Reviews

• gamedeal user

  May 13, 2014

  I would not recommend this to anyone that has not played Jagged Alliance 2. Both are being sold in steam for the same [i]regular[/i] price and JA2 has much more of everything (gameplay, character depth, item details, replayability, blowing up walls... alot). JA:Crossfire is ok but don't get it unless its around $7 or less.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 14, 2022

  This the absolute worst of the Jagged Alliance games, and I own and have played every single one. It is very buggy, and we're talking game breaking bugs here. It is very short. the final city is only a couple of battles away from the starting city. Basically avoid at all costs...
• gamedeal user

  Nov 3, 2014

  After the failure of JA: Flashback, I came back to Crossfire to assure myself that not all JA after JA:2 were bad. And no, they were not. Crossfire (and it's predecessor) are good games. It maybe takes some time to get used to the new system (space stops time to let you plan your actions), but it works very well all in all. + Combat is challenging + a variety of weapons with different ammunition tomake the gun enthusiasts happy + the graphic is quite okay for the time and the genre - the character portraits are awful, really awful - VoiceOvers are horrible (I could kill Fox over and over for that) I liked it back then and I still like it now, it is a new take on the JA franchise and it is not a bad one.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 12, 2023

  In short, don't expect a clone of the classic JA / JA2 games. It is a different game with far better engine. I love it. I also love turn based games and hate RTS so don't be put off; this game is a very good hybrid of JA: BIA Just my gameplay hours for a standalone DLC of JA: BIA would be more than enough for a big big big big big recommendation of this game. Loved the game so much, I am gonna straightaway jump into the JA series continuing from this point.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 11, 2015

  I honestly love this game but it got abandoned by the developers and there are so many bugs and broken quests/achievements that I can't say I recommend it.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 15, 2016

  Forewarning: this game has been abandoned by the developer, who is no longer in business. I bought it anyway because I thought it would be a decent expansion to Back in Action (BIA). Unfortunately it isn't. For the most part, the engine is the same, gameplay is more or less the same, but there are a few differences. Here's a list of points that I think are worth mentioning: 1. The map is much smaller. In terms of sectors, it's maybe half or less than half of the sectors in BIA. 2. There are a few more mercs. The rival group M.E.R.C. merged with A.I.M. so there you get to choose from a few more but this doesn't really add much to the game. Although initially, you are so broke that some of the cheaper MERC soldiers can be useful. 3. Don't expect much, weapons-wise. 4. Money is hard to come by, early in the game. I had to take several sectors with just 2 mercs in my squad. As long as you have at least one medic and several first aid packs, you can heal after (or during) the battle. 5. Travel everywhere is still on foot. This is so damned annoying, you just can't imagine. What I love about JA was the ability to move around by various means, not just by walking (which is stupid, not to mention slow). 6. There's often only one way to do things. e.g. if you have mines in front of you, you have to trigger them or defuse them, you can't blow them up (again, kind of stupid). 7. My biggest peeve is, after you kill the head villain and take all the sectors, they make you start all over again (if you trigger the final quest) when "reinforcements" retake the harbor. SERIOUSLY?! And because you're halfway across the country, these reinforcements overrun several sectors before you can get into position -- meaning you have to plod through those sectors and re-take them ALL OVER AGAIN. Now this is just not how games or expansions should be designed. If you want breadth and depth, you make it a decent (larger) campaign with perhaps more side quests instead of getting the player to REPEAT what they've already done, just to increase replayability. That's just downright lazy. If you still don't mind all of this, I'd strongly suggest waiting till this game is dirt cheap before even thinking of buying it (think $2-$3). To me, Crossfire is a disappointing end to a lukewarm attempt at trying to recreate what was an outstanding game and franchise, Jagged Alliance. 4.5/10
• gamedeal user

  Nov 30, 2016

  First of all, let me say that I am a huge fan of the serie, back to JA1. What the developers did for JA:BA and JA:Crossfire is amazing, the engine and the basis for the gamepla are outstanding. There is a lot of depth in these games, a big variety of weapons and each weapon has its utility. It's up to you to see how you are going to organize yourself. Gameplay is AMAZING for people who like planning and are getting frustrated by the turn-based combat system of X-Com for example. The only problem I see is that apart from gameplay, there are not a lot of things. No character development, not a good narration, the lack of character creation (which is not a "big matter" to me but still.). I kinda regret the lack of depth in the scenario. The game is there, it's fun, but...you kinda more or less do :"let's push everything on the map, kill everyone and win". I wish there were some choices to make, more personnality in your team. Anyway, I enjoyed my time on this one. It's worth its price yet I would recommend to wait a sales :).
• gamedeal user

  Feb 12, 2017

  [h1]5/10[/h1] [b]I really, really wanted to like this game.[/b] [b]Let me start with the good stuff so you can see that this was a worthy effort.[/b] When the game started up it felt like JA2. The look and feel, the music, all well done (even though I prefer the music in JA2, but that might be nostalgia). I liked: - The graphics - The Guns - The locations - The Music - The mechanics (mostly, getting to that) - Stability. I did not have one crash [b] No for the bad stuff [/b] I disliked: - Artificial experience duration enhancers in general - Not having enough money to build a squad - Suicide Knife Joes - The way militia works in this game - No difficulty settings I also would like to add this: If you are running on a tight budget, be it time or money and you fear your game will not be as good as it could be: Add an instant modding kit, aka cheats. Most of my frustration with this game could ave easily been solved with some basic cheats. [i]Spoilers from here on out as I will go into some detail[/i] [spoiler] [b]First bump in the road:[/b] I do not get to create my own Merc via Psycho-Test? Man, I loved that feature. Added so much to the game. Sad. But ok, let's see the Mercs. Ah, they have A.I.M., cool, all the guys I know are in there and...strangely look all the same. Well, that's graphic engines for you, some can do different faces, some (like this one) cannot. [b]Second bump:[/b] Huh? I was hired for a fish-taco and two apples? Why am I starting with basically no money at all? As it turned out this is likely one of the "artificial experience duration enhancers" this game sports. The lack of money makes no sense in the game world, but keeps you from finishing this game in 4 hours, which otherwise would be very likely possible. You have to start with two Mercs. You only have money fro one mid-level or two low-level Mercs. So for me that meant: Going with two Mercs that can't do much. But it’s only the beginning of the game, right? [b]First battle[/b] So without further ado, without any more money and without any decent Mercs or equipment: Here we come. The battle itself I can best describe in a sequence of emoticons: :-),:-D,°-°, 0_0, :-|, :-(, :-), :-((( While I was able to win the first battle it was surprisingly difficult. I checked for a setting for that: There is none. So after the first battle I knew that I was in for a much harder game than JA2. With the hard restrictions on Money and the questionable tactical design ideas of this game, keeping my two Mercs alive was a real challenge. I guess some people like challenges in games. I only do if they are not stupid. This one was. [b]Tactical Aftermath[/b] So, after the battle I spend some time thinking about what went wrong. I barely kept my Mercs alive, some civilians died and I wasn't able to salvage anything useful from my enemies or the Harbor itself. Why? Maybe it's the mechanics? [u]No Quick Save / Load[/u] This one really bugged me. For a game that basically requires you to save and load every 5 seconds not having a quick save and load option seems unreasonable. [u]No saving during combat[/u] Now THIS was bad. Combat is only ended after you killed everyone who wants to do battle with you. In a location like the harbor this means loosing half an hour of game time if you round a corner and are shot. I am sorting this under "artificial experience duration enhancers" as it adds nothing to the game but need to redo things you already did. Twice. [u]Hit likeliness[/u] Other than in JA2, you do not have real rounds but rather a pause mode (which I did not think was bad). Therefore you do not have Action Points anymore and cannot define how much time your Merc shall put into aiming. (This is really sad as it enhanced the tactical options a lot) So now Instead of a nice "12" in a yellow circle in the middle of a red circle I get things like "Likely to hit". No numbers, just encouraging words. So what does this mean? For my first raid on he Harbor I came back with the following cheat-sheet: Likely: 25% Highly Likely: 50% Certain: 75% So basically you will usually not hit with ~50% of your bullets. Which is bad, as bullets are expensive and you are living on your parents pocket money. Also you only have two Mercs. Your enemies AI is...well, it's not. The main tactic your enemy will use is "rush them with numbers". Which works well, as you only have two Mercs and most of the time flip through collected handguns as you run out of Ammo. [u]Suicide-Knife-Joe[/u] But that's not all. I think I could handle that better, but there was that traumatic moment I call "Suicide-Knife-Joe". If you remember the Suicide-Bombers from Serious Sam: That's what I'm talking about. You hunker down, take your aim and are ready for a firefight, but you fail as you brought an automatic sub-machine gun to a knife fight - And the knife always wins. Suddenly Suicide-Knife-Joe, who has no regard for his own life appears and starts running straight at you. You may have a chance to survive this, if he's far of and you tell your two Mercs to empty everything they have at him, but otherwise he will storm through your bullet storm, take his knife and end you - with one hit. I blame most of the civilian deaths on me using grenades to stop Suicide-Knife-Joe. Oh, and you don't have knifes. Knifes are for pros. [u]Portal of dropped guns[/u] A lot of games have employed this, including the original JA and JA2. Your enemies have rifles and SMGs, you can see that and boy, you feel that. However, when they die they will leave things like...shoes, T-Shirts, Beer cans, Ammo for weapons you don't have. Their guns disappear into the Portal of dropped guns. [b]Fortifying your position[/b] Alright, stop your whining and settle down. You now control a HARBOR, let's make sure you stay there. Knowing how things worked in JA2 I assumed there would be a way to train militia and I was right. However in this case "train" means" equip with one of the not-dropped guns". The way this works deserves some detail, as it will become one of your biggest problems going forward and is one of the biggest "artificial experience duration enhancers". So you cannot simply tell your Mercs to "train militia", you need two things: 1. Guns 2. People who are ready to be Militia. The second part is actually the bigger issue, as you can gather and buy guns for militia, even though it's unnerving. There is, however, a big issue with none signing up to your rally. There are some locations with high value (like the Hydroponic power plant) which are rather hard to capture with just two Mercs with handguns and where you will find no more than 5 people ready to defend them. Which is not enough to hold the place against the enemy. Basically training Militia in these locations is a waste of time and money. Just keep your Mercs running between them to defend them, thus delaying your attack on the next target indefinitely. Thus "artificial experience duration enhancers". [b]Thoughts for the future[/b] I did not get past that phase. Running back and froth with my two Mercs I managed to capture the Power Plant, a small village with ruins and some houses along the road in the south. With the power plant secured things started to look up as I was finally making some money. A few weeks of this and I could hire Shadow! Yet, it wasn't to be. The enemy send wave after wave of increasingly well equipped teams of 6-9 guys against my power plant and once I had to send my second Merc back for ammunition and they attacked I had to loose. Simply no way for one single Merc (and the 5 Militia guys that died in the first 15 Seconds) to hold them of. So, after 14 hours of play I am uninstalling Jagged Alliance Crossfire. Maybe I'll do a quick sweep for the music, but that's it. [/spoiler]
• gamedeal user

  Jan 15, 2018

  Play JABIA Cross Fire if you are a fan of Back in Action. Its a stand alone game not DLC. Just use Killatomate rebalance mod first thing which is still available. If you like JABIA you will like Crossfire. If you hate it then no. I find the graphics quality in Crossfire a little better than Jabia when you max them out.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 12, 2018

  wanna fight an unlimited amount of scaling enemies go ahead any progress you make is meaningless as you will keep losing your stuff.