Matrix Games Forums

Goodaye,

I'm unfamiliar with the franchise and I was wondering if somebody in the know can answer a few questions.

Looking at the You tube stuff it all seems very close quarters combat. If you have, say, a sniper rifle are you able to shoot a respectable distance or does the game engine nerf it right down?

The screenshots appear to be fairly tightly focused in on specific areas. Can you zoom out enough to get the big picture or are you stuck in scrolling purgatory?

How tactical is it? One big glorified shoot up or is there room for stuff like stealth and flanking, team maneouvre, etc.

And finally is it I go you go or WEGO?

Thanks in advance,

Cheers,
Lancer

Haven't played Hired Guns yet but I can answer from the original Jagged Alliance games:

1- on JA 1, Deadly Games, 2 and all the mods and expansions, you always had differences on shoot range depending on each weapon. Naturally a sniper rifle is capable of precise shooting at much greater distances than a pistol or submachinegun. I always used at least 1 sniper on all my incursions on JA missions.
I don't think Hired Guns will skip this feature, that would be totally gamebreaking.

2- JA 1 and 2 were not 3D, so we had no zoom, but we had a map that helped visuallyzing the whole uncovered sector. I never felt the need for zooming on those games but since Hired Guns is 3D all is different and zooming is available, just not sure how efective it is.

3- Original JA games were all based on tactics. Stealth was almost mandatory. Saving action points for interrupts was usually a good tactic. Flacking is obviously allowed and necessary as you were always outnumbered.

4- I dont exactly understood this question... JA series were always pure 100% timed-turn based games. The player and the enemy both take turns 1 at a time to give actions to their units. Each unit has separate action points, depending on several factors ranging from unit skills to unit health/injuries at each time. You command each unit at a time, and you can command every active unit each turn.
Hired Guns is advertised to have this very same kind of gameplay.

Hi Lancer,

ORIGINAL: lancer
Looking at the You tube stuff it all seems very close quarters combat. If you have, say, a sniper rifle are you able to shoot a respectable distance or does the game engine nerf it right down?

Yes - a skilled sniper with a good sniper rifle (especially with the right attachments) can be deadly from extreme ranges. The major limitation is usually LOS obstructions in that case. While you can try to hire some deadly snipers right from the start, they may not want to work for you immediately (given your low starting reputation) or if they do, they'll be very expensive. You can also design your own character to be sniper-oriented or gradually train up your mercs towards that and use equipment you later buy or find to turn one into a sniper. Having a good sniper along is very valuable though.

The screenshots appear to be fairly tightly focused in on specific areas. Can you zoom out enough to get the big picture or are you stuck in scrolling purgatory?

The default view is very zoomed in. However, you can zoom out a bit and also adjust the angle/view to any that you want by using the mouse. There is also a more strategic view.

How tactical is it? One big glorified shoot up or is there room for stuff like stealth and flanking, team maneouvre, etc.

Yes, there's plenty of room for stealth, flanking and maneuver in most encounters (though not all).

And finally is it I go you go or WEGO?

It's I go - You go, but if you don't use all your action points you can also have a chance of interrupting the enemy's turn with opportunity fire (and they could do the same to you). Note that if you are not in combat, gameplay doesn't proceed in turns to speed things up (like crossing a large map), but as soon as you see an enemy or they spot you, you switch to the turn based mode.

Regards,

- Erik

Goodaye,

Thanks for the info.

One more question.

Is the 3D camera angle thingy flexible enough so that you could put the camera right over/behind the shoulder of a merc in order to check for LOS, lay of the land, etc?

Cheers,
Lancer

I don't think you can quite zoom in that close but you can modify the angle to be more or less parallel with the ground and that generally gives you a good impression of a character's line of sight.