Lately i'm feeling very nostalgic, and I'd like to play some of the older games. I'm a big fan of X-Com/Fallout series, however I've completed them innumerable amount of times and want to try something else.
I remember that couple of years ago I tried JA2: Wildfire (which was the only JA game I could get) and hated it, because I felt the game was "realistic" to the point of being idiotic. My guys were armed with shitty pistols, unable to hit anything from 3 meters away, while enemies were in much greater numbers and much better armed. I found that the only reasonable tactic was to abuse AI's stupidity and bait the enemy dudes around the corner where they would be met by point-blank fire.
However accidentaly I found out that Wildfire is actually a fan mod that purposedly has increased difficulty. So I would like to know, is original JA2 better balanced? Can it be played without resorting to blatant AI abuse?
I have not had the chance to play JA yet, but im pretty sure these games are simmlar. I would recomend them to you!
Odium: Odium got poor reviews in general, but I personally thought it was great. Its a very hard game with a pretty dark atmosphere, the combat is really well balanced, and you really gota throw everything you have at the enemy to win. Bullet/ammo management is important cause ammo is pretty hard to come by, you really gota conserve/play smart. And the enemy names are unintentionally hilarious (lost in translation)
Silent Storm:
Silent Storm was received by the masses much better I think (got pretty good reviews) and its a really fun game.
Since you mentioned XCOM, I would also like to give a special shout out to a community made XCOM clone called UFO: Alien Invasion. Its totally free. http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/
I actually have not played since the official "full" release, but I remember thinking it was very promising. The community seemed to be 'true' XCOM fans, and were trying to make the game as faithful and simmilar to the original UFO Defense as possible. I actually forgot about it untill writing this reply, heh, ill probably check it out:
I love JA2. Played it a lot when it was new. Haven't played UB or Wildfire yet though... sometime... although I've heard a few bad things about these. They're both a bit buggy (maybe patches exist), and also *really* hard, to the point where it's just really frustrating for new players (even those who have beat the original game).
I've also heard about Silent Storm, I should try that too sometime.
On May 09 2008 09:55 nofAcedAgent wrote: I have not had the chance to play JA yet, but im pretty sure these games are simmlar. I would recomend them to you!
Odium: ... Silent Storm: ... UFO: Alien Invasion
Thanks!
At first I got interested in Odium, but then looking at screenshots I realized that it's the game that was originally named Gorky-17 I played it in the original language, and it was great! The monsters were sick
I tried Silent Storm, but I didn't like it for some reason I remember vaguely... I think it was because the maps were large, and the game itself annoyingly slow, so it took too much time to finish one map.
I also tried UFO:AI, but it was in the early stages of the development, and it was unbelievably buggy. Probably it got better now, I'll definetly try it
Also, I enjoyed ALTAR's UFO series, Aftermath, Aftershock, etc. They generally received bad reviews, but I found them very enjoyable, though repetitive. They should've really used X-Com's semi-random map approach.
And from the similar games I remember the one called Incubation, which was quite interesting as well.
I absolutely freaking LOVE JA2! I played JA2, the official addon, several fan addons and modifications several times. I can hardly describe how awesome JA2 is.
To start with Wildfire is a bad idea though, because it was indeed made for die-hards (like me) who find JA2 too easy after playing it like 10 times. And even I stopped playing it because it really just ends in AI abuse.
But I can only recommend you start with JA2. It's rather easy once you get the mechanics. Their is also a fan-made JA2 patch with numerous improvements like better AI, more realism etc but just give vanilla JA2 a try first. You can definetly play the game a dozent different ways so it won't get boring even after you solved it once. Make sure you get recent patches though, 1.00 is pretty buggy.
But be warned: JA2 is highly addictive! You will find yourself saying "just this one sector before I got to bed" more than once :-) mMybe you'll end up as a junkie like me who has to install JA2 again as soon as there is militia fighting on the evening news.
Oh and thanks, now I have to reinstall JA2 and try to break my previous record of killing every single enemy in the country in less the 10 days with only one merc (~1200 frags) ....
On May 09 2008 18:38 zatic wrote: Oh and thanks, now I have to reinstall JA2 and try to break my previous record of killing every single enemy in the country in less the 10 days with only one merc (~1200 frags) ....
Oh man, I can relate to you I beat X-Com in every possible sick way imaginable, such as finishing a mission without even once giving turn to the enemy (by mind-controlling aliens and making them all kill each other), making the Ethereal Commanders (theoretically the most psi-resistant guys in the game) kill the Overmind, beating the game on Superhuman difficulty without using in-battle saves and so on ..
I'm getting the original JA2 now
The problem with Wildfire was that I loved the game mechanics, graphics, controls, and so on, but I just couldn't get the point of making the game so difficult that AI abuse is a necessity. I mean, some AI abuse is always fun, but when it's the only way to play... it's not fun.
Yeah, that's what makes a great single player game :-)
When you're done with original JA2 you can try this fan mod here, it's the original game but with a lot of changes to mechanics, AI, enviroment, weapons etc: http://ja2v113.pbwiki.com// It's a lot more realistic and much harder (but not rediculous like wildfire), so it's really fun when the original gets too easy. Damnit I see sleep deprivation ahead...
I completed JA2, I really liked it. It's not too difficult, but not too easy for me, it's just OK. I didn't play any other JA games, but I'd like to try Unfinished Bussiness sometime in the future (I heard it's insanely hard).
On May 09 2008 18:06 Random() wrote: At first I got interested in Odium, but then looking at screenshots I realized that it's the game that was originally named Gorky-17 I played it in the original language, and it was great! The monsters were sick
Uhm... You mean you played it in Polish? You understand it ?
Well ... YESSSS! I've been playing this game so much! Look for the Patusco's Strategy guide (SPOILER), there is every single thing about this W O N D E R F U L L game and there are so many things to discover in Arulco!!!!
The original game is well balanced and you have the possibility of chosing the difficult level (changing the setting will result in enemy being in a superior number and better equipped)
There are also several mod and expansion though they were not completely bug-free.
I played and completed one of the JA2 games. Eventually you found a method to deal with the various situations. I found the difficulty to be significantly higher than UFO, at least at the start, because at UFO it didn't matter if you lost a couple guys here and there. In JA2 I had to load and save constantly, but it got easier as soon as you got something to replace your starting weaponry. As far as AI abuse goes, I think that's how you end up playing most single player games anyway.
JA2 is one of my favorite games, gotta love the russian mercs. a similar game that hasnt been mentioned is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MissionForce:_CyberStorm which i highly reccommend, esp if u are into mecha.
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I played it in the original language, and it was great! The monsters were sick 
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