The community working to keep the classic Jagged Alliance 2 alive with the Stracciatella game engine have put out their first release in a few years.
With the Stracciatella project their aim is to provide good cross-platform support, improve stability, fix bugs and provide a stable platform for mod development. It's a noble aim, especially when it's an old game long left behind by the original teams and in this case the original developer and publisher no longer even exist.
Jagged Alliance 2 Stracciatella 0.17.0 went out on August 3 adding in:
- A redesigned graphical launcher with more toggles, multiple mod support and the location of the main settings file (game.json)
- Data files are now searched for in several places and more easily overriden
- Several hardcoded values and assumptions are now externalized to json files for easy editing
- Basic Wildfire and Night Ops support
- Several new standalone optional mini-mods
- The map editor now works out of the box, using bundled dummy graphics
- Several smaller features like IMP import and better screen scaling options
Unlike other game engine reimplementations, this is not open source (more like "Source Available"?). It can't be compared directly with the likes of OpenMW for Morrowind or OpenRA for Red Alert/Command & Conquer. It's based on the original source code release by Strategy First Inc under their own Source Code License Agreement, and it also uses code from another developer who never put a license on their work so it's all a bit murky.
You can see the official site here and GitHub here.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Did you know that JA2 featured a native Linux version back then already? It was ported by Tribsoft (afair the only title ever). Last time I checked it could still be played with some workarounds but Stracciatella is obviously the better choice today.
Shame what happened to this franchise. None of the following games cut it
Very interesting facts, didn't know that. I am very interested in this franchise, can you expand a little why Jagged Alliance: Back in Action, Jagged Alliance: Crossfire and Jagged Alliance - Flashback don't cut it? If you were talking about Jagged Alliance Online: Reloaded I would understand better, since the servers have been just turned off and the game is thus unplayable today (like what happened with Shadowrun Chronicles ), but these games from the gameplays on youtube do not seem so bad, and the bad ratings mostly seem to be from people who disagree with some mechanics decisions.Hard to put a finger on. Yes, game mechanic is a huge point. This is what happens when you change a turn based game wildly (also in art and style). And none of the follow ups brought back the flair and depth of the characters as players like me knew and loved their mercenaries. Unfinished Business was the last part I enjoyed.
It's what also killed M.A.X. back then.
This kind of games attracts a certain kind of players. This was understood for e.g. the XCOM series and while the game was streamlined it's still close to it's origins.
Things I enjoyed most:
* Audio (sound and voice was just awesome)
* tactical turn based with dices (like cover _may_ work)
* stealth/alarm mechanics
* unique characters and traits (they even sometimes didn't like each other xD)
* explore, upgrade and tinkering
* solid story
da_habakuk Aug 12, 2020
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