Jagged Alliance Online (Video Game Review)

Jagged Alliance is a popular game series that has been around since the early 90s and had several releases over the years including the series return with the free-to-play Jagged Alliance Online last year. Developer Cliffhanger Productions has continued their good work with the series, and an all new version of the game has been released for Steam. The new Jagged Alliance Online still comes in a free-to-play model that includes player versus player, tutorial and a few contracts, but now, the game can be extended with a full single player campaign featuring over 80 unique contract based missions. Gameplay in Jagged Alliance Online is easily comparable to games like last year's XCOM: Enemy Unknown with turn-based, shooting combat being the core of the game, but additional benefits are readily available for players that are willing to shell out a bit of cash. If you're willing to spend a bit of money for the full experience offered by Jagged Alliance Online, you'll likely have a good time, which is ironic since the game is often advertised as a free-to-play title.

The storyline of Jagged Alliance Online is straightforward and thrusts players into combat nearly as soon as the game finishes loading. Players will create a customizable mercenary and head into an enemy base to find and recover a few teammates to create a group soldiers for hire, not completely unlike the A-Team or The Expendables, so make sure you give your company a catchy name! Once the game's tutorial is completed, players will being unlocking new contracts that vary in mission style and difficulty, and the objectives are even more random and can range from something as simple as roughing up the biker gang that includes the ex-husband of a wealthy woman to something much more serious such as breaking into a foreign army base and stealing a high priority item. Storyline isn't the biggest draw of Jagged Alliance Online, but the game does feature a great quantity of missions with a bevy of different storylines of themes in itself to keep the player content.

 Combat in Jagged Alliance Online will feel fondly familiar to fans of this classic series. The action is turn-based with an emphasis on shooting mechanics. This means players will assemble a team of characters equipped with a variety of weapons and head into combat where every shot matters due to limited ammo supplies. When an enemy has been spotted, they can typically be attacked, but with a different percentage chance that each shot will land successfully. Cover can directly effect the hit percentage for the player's characters as well as the enemy, so it is always advantageous to find sturdy cover while destroying or otherwise bypassing that of an opponent. Shots can also be fired at different body parts for more damage but a less likely chance of the target being hit. All of this sounds good in theory and works well for the most part, but the occasional glitch in the game can be frustrating, especially when every move during a turn is so critical.

There are also several RPG elements included in Jagged Alliance Online. Each character will be based around a specific class model of character that will make the character better at certain parts of combat, but a character's physique is increased with Body Points to affect how much damage a character can take, reduce recoil, increase a character's ability to spot enemies at long distance and the like, while skill points will increase a specific character's proficiency with a particular weapon. This allows characters to not be completely controlled by the class choice or become one of the best sharpshooters, tanks or some other character model there is. This all works well and is clearly one of the most interesting aspects of Jagged Alliance Online. It's also worth mentioning that players will spend a good portion of their time at their camp where cash earned through completed contracts can be spent to purchase additional weapons, ammunition, new team members and other items, while the hideout itself comes with a few customizable portions as well.

Jagged Alliance Online is a nice looking game with differentiating environments that takes players around the world. The character models are also fairly nice with passable animations. The game does tend to get a bit framey during some of the more hectic combat scenarios, but players will find few complaints in this portion of the game's presentation. The way the game's storyline is told is a different, well, story however. There is very little spoken dialogue throughout the game, and what little there is adds very little to the game and is more annoying one liners than informative dialect. Short scenes featuring text tells much of the story between missions and is actually quite boring. Some of the other sound effects and some of the game's theme helps add to the game's impressiveness though and save the game's presentation. Jagged Alliance Online isn't unplayable, but you should expect to restart your game a couple of times before you complete the game's meaty solo storyline.

When you're not in the game's single player campaign, you can head into player versus player action online to test your skills earned against other gamers from around the world. Jagged Alliance is a fairly popular game, and the community that already supports the series will likely continue to grow as the new release gains more popularity on Steam. The game had some problems in online multiplayer during testing, but we were assured Cliffhanger Productions were already working on the problem, and it may be fixed by the time this review is up. Either way, Jagged Alliance Online is a fun game that is definitely worth trying in its free-to-play model, and if you like what you see, there is even more content waiting for you in the DLC packs offered on Steam, and we think it's worth every penny. Jagged Alliance Online manages to overcome a few flaws to become more than simply an XCOM clone, and if turn-based strategy titles are your type of game, then you shouldn't hesitate to pick up this new release on Steam today!

Jagged Alliance Online is now available exclusively for PC via Steam. Jagged Alliance Online is not yet rated. For more information on the game, check out the official Jagged Alliance Online website.

Game Features:

Online Multiplayer

Cross Platform Multiplayer

Free-to-Play PvP

80+ Mission Campaign

40+ Characters and 500+ Items

Game Information:
Developer & Publisher: Cliffhanger Producations
Available exclusively for PC
Release Date: June 5, 2013

Score: 6 out of 10