While wating for the X-COM Release, I've decided to test another game of this genre just to see, what devs would make out of a very popular old game style.

In my opinion, making an old very good game (which was in 2D) to work in 3D often makes everything worse. Not every game is playable in the same way like it would in 2D.

Let's take Jagged Alliance for example - which was an excellent game back the old days and offered hours over hours of fun and entertainment.

Now - the sequel - Jagged Alliance Back in Action (or Crossfire, which is technically the same) tried to pick up that success of Jagged Alliance and putted it into 3D. I was curious how they did. After reading some reviews I was not very confident that the game will be a good one.

Whatever, there was a deal at Steam, so I got it just to see how it plays.

First of all - yes, there are (as supposed) many features missing; merely those which gives you great freedom on how to do things.

For example dynamite .. You cannot put dynamite on the floor and you can ONLY destroy buildings on some spots where the devs allows you - that is not freedom and that world-interaktion was one of Jagged Aliances main features. It's not easy to do in 3D and that's why I do not really like to play this games in 3D.

Let's stay with the main benefit of 3D - a free moving camera. Yea! ..but doesn't work that good, because roofs do not get removed to aim on an enemy through a window, you cannot move the cam in 1st-person view to aim through a window .. that's messy, they should have thought about that, really!

Also, I cannot understand, why I cannot always get the weapon or items from a killed enemy. WHY?? He shout's me with a weapon, when I kill him, I go to him, go for loot and what do I find? Ammo .. nothing else .. wth? Back in the days with the original I was able to pick up every single piece of the inventory of the killed enemy - I really do not understand what the devs where thinking of now.

But after all that flaws, I have to say, that I enjoyed playing this game. There is some point where you get used to the flaws and the control pitties and after that the game is fun.

The original one was turn based and this one can be played with pause/action plannng mode - which is sufficient in my opinion, it gives a good feeling and a great benefit, if you have to move greater distances without any interaction. That's fine, I also liked that feature in X-Com Apocalypse.

So, if you like such games, turn-based games like Jagged Alliance or X-Com you shoudl defenitely go for Jagged Alliance. I've played Crossfire (which is a stand-alone AddOn) and had fun with it, I got it for 20 € which was a good deal and the game is worth that expense.

Hopefully, you liked my review. Please leave a comment ;-)