Should I get this?

[Essedus]

This showed up in my recommended today, possibly because I've been replaying jagged alliance back in action, was the first JA game I ever played but that's neither here nor there.

From what I understand this is a very similar title, with vastly superior execution in regards to mechanics and gameplay. I love the old fallout games (even tactics), Wasteland, ect. It's one of my guilty pleasures.

I've also heard it's buggy and temperamental, however I am a S.T.A.L.K.E.R fanboy as well. As such bugs and other such nit picks are of absolutely no concern to me as long as the gameplay is compelling.

I've briefly watched a bit of a let's play and I do like what I saw and will likely pull the trigger on this purchase.

What's the consensus of the player base? If this one of those diamonds in the rough that dispite being unpolished shines just as bright as any other?
I feel like if I can stomach JA back in action with all its annoying quirks I'm also likely to enjoy this as well.

Thoughts? Anything super important I should know about?

[Kakarott]

If you buy it I would suggest to download the blue sun mod aswell as it fixes quite a few of the game breaking bugs and adds stuff to the game!

[MasterManiac]

I hate being way late to the party, but I definitely want to weigh in on this.

7.62 High Caliber is absolutely, positively, *the* best pauseable real-time squad combat game I've ever played. It's in fact *the* best squad combat tactics game I've ever played, period, in terms of overall mechanics.

What this game tries to do is simulate squad-level ground combat. It really is that simple. It factors in positioning, concealment, reaction speeds, combat stresses, ballistics, penetration, and the protective capability of various forms of body armor. Suffice it to say, there's plenty to keep your gears turning, as the combat goes way beyond pointing and clicking on enemies to make them go away.

I fell in love with the game like two hours in. The "love at first sight" moment was where I had two of my guys hiding behind cover with some marauder punks out to get me. I had my two characters "fast jump" out of hiding at precisely the same time, which caught the lead bad guy completely by surprise. He stopped dead in his tracks with a big lightning bolt symbol displayed above his head - this meant, I soon figured out, that the unexpected ambush left him shocked and stunned, unable to act as my guys lined up perfect shots. Of course, your units can be similarly rendered helpless by factors such as injury, suddenly being outnumbered, or being pushed so hard they can't even walk a single step more.

The micromanagement issue isn't as bad as you'd think. First of all, yes, your people will absolutely do nothing at all - AT ALL - that you didn't explicitly tell them to do. However, the "Record" feature lets you queue up actions for each of your units, so that you can have your whole team moving, shooting, doing practically whatever all at once, with a few simple clicks. This game was absolutely awesome for me before I ever figured this out (I didn't know it existed for the first 100 hours or so) - with the feature, it's a whole different game.

You can have one guy spray down a staggered cone of suppressive fire while two others cover each other across the street, all while your ghille-suited sniper crawls up behind a bush, peeks out just a bit to the right, and sets up shop with his rifle. You're in total control of every small, granular action your mercs perform, and it feels awesome. Nothing feels automated - every victory is the direct result of your input and response to events as they unfold.

The game *is* buggy, but most of the bugs are random memory-related crashes, at least in my experience. However, those crashes are "gentle," so to speak, and since you can save anytime, you're never more than like 10-15 seconds from jumping right back in whenever they happen. As someone who is usually sensitive to this sort of thing, the crashes honestly don't bother me. I've never seriously tried to finish the main plot line, so there might still be story-related bugs even with the Blue Sun Mod (which you should absolutely use because it improves everything). However, I've played this game for hundreds of hours, just enjoying the combat, so that says something. If the game's combat is the real reward, you know you've got a great game on your hands.

[Wooper jrr]

Get it, MasterManiac's description is perfect.

[Essedus]

Oh yeah I got it for sure, I actually grabbed it the same day I had initially made the OP if I remember correctly. I have loved every minute of it, it's pretty much exactly what I was hoping for and expected based on what I'd been reading. Also using blue sun mod right out of the gate.

Also mastermaniac, you're spot on, I couldn't have described it better. It's an extremely rewarding experience when you learn how to make everything come together seemlessly to create complex actions that wipe the floor with attackers.

[Wooper jrr]

Try out the Mercapocalypse mod as well, tons of new guns and content. Anyway, good to see you enjoyed the game

[magic2k]

JA Back in Action and etc is ♥♥♥♥, it cannot be called Jagged Alliance series, sadly. Best games is JA1 and JA2 (and JA2 is played till these days by many). 7,62 the only true descendant of JA2, so it's really not much to choose from... Personally I recommend JA2 more than this, and if you liked JA2 - this will be excitement for sure! Especially with Hard Life addon and etc.

Great to see that you liked it!

Also there is game 'Marauder', which is next and last game of this studio... You can like it.

Man, I miss Apeiron so much...

[Multihog]

Originally posted by magic2k:

7,62 the only true descendant of JA2, so it's really not much to choose from... Personally

Eh, 7.62 isn't worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence with JA2. It's a game whose jankiness can't be described in words. It's the most janky jank that I've ever seen. Everything in 7.62 is shoddy, broken, or straight up sh!t. There's a lot of idiocy in the design of this game that can't be chalked up to low budget. The only somewhat not-total-garbage component of this game is the combat system, but it's not nearly enough to salvage it.

7.62 has one of the worst beginnings and campaign structures overall. In JA2, you're immediately enjoying great combat and exploring the world. Conversely, in 7.62, you're running some stupid, dull errands in a world where everything is unbelievably static and anti-immersive. The less time spent in these awful cardboard cities the better, but the game LOVES having you run around said cities doing mind-numbing busywork, such as delivering papers to NPC X in seemingly random-generated "quests". It's like this game has no idea what the point of these types of games is. No one buys a game like this to read god-awful, poorly-written dialogue and look for robotic NPCs for hours on end to deliver some packages. If I want to read tons of dialogue—dialogue that's GOOD, mind you—I'll play a CRPG like Baldur's Gate. I don't want trash-tier dialogue written by some Russian with a poor grasp on English emphasized in a tactics game.

7.62 is a terrible game, through and through. Easily one of the worst ever made, and this is coming from a hardcore fan of the genre who's played all of them. Even JA: Back In Action is leagues above 7.62.

[magic2k]

Originally posted by Multihog:

Originally posted by magic2k:

7,62 the only true descendant of JA2, so it's really not much to choose from... Personally

Eh, 7.62 isn't worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence with JA2. It's a game whose jankiness can't be described in words. It's the most janky jank that I've ever seen. Everything in 7.62 is shoddy, broken, or straight up sh!t. There's a lot of idiocy in the design of this game that ...

I agree that all except tactical combat and weapons in this game is ♥♥♥♥, but my statement is stands that this is only true JA successor.

WTF with JA Back in Action? It's not a bad game, it's insulting of JA fans and tactic genre lovers! There were also Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge (ДЖАЗ: Работа по найму), it was uncompleted crap but better than that. Actually, it was closer to JA as any other game except 7,62/E5.

[禮安]

If you want you can also give Brigade E5 and Marauder a try,
E5 is the prequel to 7,62 ; the graphics will be more dated (as far as that can go) but E5 does offer a somewhat different experience with the same great core gameplay mechanics

Also it has more focus on the "RPG' aspect and is a lot more hardcore than 7,62 in raw difficulty. With shops and NPCs having business hours, voice acting for key NPC dialog, intense urban fights, natural wear and tear on almost everything on your gun (scopes, mags, attachments) that make maintaining your weapon extremely crucial, nickel-diming shops that force you to make your purchases count etc.

It actually does a few things better than 7,62 imo, even though 7,62 is definitely an improved, modernized version of E5's concept.

For criticism put above, 7,62 and E5 are buggy games, which is expected as they're Russian, but as mentioned, the gameplay is excellent, and I personally love the story and writing of Apeiron's (and Russian in general) games, as they're a lot more down-to-earth realistic.

You may run 'dull errands' but that's how it would be realistically, doing odd-jobs to gather money when all you have is your own wits with you, the player chara is a simple mercenary with a hit-job, hired due to experience with the region (E5 storyline takes place in a country right next door), not an action hero coming to liberate the people from tyranny or whatever, just here because the mafia hired them for a job.

Conversely I don't like the JA series' (at least I only really played BIA so far) dramatic action hero flick style of things with the country liberation and exaggerated mercenary personalities. I can see the charm it can have, but personally I prefer things being a lot more grounded.

[Butterside down]

I played brigade E 5 and its successor 7.62 almost the day they each came out and I really enjoyed them. Advance 4 or 5 years and JABIA came out. Played back in acton to death, completed the game 5 times. I decided to reload 7.62 I was bored by then with JABIA. I couldn't get back into 7.62. I liked the plan and go (Wego) and realtime switching in JABIA. It was really well designed for coordinating multiple mercs at once in real time therefore you may feel hamstrung in 7.62.

[Multihog]

I feel JABIA suffers from a lot of the same problems as 7.62, such as a lifeless poorly made world, but the difference is that JABIA has solid gameplay whereas 7.62 gameplay is awful and janky. That's why I think JABIA is the better game overall. Yes, it's no JA2, but it's not god-awful either, imo.

[D_F_N]

MasterManiac's description is the one to believe here. Some others are describing a game they havent played.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by D_F_N:

MasterManiac's description is the one to believe here. Some others are describing a game they havent played.

Translation: MasterManiac's position mirrors my own, so I'm declaring my support of it.