard mode. You can orient their cone of vision in planning mode (spacebar).

Nice! Thanks as well on that.

Short of replaying the tutorial again anyone remember off the top of their head how to have your guys take simultaneous shots when setting them up through planning mode?

You queue up the actions in planning mode. Then Shift+drag-drop one action onto another to synch them.

What I want to know is how do you orient guys?

When you have your guy selected, right click on the spot you want them to stand then drag the arrow in the direction you want him to face.

Well, I've probably spent 2-3 hours on the demo alone. I think I'll end up getting my money's worth out of this one.

Also, ignore my levelling question, since it's pretty obvious how to level your character once you open the inventory screen. The giant plus signs kind of give it away. ::shame::

There are all sorts of weird interface elements, some from the original Jagged Alliance (can't exchange anything someone has equipped!), and the character voices are a bit meh (though am used to the amazing ones from Dota 2), but the game is a lot of fun and captures the feel of the original perfectly. A lot of stuff is a bit fiddly, but that can be overlooked as the game is just... fun.

The actual environments are really well done.

After playing with the demo more, I really wish you could stack the door, then breach/open and clear/frag/flash much like in Rainbow 6. It would make clearing buildings so much easier. Hopefully XCom has this feature.

Edwin wrote:

After playing with the demo more, I really wish you could stack the door, then breach/open and clear/frag/flash much like in Rainbow 6. It would make clearing buildings so much easier. Hopefully XCom has this feature.

After thinking more on it, there's a lot of features that this demo is missing. Terrain isn't destructible, there's no fog of war, it's impossible to strafe-move. As this RPS preview from January points out, the lack of fog of war makes the game both ludicrously easy and really highlights the deficiencies in the AI.

Reading the official forums, there's all sorts of things Jagged Alliance fans have picked out as well. Three examples: you can't cut through fences, climb onto roofs, and weapons can only have one attachment slot (in Jagged Alliance 2 there were four apparently).

There's all sorts of little niggles and issues that should really be sorted out. The interface has all sorts of badly designed features which are obvious from a single playthrough. I found myself having to rotate the map to see into buildings and select objects, and sometimes you can't fire at enemies you have LOS to because the roof is in the way.

The Plan & Go system is actually absolutely fine, despite all the rage about it earlier in the thread. However, it does have bugs, which one fan dubbed "Plan & Forget".

Balance also seems way off in the demo. Close range combat is very hard, whereas long range combat means you can sweep through the map. It's possible to give someone a full medical treatment while they're both under fire and firing off headshots. There doesn't seem to be reaction fire; an enemy running round a corner into someone's line of fire will have the same reaction time as the person they've moved into sight of.

You can set up firing positions and then have fifteen enemies walk, one by one, into your line of fire. If you're in a firefight and duck behind a bench, the enemies will sprint across the room because they can't see you anymore.

It's hard to decide on whether to judge the game on what it is (fun but fiddly) or on all the missed opportunities.

It's fun but fiddly. I hope there is an SDK so folks can mod in all the missing features.

edit: No mods.

Capability of Modding? The developers specifically stated that Modding will not be available. As quoted from their website "It won’t be possible to create any modifications in any form." http://boards.jaggedalliance.com/ind...

I was sure when I preordered a couple days ago, the release date on Steam was Feb 7. Now I'm seeing Feb 9 and the JA site actually says the 14th. Did this get pushed back a little?

The more I play this, the more I want an isometric SWAT or R6 game with proper room clearing as Edwin mentioned. I'd also like to trap doors. It's too bad the environments aren't destructible.

Edwin wrote:

It's fun but fiddly. I hope there is an SDK so folks can mod in all the missing features.

edit: No mods.

Capability of Modding? The developers specifically stated that Modding will not be available. As quoted from their website "It won’t be possible to create any modifications in any form." http://boards.jaggedalliance.com/ind...

No mods just killed this sale for me. I'll stick with JA2. I actually enjoy the real time implementation but it's just missing too many features and doesn't quite feel right.

Thanks for stopping by MEATER!

I'm happy to hear that mods won't be shut down, as mentioned by others, the Plan and Go actually works really well and I enjoy the pace of the real time, but it really feels like the game isn't quite 100% ready. I hope it does well!

JA2 didn't support modding either, and yet we have fan patch 1.13.

Wow. Happy to read a little love for Back in Action here.

My job (as in Gamer with Job) was working on it as a Game Designer and internal Producer at Coreplay.

Special thanks to BlackSabre for posting that video. "The developers have populated the interiors of the buildings so well... It's really impressive considering this isn't an EA or Activision game... it's not a huge budget game." Jesus, hearing that made my day! We really tried to make the best game possible with the time and resources available and it's nice to see some people take notice!

Can't comment much on some of the stuff people mentioned they didn't like but there have been some changes to the game that are not in the demo.

For those who find it too hard: The game starts off easier. What you can see in the demo is the kind of combat you will encounter when you're already a couple of hours into the game. It might also help to take a look at the manual which I think anyone can access via Steam.

Regarding Mods: From what I read the stance regardings mods from bitComposer is that they won't keep anyone from modding the game so I'm pretty sure mods will happen even without SDK. Source

I still haven't had a chance to play the demo yet Is it back on steam yet? I tried to download the demo but it just wasn't working.

Otherwise, is there a good Aussie server that hosts the demo that anyone knows about?

Also, no worries, Meater. Good to have you here. Nice to have a link back to the developer of a game that we can feed all our ramblings!

Meater, glad to see you here. Gives me enough confidence to buy the game when it shows up. I really enjoyed the original, I hope this is as much fun.

BlackSabre wrote:

I still haven't had a chance to play the demo yet Is it back on steam yet? I tried to download the demo but it just wasn't working.

Yeah. It went back up on Steam.

Thanks for stopping by and telling us Meater. My decision to pre-order a few days ago feels less like buyer remorse.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

JA2 didn't support modding either, and yet we have fan patch 1.13.

It's not true that they didn't have support - The source code of JA2 was released with wildfire. If you have the source code you don't need much support

-----

The bitComposser and Kalypso are handling the marketing of the game very well. The demo left me hungry for more. I can't wait till release!!

MEATER wrote:

My job (as in Gamer with Job) was working on it as a Game Designer and internal Producer at Coreplay.

I've read your engine supports Wii/XBOX360/PS3/PC but does it support Android?? I would love if I could play BIA on my cell phone ( I don't like IOS but I know it's easy to dev games for it). The game mechanics seem to be fairly compatible with a touch screen interface .

Niseg wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

JA2 didn't support modding either, and yet we have fan patch 1.13.

It's not true that they didn't have support - The source code of JA2 was released with wildfire. If you have the source code you don't need much support ;)

Oh, right. Fair point.

How about if I mention fan patches for Fallout & KOTOR 2?

Niseg wrote:

The bitComposser and Kalypso are handling the marketing of the game very well. The demo left me hungry for more. I can't wait till release!!

I've read your engine supports Wii/XBOX360/PS3/PC but does it support Android?? I would love if I could play BIA on my cell phone ( I don't like IOS but I know it's easy to dev games for it). The game mechanics seem to be fairly compatible with a touch screen interface .

We chose the level for the demo to be later in the game so people could see if they liked how the advanced stages of the game play out. Especially since a lot of people were afraid that the game would turn out to be too "casual".

If you liked the demo you will very likely also enjoy the rest of the game. After all the tactical combat is one of its major parts and I think the strategic part (moving squads on the world map and deciding were to attack next while defending what you already liberated) only makes it more interesting!

Regarding our engine we've been looking into tablets both Android based and the iPad. I guess if we do a tablet game it will be a much smaller project and possibly something we do on our own.

Also, if there's going to be a Jagged Alliance title on any other platform is totally up to bitComposer Games since they hold the IP. They just hired us to do BiA. No idea what other plans they have with the series but a portable version for iOS and Android sure wouldn't be a bad idea!

Regarding modding: You can check bitComposer's JA forum. I've already seen modders post their first successes in decoding some of the files in the demo. Not sure if the thread was in the german or the english section though. But at this pace I think they'll figure out how to do a lot of things with the game in the near future!

MEATER wrote:
Niseg wrote:

The bitComposser and Kalypso are handling the marketing of the game very well. The demo left me hungry for more. I can't wait till release!!

I've read your engine supports Wii/XBOX360/PS3/PC but does it support Android?? I would love if I could play BIA on my cell phone ( I don't like IOS but I know it's easy to dev games for it). The game mechanics seem to be fairly compatible with a touch screen interface .

We chose the level for the demo to be later in the game so people could see if they liked how the advanced stages of the game play out. Especially since a lot of people were afraid that the game would turn out to be too "casual".

If you liked the demo you will very likely also enjoy the rest of the game. After all the tactical combat is one of its major parts and I think the strategic part (moving squads on the world map and deciding were to attack next while defending what you already liberated) only makes it more interesting!

Regarding our engine we've been looking into tablets both Android based and the iPad. I guess if we do a tablet game it will be a much smaller project and possibly something we do on our own.

Also, if there's going to be a Jagged Alliance title on any other platform is totally up to bitComposer Games since they hold the IP. They just hired us to do BiA. No idea what other plans they have with the series but a portable version for iOS and Android sure wouldn't be a bad idea!

Regarding modding: You can check bitComposer's JA forum. I've already seen modders post their first successes in decoding some of the files in the demo. Not sure if the thread was in the german or the english section though. But at this pace I think they'll figure out how to do a lot of things with the game in the near future!

That's the thing. Being an Ottawa boy I'm very proud of what SirTech accomplished so I hold this particular IP dear to my heart. If they really work with the fans and allow the SDK (providing the sales are there to warrant it) i'm certain this could be a revival for the series.

I still haven't played the demo, but the RPS review pretty much summarizes my opinion too. Despite these issues, this is still a rare day 1 purchase for me. I suspect that the lack of turn-based play and no fog of war means that once the new X-Com is released I may shelve this game however. Those two features are too integral to the play experience I want to overlook when there's an alternative available, despite the overarching structure being identical to the original JA2.

Stylez wrote:

That's the thing. Being an Ottawa boy I'm very proud of what SirTech accomplished so I hold this particular IP dear to my heart. If they really work with the fans and allow the SDK (providing the sales are there to warrant it) i'm certain this could be a revival for the series.

Well, at least this will be the first Jagged Alliance game to actually be released after about a decade worth of projects that got canceled or renamed!

And it looks like Jagged Alliance: Online is also close to be finished.

Still, when it comes to SirTech I always praised them most for Wizardry! Actually trying to hunt down Wizardry 8 on eBay atm! Last thing they did before closing down iirc.

I liked that you were actually competing against AI opponents in Wizardry 8 and could arrive at the location of some quest item to find that an NPC had beaten you to it. Can't think of any other game that's done that.

complexmath wrote:

I liked that you were actually competing against AI opponents in Wizardry 8 and could arrive at the location of some quest item to find that an NPC had beaten you to it. Can't think of any other game that's done that.

Something like that can happen in Din's Curse.

MEATER wrote:

Still, when it comes to SirTech I always praised them most for Wizardry! Actually trying to hunt down Wizardry 8 on eBay atm! Last thing they did before closing down iirc.

Oh... not sure if I still have the discs, but if I do they're yours. I'll check tonight.

Played some more of the demo today. Finally started to actually figure it out. Once I setup my guys in a way to draw out the enemy, the game became easier. Then I just had to deal with flushing out the guys who don't come running out.