Jagged Alliance 2

Review

This book was fantastic. JA2 is a weird game for me, something of a white whale. It came out on PC in 1999. This is the era of games I remember most fondly, CDs had been fully embraced and games had gotten Big. Sprawling titles like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment came out around this time. And I was aware of JA2. But I never played it. It's funny, as a kid I was an avid consumer of PC Gamer and I now wonder, is the reason I skipped this game their review? The game, now regarded as a masterpiece received a negative review in PC Gamer. Is that what kept me away? And I'm really sorry I was kept away. I love this genre and I'm sure if I'd played it in 1999 it would have become one of my favorite games. But I'm glad this book exists, the book is a great, accessible read. It's liberally sprinkled with quotes from developers interviewed for it and is a fantastic look at why JA2 was special and why there has been nothing quite like it. There is no myth-building, just explanations of the circumstances that lead to the game's creation. One section I particularly liked talks about the game's code. The publishers released the source code, a very rare move. That means that people, including the author can take a look at what makes the game tick and what the developers wrote in the code. This section and really the entire book benefits greatly from the author's day job, video game development. He offers a lot of insight on how development in the late 90s differs from that of today. In the code for the strategic level of the game there is a 500-word essay on the philosophy for that part of the game. It is reproduced in the book and it's fantastic to get that insight and see that they included it as a comment in the code. The power of self-documenting code! I am also really happy this series of books exists. I've now read two, one for my favorite game ever and one for a game I've never played. And I loved them both. A deep-dive into one game is very interesting to me and the length of the books (pretty short) also works well. This book was a great read and my one and only new year's resolution is to play JA2 in 2016.

Consumption history1

1. Unknown

   Completed★ 5 / 5

   physical