Jagged Alliance it ain't, crappy simulation it is, what's good about it? helping nostalgia
Pretty, in comparison to Jagged Alliance 2. - Comparing to Silent Storm or what's possible now, it's ok. Gives some ideas for camera work in this kind of game.
Inventory is... less intimidating. that's good. (actually, all of it is much less intimidating)
Voiceovers, even though they're ripoffs, are quite decent.
...argh, is there something else?
Alright, the bad:
Jagged Alliance, dumbed down. WAY dumbed down.
I'm guessing the devs looked at all the numbers from the past games, couldn't figure it out and went "ah, i'm sure they didn't need all this...". Because really.. it's sad.
That's a conclusion for the game overall. Worst points of this:
Inventory: you can only fix guns, nothing makes sense, the weapons, the grenade counters, sizes are random, stuff like that.
Giving orders to your mercs from the map screen: "it was superfluous, so we removed it" REALLY!? so instead of training militia, you give them weapons. and god knows what happens next. instead of mercs sleeping, you just let them sit still. instead of seeing all items detected on each sector.. YOU HAVE TO WALK OVER TO EACH AND EVERYONE AND PICK THEM UP AND TRADE ON THE "LIVE" SCREEN. How terribly convenient. Did any of them actually play through what they built?
"Story-wise" there isn't any engagement with the characters because all you do is follow quests or they just sputter random chatter ("guns make me nervous", sure kingpin/rebel leader, you got me fooled for a moment), so situations like the first thing that usually happens (walking into a factory full of children) all you can do is ignore it until you get the quest (FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTRY).
Phew, ok, still breathing. So, what else? The economy is ruined (hiring mercs and getting guns and all that is a joke as you get way too much money and too many guns (!) - barely 5 days had gone through and i had enough money to start making my second squad out of the best mercs in the shop.. )...
Combat-wise, why the hell do I get to see all the enemies from the beginning? what's this weird mix of real time and turn based that makes mercs mostly useful if enemies get into their "guard mode" range?
Ok, so let's not compare anymore with Jagged Alliance. That should help get its ranking up, hm?
Camera: am I supposed to have to fight a camera to issue a simple shoot order? if my merc sees the enemy, why can't I click him? (roofs, whatever)
I'm sure there's more, but i'll just finish with the "jackpot":
there's an "exploitable" tactic that sums up how broken combat is: endless turning.
As I understand, everytime your mercs turn slightly to face their target, their "shooting" counter resets. So, say, a sniper takes 5 secs to shoot a target. Fair enough. Now say that target is moving on a perpendicular line to the sniper's shooting trajectory.. by the time the sniper gets halfway through the 5 seconds, the target has moved a step too far. Makes sense that the sniper can't do one of the easiest things in FPSs, following (and possibly leading) their target? Ok, let's say it makes sense.
What about if your merc is not a sniper, but instead is crouched with a revolver. A melee enemy runs in front of him, but not towards him. He'll never be able to shoot. and since your other merc (probably being in danger of attack from the melee) isn't able to do a quick shot for whatever reason, and even if he does, every enemy is the equivalent of a small truck, you can consider him lost.
what's the exploitable tactic I mentioned? Try having one "distant" merc, and one (or two or three) of your other mercs running around your enemy. As soon as you spot him trying to aim at one of them, make him run in another direction, and force the others to stop and shoot at the enemy. superiority in numbers? right.
melee combat is probably completely broken too, but i don't care. tanks that basically always detect you but explode with 2 grenades? i don't care.
i intended to finish the game just to prove my point, but it crashed too many times. nail in the coffin.