This review is for the Windows version. The MAC/Linux version is unplayable at this point.

I am a fan of JA2 and i was quite disappointed when JABIA was released. It was unfinished and overpriced on release. But things have changed. Most of the game's problems can be fixed by using mods and the price of the game has decreased considerably. I played the modded Windows version for 220 hours and really enjoyed it. I can only recommend this game.

The story/scheme of the game is very similar to JA2: You are hired to liberate a small 3rd world country and can only afford to send in a few wannabe mercenaries. You start to liberate/loot remote locations in order to get your hands on more money and better weapons while you recruit NPCs and improve their skills.

In contrast to JA2 this game is in 3D and in real time. Which is awesome in my opinion. You dont have to watch 40 AI moves until it is your turn. You can pause and intervene at any time. The game offers a lot of freedom. You can run away from tough battles and come back later with better equipment. You can even leave the first battle of the game and explore instead.

There are a few flaws, however:
-Mercs have less character compared to JA2 and there is no option to create your own mercenary.
-AI is just as stupid as in JA2 and attack squads are very predictable
-Animations in this game feel like placeholders (all weapons have same reload animation and sound)
-Annoying melee combat. Guns cannot be fired at melee range and melee hits damage all of your gear.
-Explosives (C4) can only be placed on brittle walls. you cannot set traps for enemies.
-You will spend a lot of time managing your inventory
-Militia is not very useful and recruiting is tedious.
-You cannot train/repair/heal on the strategical map (which was a nice feature in JA2)
-Enemies cheat / have superhuman skill (fixed by mod)
-Weapons are imbalanced and have wierd stats (fixed by mod)
-Broken Stealth: enemies hear you walk/climb from up to 150m (fixed by mod)
-Broken Camouflage: camouflage not working properly, especially at night (fixed by mod)
People also complain about horrible aimtime in CQC, but this can be solved by using the Run stance (F3) at close range. This will result in rapid-fire instead of aimed-fire.

Some reviewers claim that combat gameplay is "micromanagy" and "tedious". In my opinion combat is very simple and entertaining as long as you avoid common mistakes and use hotkeys. It is even possible to play the game completely in real time without any pausing as long as you know what you are doing.
Watch the following gameplay videos and decide for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPUG-1YX80w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbSYfYrhP9o

MODS
Mods are very important to make this game more enjoyable. They are free and very easy to install. Mods fix most of the bugs, improve gameplay, improve balance, weapon progression, tweak AI, improve textures/sounds and add new weapons and ammo types. If you are interested in bugfixes, improved gameplay and new content, check out this mod:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/realistic-rebalancing-mod
It took 530 hours to create this mod and the amount of fixes and improvements is considerable.
More mods can be found here:
http://www.moddb.com/games/jagged-alliance-back-in-action/mods

However, a few problems cannot be fixed by mods and remain:
-performance issues in some locations
-equipping militia is a tedious task
-animations glitch from time to time (ladder/repair/heal)
-sometimes enemies are able to shoot through their own cover

Conclusion:
If you can live with the problems mentioned above you should consider buying this game. $10 is not much for potentially 100 hours of entertainment, is it? ;)

My rating:
Original release: 5/10
Patched game: 6/10
Modded game: 8/10

First I was positively surprised with the game. It looks really good, the locations are very detailed and allow us to engage combat in different ways. The combat system itself was changed from the original one. Fights run in real time but the player has an active pause option which can be used to give order to your mercaneries. There's also plenty of equipment and weapons to use. Whats also a pros is the fact that the game is sometimes funny. Some items descriptions can put a smile on you face.

Unfortunately, in some aspects game was simplified against the original JA2. After passing a week in ingame time I was sure that I would have to prolong the contracst with hired mercaneries ( as it had to be done in the original game). Surprisingly you dont have to do it anymore. Player needs to pay the mercanery once and doesnt have to worry about prolonging contracst ( Despite the fact that ingame mercanery company statute describes the detailes of prolonging the contracts! ). This is a terrible solution which makes the game far too easy. In origninal JA2 money was a major problem and you had to think a lot how to hire new meraneries and have enough money to prolong the contracts. This made the game a real challange. Right now its just a casual, easy to play production. All because of this silly decision, which for me makes the game unplayable. The simplification is also visiable in the aspecst of characters development. Original system was uniqe and iteresting, you could train your mercs in different ways. Now you only spends random points after reaching the next level... Also new the militia traning system is silly and far worse then the one used before.

To sum up, Im dissapointed and I can't reccomend this game to die hard fans of old Jagged Alliance games. Although this production could be interesting to players new to the series who dont like too chalenging games.

This could have been a great game. It had the potential to be a worthy successor to the excellent JA1 and JA2 games of our youth. Nice graphics, a decent combat system. Unfortunately, it seems they never really got round to finishing the game. It's like they cut a load of corners, spent too much time designing junk items (like a wide variety of t-shirts and food items), didn't properly test it, rushed it to market and then started on the DLC cashgrab as soon as they could.

A few gripes and missing features :

There's several really annoying bugs (for example, items in sector inventory will disappear randomly and only reappear if you save and reload). Gameplay is unbalanced - expect to face off against skilled, well-armed enemies with your two or three pistol-wielding mercs pretty early on. If you move into an occupied sector, expect to be dumped right next to the enemy forces - you need to move next to the danger area and manually enter the zone if you want to try any kind of stealthy approach.

There are cars and lorries all over the landscape but none of them are usable. Forget about quick transport between locations.

Explosives can only be used at specific weak points in walls so forget about making your own entrance to a building. You'll often find locks that can't be picked or forced. You can't shoot locks or blow up doors.

Mercs and militia will happily jump on landmines, even when they've been detected. There's no autopause when a mine is detected, either, so if you're sending a merc through a potentially mined area, do so carefully.

The militia system has been horribly simplified. Rather than go through the tedium of vetting recruits and teaching them to use guns, why not just hand that random person on the street, potentially violent prisoner in a locked cell or hospital patient found in a locked ward an assault rifle? What could possibly go wrong?

Only one weapon attachment is allowed at a time and is removed if you change weapons. Want a silencer, laser sight and fancy optics on that gun? Forget it. Want to switch to another gun when your inventory is full? Drop something first.

Shooting an enemy will interrupt and stun them (fine, that's a good idea) yet hitting them with a baseball bat or machete doesn't, allowing the enemy a chance to beat the snot out of your merc.

IMP no longer exists. Forget about making your own merc.

Enjoyed those witty interactions between mercs or those cutscenes of Deidranna abusing her staff in JA2? Interesting, well-written dialogue with NPCs? You won't find them here. By the time you're storming the palace you'll just want the game to be over and done with.

Conclusion : Meh. Don't bother. Unless it's really, really cheap in a sale.

I decided to give this another try after playing the epic failure that was Jagged Alliance: Flashback - and I realized how good this game actually is. The graphics aren't fantastic, but neither were the graphics is Jagged Alliance 1 and 2, it was the solid gameplay that kept you hooked.

I strongly recommend playing BiA with Killatomate's balance mod, which you can download from ModDB via this link. It fixes a lot of bugs and inconsistancies, especially with the AI and weapons.

I was always more of an X-COM/UFO fan than a JA fan. I like the pause-and-go of the UFO series for example. The most enjoyable feature for me is squad management - assigning roles and weapons, planning an approach and then executing the plan. Seeing your mercs storm a building from two sides and take down the hostiles inside in a perfectly coordinated assault is incredibly satisfying. JA:BiA does squad management really well - not as fluid and rewarding as the latest XCOM, but with all of the detailed management of equipment that the latter left out.

I'm a bit annoyed by the repetition though (clearing the same area over and over again), but in general this game is very enjoyable.

Rubbish waste of time, get the original Jagged Alliance 2 instead and forget this exists.

Get the 2 mods either Combat Evolved or Realism and this game gonna rock

had potential, but right now it is way too buggy to be playable. frame rate clipping errors. if its free or like 2 bucks yeah. but otherwise try the older one.

First time when i played this game, i was very confused. In some aspects it was good and in some it was very bad. I missed character creattion like in JA2, but after some time, i didnt mind that. Spend some hours in game and the stop playing that. Its for a long time, before i started to play it again and only for one reason. MODDERS. Some of them change the game, fixed game mechanics and now you can play it again with all problems gone.

If you want to enjoy this game, download this mod "Realistic Rebalancing Mod for Jagged Alliance - back in Action". It will add many things, change many skills, stealth and others.

I understand that many people not like it and they will not like it, but for me, with that mod its great game.

This game is an utter dissapointment, even now so long after release so many of the ridiculus issues that make this game so bad and just simply unplayable. This game could possibly stand up on its own if it didn't follow an outstanding line of games that were actually good strategy games where this is just rubbish in comparison. I will never understand how someone can take a fantastic idea and just screw it up so bad... this is a perfect reason why a turn based games should not be turned to a rts if you can call this mess that.

Do not buy if you have ever played previous games, you will be simply dissapointed.

I've tried many times to enjoy this game. I loved the original and was so excited to buy this game. BIG LETDOWN. They've changed the game mechanics so much it plays nothing like the other games and is very difficult to understand and get the hang of.

On Mac I can't even get through the tutorial. Multi-unit selection does not work. No left mouse dragging a box around people. No SHIFT+numbers to multi-select. It does not work.

There are a few reasons I don't recommend this game. Aside from these reasons, the tactics in this game are pretty fun and challenging.

Reason one: There are a bunch of useless items in the game that make you not want to waste time opening containers. Also, each character has a small inventory and item management is a pain. There should be a squad inventory, not individual inventories.

Reason two: Most of the mercenaries are unavailable until you've already beaten most of the game. Just make all the mercenaries available from the start

Linux version is unplayable due to numerous bugs, and the developers are not doing anything about it. Avoid at all cost!

If you are tired of FPS and frentic action and you want something more calm and thoughtfull but you still want it to be with guns and explosives this is the game for you.
A very strategic game, where you lead merceneries trough a hunta state to libarate its people.
On the way you complete mission, upgrade you merceneries. hire new mercs, and do a lot of batteling.
There is a lot of action in the game, but its strategic action, where you have to plan you moves ahead, using a sofisticated interface telling each of your soldier how to attack. i found this game highly addictive, very enjoyable, very smart, and very rewarding.

conclusion:
Fun, smart, action and strategy.
excellent voice acting, graphics server the game perfectly.

i give it an 8.5 out of 10

A far cry from the awesomeness that was JA2. Game appears to be a cheaply made "3-D" merc game. The turn-based attacks? Gone. It just seems to be a case of a developer trying to "fix" a game that was already really great.

Just bad. That's it.

It is considered bad business, when attempting to do a remake/sequel of a product, ignore what was it's most shining qualities. Jagged Alliance 2 was known for it's turn-based strategy, degree of micromanagement that rewarded those with a shred finanical planning with a bigger margin of error, and memorable characters with very unique voices and facial graphics. Jagged Alliance 2 was a shining example from the old era of games, when PCs could only go so far on graphics and had to focus on the actual depth of the game. This is a facet that some Indie Companies are returning to. So now we come to the "remake" of Jagged Alliance 2, Jagged Alliance 2: Back in Action.

I acquired this game by an Ebay sale, for $10, and still feel that I got ripped off. I have tried to play this game, wanting to love it cause of it's heritage, in which I spent long hours with Jagged Alliance 2. However, this so-called 'Innovative' Plan-N-Go function is not only a slap in the face to what was a main fun point of JA2, but is clunky in it's own execution. Plan-N-Go is not innovative. It isn't really 'Turn-Based'. All it is, is just Pausable Real-Time, with a very obtuse method of programming in moves. It creates a situation however where you have to pause constantly, as no planned tactics really go according to plan. Why the developers ignored the fans, who didn't want this development, I simply will not understand.

The characters are..bland. The facial graphics are horrid, the voice acting is just horrible, and how this new game can do WORSE in this area, from it's decade old original just outright boggles me.

The music is good. Very good, so good I wish I could extract the music files and then just delete the game and be done with it.

Graphics? Yes, it has pretty graphics. Then again, so do all other games out now from big bucks studios. Pretty graphics is no longer a selling point, as many gamers are actually turning away from games that brag about graphics as they realize these games have just graphics..and nothing else. JA: BiA is a good example of this.

The DLC focus and the sudden expansion hint at the companies own realization that they released a stinker of a game with very limited shelf life. Their content release, with attached price-tags, show they aren't really proud of this game and are looking to just cash in as soon as possible before a better version is released.

Should you buy this game? Only if the price drops below that of a 16 oz. Pepsi. But spend your money on the Pepsi instead, as you'll get more enjoyment out of it. Pirate this game. The developers don't deserve a single penny. Money should be given for good products, not handed over to people who push out a horrible product, and laugh when you expect some actual quality for your investment.

I am hoping the developers of Jagged Alliance: Flashback look at this game, and see within it, a tale on what NOT to do.

Like any other jagged alliance game just with all the fun removed.

♥♥♥♥ty game, and more ♥♥♥♥ter and buggy linux port