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Operational Art of War, Vol. 1
Game Info

Publisher
Talon Soft
Developer
Talon Soft
Genre
Strategy
Origin
U.S.
Number of Players
2

Operational Art of War, Vol. 1
August 12, 1998

The Operational Art of War is a wargame par excellence and the best example of this genre in years. Even so, it is still a traditional wargame, and that means it’s steeped in the forty year old boardgame tradition and everything that tradition entails: the counters are square, the map is made of hexagons, and players play in turns.
Lest that turn off the neophyte, keep in mind that what Norm Koger does better than any other wargame designer is layer the complexity of a hardcore operational simulation so carefully that any reasonably well-read, computer literate individual can pick up the game, start playing, and possibly even win without knowing the difference between an M5 Stuart and a Jagdpanther. The interface is that good.

But that's only a fringe benefit of the excellent design. Koger programs for the hardcore wargamer, and he doesn’t fail. The first things you look at with any wargame are period and scale. The period is circa mid-1930s to the late 1950s. The scale, one of the game's secret strengths, is flexible, in both time and hex size. This allows it to model anything from a firefight between a few regiments to key phases of history's largest and most pivotal land battle, WWII's Eastern Front.

Where to begin? One of the things that impressed me the most was the battle report. No matter how many troops were involved in a fight, the report breaks down how many rifle squads, mortars, armored fighting vehicles, warplanes etc., were involved in the fight, and survived.

Other key features: you cannot blithely maneuver alongside the enemy--adjacent units are assumed to be engaged, and disengagement is perilous. Also, formations can be split, losing cohesion, but are better able to cover a wider front. Air support is modeled. Naval support, amphibious operations. Fortifications. Command and control. Reconnaissance. Supply lines. Rattle off twenty other terms from wargaming: odds on it’s in there.

Yet even as the game handles operational warfare, it also encompasses larger geopolitical realities. Wargames as a class are sometimes affected with a kind of tunnel vision: the games become so involved with the unfolding tactical chess match on the battlefield that external political events are largely ignored. This is particularly true with the "limited wars" or police actions of the Cold War. But not here. In TOAW's Korean scenario, for example, you may well be managing the war quite well on your side, only to find that political leaders across the ocean have decided to use nuclear weapons, gas warfare, or you may find your actions have inadvertently drawn in other super powers. Koger handles this by having each scenario's design include optional probabilities for intervention by another party; i.e. as when during the Korean War the Chinese came pouring over the border or the US opts to go atomic.

Multiplayer options are what they should be--hot seat for two players on the same computer, or play-by-email, which is really the only way to play this kind of game with other people. Internet play is promised on the box but didn't make it in; a patch is forthcoming. But whereas such an omission would be a glaring notch in any other kind of game, in a wargame, where it can take ten to thirty hours to play a scenario, up to a half hour per turn, you probably don't want to play this game on a modem against someone else--I know I sure don't want to--and so that omission is in many ways irrelevant.

Where The Operational Art of War truly becomes more than a game is in its scenario editor and wargaming system. The tools included within the game allow you to create any scenario or situation you can imagine, real or not. Since each of the seventeen scenarios can easily take ten hours, and you can make new battles with the scenario editor, the replay value is potentially infinite. Even if you never touch the editor yourself, you can download scenarios other wargamers have made from the Internet, in essence getting expansion packs for free.

This review simply can’t do justice to this gem. The Operational Art of War is a high-water mark in the fading art of wargaming. I recommend it in the highest terms.

Presentation
The manual is dense but not exactly designed for a newcomer. 7.0
Graphics
The 2D units look good but the 3D representations are a step down. 7.0
Sound
The audio and music get a bit repetitive. 6.0
Gameplay
Nothing much to complain about here. 10.0
Lasting Appeal
The game should last you at least until next February, when the second volume will be released. 8.0
OVERALL SCORE 9.0
____________________________

Jagged Alliance 2

Game Info

Publisher
TalonSoft
Developer
Sirtech Canada
Genre
Strategy
Origin
Canada
Number of Players
1
Minimum Requirements
Win95/98 or NT 4.0 with Service Pack 3
P133MHz
32MB RAM
16-bit capable video card
2x CD-ROM
Win95/98 compatible sound card

Jagged Alliance 2

August 2, 1999

It's been about 5 years since the original Jagged Alliance was released and, although fans of the series had Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games to hold them over in the interim, they were waiting for a true sequel to put them back into the role of a mercenary leader working against the system to get the bills payed. Although it had been in the works for a few years, for a while there it looked liked Jagged Alliance 2 might not ever see the light of day. With Sirtech Publishing closing its doors in late 1998, Sirtech Canada was left to search for a new distributor to get its turn-based strategy title out on store shelves. Well, thanks goodness TalonSoft stepped in to circulate the project, because Jagged Alliance 2 is just as addictive and fun as its predecessor, and adds a few new nifty features and graphical tweaks to make it one game we wouldn't have wanted to miss.
Like the original, the plot is relatively simple and straight-forward. No aliens, high priestesses, or raging mages here. Jagged Alliance 2 takes place in a modern-world setting. You're a mercenary leader who has been hired by deposed ruler Enrico Chivaldori to free the small South American country Arulco from the clutches of a despotic queen, Deridranna. To accomplish this goal you have to recruit a rag-tag group of mercenaires to help you fight your way into the cities of Arulco, freeing the citizentry and gaining their trust along the way. With more victory comes more loyalty, and more of the population swayed to your way of thinking and away from Deridranna's.

If you've played any squad-based strategy game like X-COM or the original Jagged Alliance, you have a pretty good idea of how Jagged Alliance 2 works. Assemble a squad of stalwart mercs, equip them with an arsenal the National Guard would be envious of, and trudge into the heat of battle with bullets flying. While the combat is turn-based, giving you a chance to meticulously decide what your next move is, the game moves to realtime when you're not in a direct conflict with opposing forces. This blend of realtime action with turn-based strategy offers up a game that captures that addictive, up-all-night quality that I haven't seen in a while.

At the heart of the game are the mercenaries, the guys and gals you hire to shoot it out with the dictator's troops. Generally you're going to want to hire as many mercs as you can afford, insuring your chances of suvival from mission to mission. All hiring is done through various web-based mercenary services via your laptop, the most reputable and trustworthy of these being A.I.M. (the Association of International Mercenaries). Each of the different mercs is blessed with different skills (such as mechanics, markmanship, medical, demolitions, stealth, etc), and you'll be well advised to form a group that can handle a wide variety of situations since they will be the ones that you have to rely on to get almost anything accomplished in Arulco. Sure, it's nice to have a group of seven dead-eyes, but you sure will be begging for a doctor once three of them sustain heavy wounds. Of course, the better a mercs is, the more (s)he will cost to hire, so it's good to check out several profiles before jumping in and hiring the first person you run across.

The interface is pretty straight-forward, but loaded with information. While the game mainly revolves around combat, you have to play a few political cards in the process by talking with the local denizens and trying to enlist their help in your daunting task. You move your mercs on a gridded map with just a click of the mouse. Your main objectives are to capture towns that are scattered around the map from the enemy troops. As you win more and more battles, this tasks becomes increasing more difficult as the queen continues to send more of her elite troops after you. The time between shoot-outs is usually filled with training your mercs, healing the wounded, ordering more arms and ammo, training the locals to fight against any troops that may show up later, and simply resting up between incursions. The game can be somewhat slow going (but rewarding) in these periods as you have to carefully manage your resources (this includes your limited supply of ammo as well as your limited supply of mercs) to make the most out of the cash you're given. Fortunately you can make cash through liberating mines and performing other tasks for people you run into while fighting your way through Arulco. All of this troop management can be both a blessing and a curse, and it would have been nice to have some sort of central inventory allocation system instead of having to physically pass-out ammo and guns from mercenary to mercenary, but this attention to detail and realism is the stuff that hardcore strategy wargamers salivate over. It's also one of the things that makes Jagged Alliance 2 so playable. Even though the game is confined to one South American country, their are literally hundreds of areas to explore. This combined with an unlimited variety of merc, weapon, and ammo combinations make Jagged Alliance 2 a game with almost limitless replayability.

Of course, one of the deciding factors in any strategic wargame is how good the computer-controlled opponents are, and Jagged Alliance 2 boosts some pretty challenging AI. Enemy troops do a good job of using the terrain to their advantage, crouching behind rocks and falling prone behind fallen logs to obscure their bodies. This means that you can't simply overpower your enemies with a bum-rush, unless you're not afraid to lose a few mercs in the process.

The visuals aren't terrific but they're certainly passable, especially for a turn-based strategy game. You'll assess the combat action from an isometric view, at a much more pronounced angle than the original. While this is a typical view for strategy games, the high level of terrain detail in Jagged Alliance 2 makes it sometimes difficult to determine if you're indeed hidden from an enemy's line-of-sight if you're hiding behind an object. There were several times when I felt that one of my mercs was in a completely covered position out of harms way from the enemy, only to see them get hit the next round. The grunts themselves and other objects in the game do look a lot better than the original, but it was released nearly 5 years ago, so you would only expect a major graphic overhaul by now.

The sound in the game really adds some much needed spice to Jagged Alliance 2, and without the impressive audio quality, the game wouldn't have been nearly as enjoyable. Everything is recorded extremely well, and the individual weapons actually sound like their real-life counterparts, and completely different from one another. Squadmate voices are clean and crisp, but the repetitive canned dialogue gets rather annoying after only a few battles. One carry-over from the original is that you'll really learn a lot about your mercs by how they interact with one another vocally. If two particular mercs don't get along, they'll let you know, and they'll also give each other encouragement if someone pulls off a particularly sweet move. Like other squad-based combat games, you'll become attached to your squadmates the more you work with them. This makes their blood-screams when they get gunned down that much more painful.

So, while Jagged Alliance is an addictive, entertaining game with almost limitless replayability, it does have its share of flaws. One of the most obvious and painful is the number of gunshots it takes to incapacitate someone. Some of the enemies take three or four head shots before crumpling to the floor. Now I can understand if these were leg or torso shots, or even if the troops had a doctor and were getting medical attention in the heat of battle, but nobody is going to be able to take three shots to the head and continue shooting. At least fall down for a round or two.

Another problem is that you don't always get all of the items an enemy gunman was carrying. Sure, you'll be rewarded with a clip here and a gun there, but it's nowhere near the arsenal that the enemy force was carrying before you killed them. If I'm being shot at by a group of bad-asses with automatic rifles and all I have is pistols, you better believe that I want to pick up those guns to use after I waste them. This is especially frustrating considering how limited ammo is in the game. If I could just pick up all of the guns and ammo of my departed foes, resource management wouldn't be so time consuming. Since the developers went into so much depth to make Jagged Alliance 2 a fairly realistic squad-based strategy game, you would think that a little quirk like this wouldn't be overlooked in the final.

Another sad oversight is the lack of any multiplayer options. Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games had multiplay, so why not the full sequel? It would have been incredibly cool to take on the evil dictator with a few buddies but, alas, no such luck.

Even with the slight downfalls, I can't say enough good things about Jagged Alliance 2. In the end, the game offers up lots of fun without bogging you down in too much micro-management -- the bane of many turn-based strategy games. It will certainly keep you busy for a long time and is a game that's well worth the money spent. You're not going to want to miss this one if you're into turn-based strategy gaming, and it may have enough hooks without being too in-depth to attract a few action gamers as well.

Presentation
The interface is hefty without bogging you down with too much micro-management. The detailed manual tells you everything you need to know to play the game. 8.0
Graphics
Nothing special, but they get the job done. 7.0
Sound
The different guns actually sound their real-life counterparts. While the voices are recorded well, the repetitive dialogue gets old quickly. 8.0
Gameplay
Nice mix of turn-based and realtime action. It never really gets stale as there's a lot of gameplay variety in Jagged Alliance 2. Challenging AI, too. 9.0
Lasting Appeal
This is a big game. A really big game. A really, really big game. Be prepared to lose some sleep over this one. It's a shame there's no multiplayer, though. 9.0
OVERALL SCORE (not an average) 8.5

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Page Updated Sat Feb 26, 2000 9:42am EST