Jagged Alliance: Back in Action Exclusive Special Edition PC Games

Released on 10-Feb-2012

Jagged Alliance Back in Action Special Edition includes:

• Night Specialist Kit
  - CAR -15 machine gun with Night camouflage
  - Kevlar helmet and military dress shirt in exclusive Night camouflage
• Desert Specialist Kit
  - SCAR-L CQB machine gun with Desert camouflage
  - Kevlar helmet and military dress shirt with Desert camouflage

Jagged Alliance: Back in Action is a contemporary remake of the much-loved Jagged Alliance series of turn-based mercenary-themed strategy games. Back in Action showcases an updated isometric 3D look and interface, highly detailed character models and a variety of new gameplay features. Back in Action takes players to the fictitious country of Arulco, where a ruthless dictator has seized power and only a small group of rebels stand to resist him. Tasked with freeing the island, players will command rebel and mercenary forces while using tactical, diplomatic and economic tools to keep troops supplied all while commanding them directly in nail-biting battles. Back in Action‘s innovative “plan & go” combat system combines real-time strategy with turn-based elements to guarantee that the intricacies of tactical warfare are rendered in dynamic, exciting gameplay.

Features of Jagged Alliance: Back In Action

• Engage in a massive non-linear ground campaign to free the oppressed people of the gorgeously-rendered fictitious country
  of Arulco, assembling your own motley crew of mercenaries to get the job done.
• Prowess in strategy and tactics is not enough; can you master the intricacies of RPG-like character development, a challenging economy and the logistics to keep your troops supplied – and strike at the right time with the right skills and proper weapons?
• An innovative “plan & go” combat system combines turn-based planning with dynamic RTS execution.
• Assemble your own combat squad from over 40 unique mercenaries, each with a detailed personality profile, including likes, dislikes, strengths, weakness and character flaws.
• Simultaneously control multiple squads to flank the enemy from multiple sides as you try your hand at advanced Combat tactics.

• Jagged Alliance: Back in Action is released

  Developer Kalypso Media has announced the UK release of Jagged Alliance: Back in Action, the latest instalment of the military-themed tactical games which allow users to control multiple squads of soldiers in a variety of innovative and exciting scenarios.

  The latest edition tasks gamers with running their own private military corporation, recruiting and equipping teams of mercenaries before commanding soldiers in combat.

  Action will take place on the fictitious country of Arulco, where the player must attempt to free the island from the grip of a tyrannical dictator with the help of various bands of mercenaries and freedom fighters.

  It will be carried out through a plan-and-go combat system which combines elements of turn-based gaming with real-time strategy, while allowing players to upgrade their mercenary's statistics in a manner reminiscent of traditional RPG gaming.

  The Jagged Alliance series has a long history in the gaming world, with the original game being released for MS-DOS in 1994.

  Published: 10/02/2012

• Editor's Choice - Jagged Alliance: Back In Action

  
  

  

  
  

  Jagged Alliance: Back In Action

  The old-age, rock-hard mercenaries series is back, but now revamped and boasting controversial new gameplay options. But can Jagged Alliance: Back In Action on the PC win over newcomers with this reboot while satisfying die-hard veterans?

  

  A remake of the 1999 Jagged Alliance 2, the premise is simple but juicy - you and your 'soldiers of fortune' are charged with Bravo Two Zero-ing the island of Arulco to oust a despot in return for sackloads of cash, kudos and, we assume, Nectar points. This means hiring mercs to build up your squad, and kitting them out before turning them loose on the locals.

  With 3D graphics that let you rotate round and zoom in on the game area (and the national stereotypes that can make up your team), you dish out orders, movements and more before setting the team off on their rampage. Raising eyebrows among Jagged Alliance aficionados though has been the introduction of the new 'Plan & Go' system. This features in-depth turn-based planning for your posse while offering the ability for RTS-like on-the-fly tactical changes at any moment. Spot a bunch of enemy cowering in cover behind the obligatory Toyota pick-up? Then lob in a hand grenade as and when you want to.

  

  Such shenanigans may seem sacrilegious to existing fans but in reality, this approach adds yet another strategic element to an already tough, tactics title. After all, this is old school; where moving a foot in the wrong direction can mean the difference between life and death; where the death of a merc in your squad is permanent; where the quicksave key will become your best friend. And where you will experience decidedly un-SAS-like temper tantrums when your plans go up a certain creek.

  But that's what remains so refreshing about Jagged Alliance in these days of hand-holding and challenge-killing checkpoints; that success or failure in the game really is down to you and your successful execution of guerilla tactics. In that regard then, we're hoping that JA remains back in action for another decade - and urge you to McNab this reboot asap. And that's an order.

  

  Published: 14/02/2012

• Baldur's Gate teases comeback title

  Legendary RPG series Baldur's Gate, dormant since 2004, is lumbering back to life. The game's website now shows a skull motif, and an ominous prophecy. "The Lord of Murder shall perish, but in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny, chaos will be sown by their passage. So sayeth the wise Alaundo," reads the text. Enterprising fans have rummaged around in the source code for the site, and found more clues. "For years, I clung to the memory of it. Then the memory of the memory," reads one. "And then... it returned. Better than it was before," says another. "Pore over the tapestries and works of art hanging from our walls if you wish, Child of Bhaal... perhaps you will find a clue. But patience, ah... patience would reveal it all," a third message in the HTML code teases. This fits in with news that developer Beamdog is working on a new entry in the series. Beamdog was co-founded by Trent Oster, who worked on the original Baldur's Gate, as well as fellow Dungeons & Dragons spin-off, Neverwinter Nights. This would make Baldur's Gate the latest in a line of 1990s classics being revived. Retro classics such as Syndicate, XCOM and Jagged Alliance have all been rebooted for 2012 gamers.
• Rebooting The Classics: The '90s Games That Are Rocking 2012

  
  

  In our eco-friendly times, recycling is everything. But it's not just empty soup cans and milk cartons, as great ideas are increasingly being mulched down, rebuilt and turned into something cool. Hollywood, somewhat inevitably, is ahead on this curve, increasingly plucking its summer blockbusters from the TV shows, movies and even toys that we enjoyed in the past. Now the games industry is catching on, and publishers are rummaging in their cupboards for beloved franchises that are ready for a second chance.

  

  Everything Changes

  Syndicate, currently nestled in the top ten, is a prime example. First released in 1993 for the PC and Commodore Amiga, the original game was a cyberpunk strategy game in which you played as the head of a sinister international mega-corporation. Able to despatch (and then control) four-man squads of bionic agents to disrupt and destroy the competition - with little regard for public safety - the game was a subversive cult hit.

  Revived last week by The Darkness developer Starbreeze, the new Syndicate flips the perspective from top-down view to first-person shooter, and casts you instead as one of the elite agents, able to augment your attacks with an array of cybernetic abilities.

  

  Back For Good

  Not all reboots opt to switch the gameplay style so dramatically though. PC cult classic Jagged Alliance also began life with a birds-eye viewpoint in 1994, but when it was revived earlier this February it had retained the distinctive turn-based strategy top-down style. Once again released for PC, the new version - Jagged Alliance: Back in Action - stays close to the original template, but injects lots of modern ideas as you train mercenaries and wage war on evil dictators across a campaign that can last 70 hours.

  Have A Little Patience

  Then there are the retro classics that try to have it both ways. X-COM was yet another PC strategy game from 1994, when its B-movie tale of government agents battling alien invaders was a natural fit for a world besotted with TV hit The X-Files. The series eventually fizzled out, but will return not as one reboot, but two. 2013 will bring the now hyphen-less XCOM, which re-imagines the game as a 1950s-set first-person shooter, developed by some of the team behind BioShock 2.

  

  Before that radical re-do arrives, however, we'll get XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which stays true to the isometric 3D tactical gameplay of old but updates it with such 2012 flourishes as destructible scenery and advanced AI. Developed by Firaxis, the company behind the mighty Civilization series, it should be a real treat. Is this the future of video game reboots? One game for the purist fans, another for the modern blockbuster audience? That remains to be seen, but it's an interesting and commendable experiment.

  

  Relight My Fire

  Reboot fever isn't just restricted to cult strategy titles from the early 1990s, however. Take the Medal of Honor series, for example. The original was a sombre World War 2 shooter developed in 1999 in conjunction with Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks Interactive. A new version, still developed by veterans of the same studio, now called Danger Close, hit the shelves in 2010, updating the action to modern Afghanistan but kept the same sense of duty to its real-life military subjects. It's also the first of the modern reboots to spawn its own sequel. Medal of Honor: Warfighter arrives this October.

  

  Rule The World

  The trend has even spread beyond the obvious avenues of the FPS genre. This year the decision was made to defrost the 2000 snowboarding game SSX, and the result is on the shelves now. There's not much scope to turn extreme winter sports into a first-person shooter, so instead we get a game that sticks to the style and tone of the beloved original, but beefs up the gameplay with cutting edge physics, oodles of online social features and over a decade of accumulated wisdom regarding how best to allow players to flip, grind and spin on virtual boards. It effortlessly straddles the joys of both old and new,

  Is this urge to revive and remix the past a healthy one? It would seem so. The games industry has a better track record than Hollywood of improving franchises as time goes on, and few would deny that there are some amazing games and ideas in the history books, waiting to be dusted off and given new relevance. Combining the comfort of the familiar with the thrill of today's technology, what's not to love? And which would you like to see come back?

• Rebooting The Classics: The '90s Games That Are Rocking 2012

  
  

  In our eco-friendly times, recycling is everything. But it's not just empty soup cans and milk cartons, as great ideas are increasingly being mulched down, rebuilt and turned into something cool. Hollywood, somewhat inevitably, is ahead on this curve, increasingly plucking its summer blockbusters from the TV shows, movies and even toys that we enjoyed in the past. Now the games industry is catching on, and publishers are rummaging in their cupboards for beloved franchises that are ready for a second chance.

  

  Everything Changes

  Syndicate, currently nestled in the top ten, is a prime example. First released in 1993 for the PC and Commodore Amiga, the original game was a cyberpunk strategy game in which you played as the head of a sinister international mega-corporation. Able to despatch (and then control) four-man squads of bionic agents to disrupt and destroy the competition - with little regard for public safety - the game was a subversive cult hit.

  Revived last week by The Darkness developer Starbreeze, the new Syndicate flips the perspective from top-down view to first-person shooter, and casts you instead as one of the elite agents, able to augment your attacks with an array of cybernetic abilities.

  

  Back For Good

  Not all reboots opt to switch the gameplay style so dramatically though. PC cult classic Jagged Alliance also began life with a birds-eye viewpoint in 1994, but when it was revived earlier this February it had retained the distinctive turn-based strategy top-down style. Once again released for PC, the new version - Jagged Alliance: Back in Action - stays close to the original template, but injects lots of modern ideas as you train mercenaries and wage war on evil dictators across a campaign that can last 70 hours.

  Have A Little Patience

  Then there are the retro classics that try to have it both ways. X-COM was yet another PC strategy game from 1994, when its B-movie tale of government agents battling alien invaders was a natural fit for a world besotted with TV hit The X-Files. The series eventually fizzled out, but will return not as one reboot, but two. 2013 will bring the now hyphen-less XCOM, which re-imagines the game as a 1950s-set first-person shooter, developed by some of the team behind BioShock 2.

  

  Before that radical re-do arrives, however, we'll get XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which stays true to the isometric 3D tactical gameplay of old but updates it with such 2012 flourishes as destructible scenery and advanced AI. Developed by Firaxis, the company behind the mighty Civilization series, it should be a real treat. Is this the future of video game reboots? One game for the purist fans, another for the modern blockbuster audience? That remains to be seen, but it's an interesting and commendable experiment.

  

  Relight My Fire

  Reboot fever isn't just restricted to cult strategy titles from the early 1990s, however. Take the Medal of Honor series, for example. The original was a sombre World War 2 shooter developed in 1999 in conjunction with Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks Interactive. A new version, still developed by veterans of the same studio, now called Danger Close, hit the shelves in 2010, updating the action to modern Afghanistan but kept the same sense of duty to its real-life military subjects. It's also the first of the modern reboots to spawn its own sequel. Medal of Honor: Warfighter arrives this October.

  

  Rule The World

  The trend has even spread beyond the obvious avenues of the FPS genre. This year the decision was made to defrost the 2000 snowboarding game SSX, and the result is on the shelves now. There's not much scope to turn extreme winter sports into a first-person shooter, so instead we get a game that sticks to the style and tone of the beloved original, but beefs up the gameplay with cutting edge physics, oodles of online social features and over a decade of accumulated wisdom regarding how best to allow players to flip, grind and spin on virtual boards. It effortlessly straddles the joys of both old and new,

  Is this urge to revive and remix the past a healthy one? It would seem so. The games industry has a better track record than Hollywood of improving franchises as time goes on, and few would deny that there are some amazing games and ideas in the history books, waiting to be dusted off and given new relevance. Combining the comfort of the familiar with the thrill of today's technology, what's not to love? And which would you like to see come back?

  Published: 01/03/2012

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