It racked up editors' awards and high review scores, but its most notable nod was a nomination for ' Best Game Nobody Played' in 1999. Like its predecessor, Jagged Alliance 2 had exponentially more developer cred than sales. As Darius Kazemi puts it in his wonderful book on the game: 'No matter what a war-themed video game claims to do, it inevitably simulates the cultural fantasy of war and never war itself.' Like Soldier of Fortune magazine, or dozens of VHS box covers from the 'Action' section, it's only realistic at a glance. The sequel more fully meshed '80s action movie tropes and stereotypes with the peculiar fun of micromanaging a jungle gunfight, while also managing a cast of real characters. Jagged Alliance 2 was a richer, cruder, funnier, far better game. Jagged Alliance sold okay and became a minor cult classic but is not mentioned in even a fraction of as many histories or ranked lists. X-COM took the throne as the progenitor of turn-based tactics games. The first Jagged Alliance game was published nine months after X-COM: UFO Defense, despite being developed at nearly the same time, in the same genre, with neither knowing about the other. Platform: Windows (runs on Steam Deck/Proton)
