Jagged Alliance 2

Jagged Alliance 2 put the player in 1999 in the role of a commander tasked with using the resistance's funds to liberate the fictional country of Arulco from a ruler who relies on an army and fear. The game begins at a computer: the player browses a roster of mercenaries, reads their biographies, compares prices, and hires a team through an in-game internet agency. Every mercenary has their own personality, opinions about their colleagues, and lines of dialogue, so putting together a squad is also a personnel job. What follows is turn-based combat on isometric maps with cover, aimed shots at body parts, night-time stealth, and careful management of action points, where a single mistake costs a life.

Between battles the game works as a strategy layer: the country is divided into sectors that are captured, defended, and administered, local inhabitants can be trained as militia, mines bring in money for further wages, and the enemy tries to retake lost territory. Technically it was a two-dimensional engine that needed no 3D acceleration and ran on ordinary Windows 95 and 98 rigs, yet it offered a surprisingly rich simulation: range, light, noise, individual limb injuries, and gear wear and tear. The audio stands out for its wealth of voiced lines, which give the team personality, and for mood music alternating tension with calm.

Reviews were very positive, and the game quickly built a devoted community that keeps it alive to this day with extensive mods and resolution fixes. Its influence can be seen across a whole wave of later tactical games that adopted the combination of turn-based combat and territory management in between. Today Jagged Alliance 2 is still one of the best-designed tactical games ever made, it just requires a willingness to learn: the interface is dense, the start slow, and the game has no mercy for an unprepared player. Whoever sticks with it gets a campaign of dozens of hours with enormous freedom of approach and stories the player creates themselves.