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E3 2011: Jagged Alliance: Back in Action Preview - Plan-and-Go

By Andrew Park

Jagged Alliance: Back in Action is a fully 3D remake of the classic tactical strategy game Jagged Alliance 2. We take an updated look at E3 2011.

The 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo is where new games are shown to fortunate members of the press. In keeping with that theme, publisher Kalypso showed us the latest, work-in-progress version of Jagged Alliance: Back in Action, bitComposer's 3D remake of the classic turn-based tactical strategy game.

Since we last saw the game at this year's Game Developers Conference, much of its interface has been updated. The I.M.P. psychological profiling website (at which you create your own custom mercenary) has been implemented, as has the website for A.I.M. (at which you hire the game's colorful roster of mercenaries). The quaintly outdated laptop computer interface with which you check your email to stay abreast of mission updates (and delete annoying spam messages) has also been updated.

We then skipped ahead to a tactical mission on the oppressed (and still thankfully fictitious) island nation of Arulco. Our company consisted of some of the best of (and some of the rest of) the game's mercenaries. These included the superior stealth operative Shadow; expert sniper Lynx; and hand-to-hand combat specialist Keith "Blood" Hansen. Also included were journeyman stealth operative Igor "Did we mention he's Ivan's nephew?" Dolvich; rookie brawler Grizzly; and fresh-faced bomb squad member Barry Unger. (While the mercs will still vary in skill levels--and hiring prices--just as they did in Jagged Alliance 2, they will sadly not have the same voices or even the same actors for licensing reasons, though we're told that most, if not all of the dialogue will remain the same, even if it is performed by new actors.) This mission was clearly thrown together for demo purposes and not representative of actual gameplay. Shadow's ability scores had been artificially boosted through the roof just to make sure he never missed a sniper shot (which would've disrupted our little E3 demonstration).

While the demonstration of combat played out in much the same way as we had seen it at GDC, this version of the game had a working version of Back in Action's "plan-and-go" turn-based mechanics. As in the original Jagged Alliance 2, when not in battle, your mercs will move about in real time. However, as soon as hostiles are sighted, the game will switch to turn-based play by default and will surface a menu at the bottom of the screen with portraits of each of your soldiers next to a long, empty horizontal bar.

As you give each merc successive orders in the turn-based plan-and-go mode, that merc's bar will fill up with queued orders to move, fire, attack in melee, and the like. You can queue up this long list of orders by right clicking destinations in the world, using an additional behavior modifier menu on the right side of the screen to access all the in-depth tactical options you need in the field. These include changing your posture from standing to crawling or prone or adjusting your weapon's firing mode from single shot to burst or to full auto. Even more interestingly, you can then click and drag one merc's queued order onto another, linking the two orders so that the second merc will not begin taking action until triggered by having the first merc execute the linked order. This system of automating long command queues might go over really well with fidgety armchair drill sergeants who insist on having complex operations go like clockwork. Then again, you can choose to disable the various triggers that will set your game to play-and-go mode in the first place (such as sighting a hostile, taking damage, and so on) or even disable turn-based mode entirely. But who would be crazy enough to play Jagged Alliance that way?

In any case, we're cautiously optimistic about the progress of this graphical overhaul of one of the most well-regarded tactical strategy games of the past decade, and the game's play-and-go queuing system could have some very interesting applications. The game is scheduled for release later this year.

By Andrew Park

19 Comments

  • Meat_Bag

    Posted Aug 18, 2011 10:37 am GMT

    I'm not really impressed by graphics here. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a graphics buff, but come on! It's a 2012 game, for Christ's sake! Forgive me, but I'm really sick of every good strategy game (well, almost every) looking like turd. This new Jagged Alliance better have some insanely cool features, otherwise - what's the point?

  • Yams1980

    Posted Jul 29, 2011 4:10 am GMT

    im pretty much trying this game no matter what, hope its as fun as the original JA2. be so great if this game turned out great, then maybe these same guys should make a full sequel

  • hoyo013

    Posted Jun 24, 2011 1:28 pm GMT

    why can't they just bring it in 2D?
    less dev costs, lower price, everything would be fine

  • jthewonder

    Posted Jun 22, 2011 9:52 am GMT

    A game THAT old can only dissapoint, they can't do a 2d view like the old one due to peoples graphic expectations nowadays, but no matter how they make the new one its gonna be so different from the old one that its hardly similar anymore, = dissapointed fanboys (me included)
    i loved the old one and its easily amongst my favourite strat games, but i don't see this remake being succesfull no matter what they do. I hope to be proved wrong though, i really do.

  • MNMR

    Posted Jun 19, 2011 7:35 am GMT

    We'll see..

  • Battleseed

    Posted Jun 18, 2011 5:11 pm GMT

    Hope they don't screw this up like Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge

  • harshv82

    Posted Jun 14, 2011 6:40 am GMT

    JA2 is my one of the most fav tactical strategic game to date

  • ESEA

    Posted Jun 13, 2011 9:35 pm GMT

    i love JA2. but what i see makes me really worry, i feel we dont have enough reality in this version of JA and it looks like a complete console version. Please do every single thing you can do for not losing the reality and smoothness Gameplay. i steel have hopes . . .

  • Taffelost

    Posted Jun 13, 2011 6:47 pm GMT

    They've stopped making good strategy games completely after the primary controlling method is a console-controller. I have high hopes for this game. Please stop destroying more of the legendary franchies please.

  • Razvan5000

    Posted Jun 13, 2011 1:07 am GMT

    Looks interesting....and cool

  • Nodashi

    Posted Jun 10, 2011 6:09 pm GMT

    Man, I really hope this one is well crafted. I love the series, but so many good things of the past have been DESTROYED when "modernized" (i.e.: Duke Nuken Forever)...

  • GreyViper

    Posted Jun 10, 2011 2:11 pm GMT

    To be honest I don't like and not because of Plan-And-Go . It worked well in UFO after series, but because really do we need to relive JA2 vanilla again when I can do that better with latest JA2 1.13 patch. Hell the fan made content is the reason why I get drawn back to it after so many years. Few links to videos to give the idea what i mean.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MR3o7x_GhY&feature=related
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QrE09dbeUg&feature=related
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCUMJveZuaU&feature=related
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBNYCYoMsjo&feature=related

  • Ladiesman17

    Posted Jun 10, 2011 12:59 pm GMT

    @Dioxholster

    No, Jagged Alliance should stay true with RTS roots, I have seen 1000 FPS out there. I'm not saying FPS is bad, but I mean, come on... are you gonna play FPS genre "ONLY" for the whole of your life gaming no sir.. I need change of pace sometimes.

  • DonGibon

    Posted Jun 10, 2011 9:31 am GMT

    after numerous rumors about not having time-based anymore, this confirms the oposite wich is excelent... go go guys, i wanna play it badly like JA2 back in the days

  • WCK619

    Posted Jun 10, 2011 8:02 am GMT

    I like the play-and-go feature. I think queuing up orders for each merc and then having them all follow out with those orders at once could be pretty cool. However it could cause problems too. What if you order 3 mercs to shoot at 1 enemy, and the enemy ends up dying on the 1st shot? The orders for the other 2 mercs will be useless and wasted AP. We'll see how it turns out, but I'm cautious.

    I'm with foojam. If they're going to hire new voice actors and redesign the game from the ground up, I just don't see a point in making an exact remake of JA2 with the same dialogue. I would be much more impressed if they were able to pull off an interesting new story. I'll take what I can get though, and this doesn't sound half bad so far.

    I wonder how modable this game will be. Hopefully the developers recognize that modding is what has kept JA2 still relevant to many gamers. Dioxholster, You could do that... but it would completely alienate all the JA players. JA is a niche game. It's not like Fallout, which had a rich history of background story.

  • Dioxholster posted Jun 10, 2011 7:58 am GMT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    Dioxholster

    Posted Jun 10, 2011 7:58 am GMT (hide)

    they should make it an FPS already.

  • Gelugon_baat

    Posted Jun 10, 2011 7:57 am GMT

    Eh - I noticed that I have yet to Follow this. Following now!

  • foojam

    Posted Jun 10, 2011 6:34 am GMT

    I would prefer a new game and not a remake.

  • Poodlejumper

    Posted Jun 10, 2011 5:10 am GMT

    Still looking like JA...we'll see how this "queue up" system takes and if it's an improvement or just a replacement for the previous. Frankly I think it looks OK for the time being. At least they didn't do with it what some others are doing with X-Com. Yanno because in the mind of an imbecile "EVERYTHING has to be a FPS!"