A normal, conventional, non-spoiler review. Not sure if I like or hate this format. New video very soon.

I love the Eastern European lore drops in your vids, the mercenary personality analysis with contemporary examples is pure gold

JA3 is actually a really good example of one of the common pitfalls of adapting or iterating on someone else's work: being reductive. When you're given the chance to work with source material you really like, it's so easy to focus on only the parts that personally appealed to you, the ones that struck you the most, at the expense of everything else, of all the pieces that make the work a coherent whole. JA2 wasn't Hot Shots 2. It wasn't a parody of a war story; it was a war story with a comedic tone. But if that comedic tone is what stuck with you while playing, then of course your takeaway for a sequel is going to have it set in a violent cartoon world! I remember Telltale doing this while making a Game of Thrones series. They clearly watched the show and liked it, but their main takeaway seems to have been "everything is shit and the good guys keep losing". Which is why their adaptation of GoT is just the protagonists of their fanmade House suffering humiliation after humiliation as all they love and cherish crumbles around them for 6 episodes straight.

My favorite example of mercenary idiocy was in 1981 when Mike Hoare and his band of hired guns flew into The Seychelles disguised as rugby players, with the plan to overthrow the government. The problem was, one of the mercs accidentally got in the "Something to declare" aisle of customs. When he tried getting out of line, a customs officer confiscated his bag, and then found a gun. At that point, the mercenaries pulled out their own guns, took the airport hostage, and had to hijack a plane to fly back to South Africa. The whole operation being a complete disaster.

"the default custom Merc name is lame so here's some names of dead Wagner Mercs" God I wish I could give this video 5 stars, it deserves my highest praise

JA2 veteran here. Finished JA3 and loved it so much that it took me 130+ hours because I wanted to explore EVERY SECTOR. Each sector is unique, well flashed out, and has at least some loot. Do investctime in scouting and gaining intel.

To be fair, you can draw Arulco map from the head because you spend probably thousands of hours over the last 24 years looking at that map and "taking out the trash".

You know, the game hook being "the president of an francophone African nation been deposed and kidnapped in a military coup" is gonna age either really badly or really well depending on what ECOWAS is gonna do.

with the success of bg3 im expecting there to be more classic rpg formatted games in the near future. warlockracy stock is gonna rise like 200%

Okay the suggested names being MIA Wagner mercs (and the names in the list themselves) made me laugh for a solid minute, which I haven't done in a while. Thanks based warlock man.

I was so impressed with JA2 plot in 1999 that I even described it to my mother, like it was a cool movie I have just seen. No other game made me do this.

When playing, i got the distinct feeling JA3 took a lot of inspiration from Far Cry 2 in terms of atmosphere building

It has been about half a year since I played JA3 so I can't recall the names but I love the treasure-hunting NPC that relies on his pet chicken to find things. You'll run into him from time to time and his lines are great.

I enjoyed Warlockracy's JA2 video - it is a game that always intrigued me But Ive always found it hard to get into older games I didn't play back when JA3 has been a positive experience, its on the verge of a great formula It doesn't bring it home all the way - but I am still having a lot of fun playing it JA3 deserves DLC's and an expansion seized DLC - this can unlock its bigger potential

One plus I'm sad you didn't mention is developer interaction, in the short time since the game came out they did quite a few changes based on community feedback, like nerfing machineguns and making mine depletion vary according to difficulty settings (So on normal they deplete to 50% output, hard to 25%, then to 0% on the last one). The environment is a lot more destructive than you think at first, depending on the material of floors and walls you can blow up a lot of things, and any damage you do in a given region remains there forever, so towns where you hold the line against multiple attacks start to look devastated with houses blown apart by grenades and mortars. I also don't entirely agree with your point on the game's story being all comedic, it touches plenty of serious topics, especially when it comes to the diamond mines and a certain plot twist, it's just that the current approach in storytelling seems to sprinkle in more comedy to avoid too much depression. I don't have much experience with Africa's culture, but the one imported here to South America in colonial times does have characters like the flashy priest you highlight and his church.

Fidel in both JA2 and JA3 is such an awesome merc. His overindulgence in explosives is scratching that primal instinct of mine to throw a grenade or two each round and I absolutely love him.

Would have been more informative to mention that Dmytro Korchynsky is a genuine connoisseur of Italian Baroque and Early Rococo artists, among other things.

There is a real mercenary that worked for Wagner that actually made his callsign Bosmer. Amazing

Plot twist: The Elephant's foot IS the wish granter. The wish will come true. But you'll die within the next week from radiation exposure after encountering it.

I like how they just called this one JA3, even though it's like the 8th game in the franchise

Ah, another great Warlockracy video full of interesting details and him pronouncing 'Series' as 'Serious.' Great video as always dude.

I agree with over the top mercenaries not being "cartoonish" Mercenaries always have an interesting story to tell or an unusually normal life opposed to their work, and again, literally anyone can become a mercenary if they wanted to. It's why mercenary characters are so fun and popular to make

“Temple OS of Fallout Modding” is a fucking terrifying sentence.

Man, I just love those real life lore extracts that you do at the end of your videos!

3:10 "We are going to a place called Grand Xian. A French speaking African country. The job is to rescue the nations president kidnapped by a rogue military force." Given the current situation in a certain French speaking African country it's a good job they released it when they did otherwise, understandably, political sensitivity may have got the better of them, leading to them delaying, perhaps indefinitely, the release of the game.

lmao i smile every single time this man says "serious" when trying to say "series". hote, you are a golden shrine of innocence and extremely satisfying content, Warlockracy. we must protect you from the outside world and youtubes demonetization sweeps at any cost.

First I would like to say thank you for making this video, I got excited when I heard there was a new JA game coming out sense the only positiveish experience I had with the game was "Back in Action" which was one of the first PC games I've ever played and I have fond memories playing it. After your review of JA 2 I was looking forward to seeing how JA3 would shape up comparing to it by your estimation. I will say that some of the more poinient and social comentary aspects of the JA2 comes mid-game of JA3 after a certain event occurs and you're fighting to disprove the assumption you're war criminals and need evidence. JA3 later kinda becomes a three way war as the game goes on which was pretty cool! I hope once you beat it you'll give it a second look, taking out the whole online black market thing is probably one of the strangest decisions for me in the game and it took multiple campaign restarts for me as well to get a handle on squad compositions as well.

This video is like a trip down a memory lane. Thank you, Warlockracy! And contemorary examples are absolutely hilarious!

Found your channel a few months back. I think i have watched literally every single one of your videos at least once, some multiple times. I just wanted to thank you for literally hours of entertainment, both from the videos you make and the games and mods i have discovered thanks to your content. Just supported you on Patreon, keep up the good work!

Melee is very much viable in 1.13, you can clear entire sectors using throwing knives with Blood or Manuel while sneaking around. Also on those small corridors facilities where combat is always close quarters you can charge into melee as well. Of course using melee on open fields always end up bad, but it isn't completely useless.

"Pablo, where is the ammunition!?" got me way harder than it had any right lmao

I’m glad Warlockracy mentioned Elder Kings 2, Kaisereich, and TNO, some of the greatest Fan made creations❤

I love you Warlockracy, its always a great day when one of your videos graces my inbox

6:50 To be fair to them, you could say the mercs themselves are parodies of action movie tropes. You are correct that the plot and story isn't as accurately described as a parody of 90's action movies. Just look at the mercs: Steroid, Fox, Fidel, Ivan, Grunty, Wolf, Nails, etc etc.

I love Kalyna and her absolute goofball mentality. However the not so subtle references to the Russo-Ukrainian war are completely out of left field and kinda dates the game a bit and I would say, out of character for Igor to try to steal ammo. He's an experienced Mercenary and a Chechen war veteran, not some green recruit from the backpages of AIM.

Warlockracy labs are the only company I'd buy my merc names from. Research approved.

Being warmly compared to Baba Yetu is a pretty good point

I prefer spoilers because I enjoy your commentary, but the production quality and editing of this video is even better than usual for whatever reason. Good video

Making my friday better! Thanks Warlockracy

It's weird that you didn't mention Congo Müller or Jan Zumbach(The Guy went from being an ace, part of most famous polish unit of ww2, reciving one of the highest polish medals to being a mercenary also for some reason his nickname was donald duck).

Love your videos, love Jagged Alliance, been having a great time with JA3.

Those last few minutes of the review were fucking magical. The lives of real life mercenaries are like the plot of a dark British comedy.

been waiting for this video, thank you for making this!

I appreciate the effort on the no spoilers, I was thinking of picking 3 up after watching your JA2 videoa while back. Definitely picking this up soon. See you next month

The really good thing about the JA3 is that authors listen to the community and still care about the game for example Bobby Ray's was added to the game in recent patches. Patch 1.4 introduced a free DLC like story for which other game companies would most likely charge money. Moreover the game is highly moddable and a lot of new mods are popping on Steam workshop.

love your content keep up the amazing work never thought i would;d enjoy watching someone talk about these old games i would never play

Man bringing up Civilization makes me want you to make a vid on one, if not all of them. That theme brought back memories that’s for sure. Great vid as usual though!

It's always a good day when Warlockracy uploads!

Yaaaass! This was *THE ONLY* review I was waiting for.

Yes, we remember all these one-liners because we played the game for 20+ years. The fact that you couldnt remember Grand Chien is just weird.

man the first 3 minutes of this video feels like a warlockracy greatest hits. This video is a guaranteed banger

The aiming interface seems like the kind of thing made with an eventual console release in mind.

Still can't stop playing this game.

Prosvirin was a big man, he crashed our hearts with his death and left huge hole in our minds

5:21 Wasn't Deidranna romanian?

On the dialog, I think it was written with two or three main purposes in mind: 1: Act as a springboard for merc responses (you noted these are some of the best lines in the game, and they absolutely are) 2: Flesh out Gran Chien so it has more flavor without forcing you to take an Ira equivalent as a tour guide (you get a full encyclopedia entry for Arluco in JA2, but most of it never comes up) and establish it as populated by more than just people to kill (because after RE5 everyone knows exactly what the vulture media will try with a game set in Africa) 3: Provide an avenue for skill checks and sidequests. I think the voice acting really sells a lot of the dialog, and I'm someone who is typically unimpressed with video game VA. To a native English speaker, Afrikan French is such a distinct accent it does wonders for the world feel more lived in. Contrast the Arluco natives who were all over the place in voice type (you'd sooner guess most of the resistance are a guy from the south-western US who'd pronounce the surname "Mares" like horses than a South American patriot).

Keep up the good work, boss. You know when to drop videos whenever I'm at my lowest.

Out of curiosity, what are the names of the artists who made those Slavic mythology art pieces you included? Some of them were pretty cool and it'd be neat to look into a bit more.

I was really hoping you'd post a review. Been waiting for this before I buy it.

"This is almost impossible to communicate to those who don't know the language, but Girkin has this distinct Russian Boomer writing style characterized by the overuse of quotation marks." I think that might be easier to communicate than you'd think, I think American Boomers might have the exact same thing.

As someone who never played JA2 back in the day… coming from xcom, I liked JA3 quite a bit. Quite unique setting. I agree that the story is a bit light hearted and interchangeable… overall after the complete tragedies that came after JA2 I felt like it’s a solid effort 7 to 8 out of 10. Now I just wish that someone would give JA2 a graphics touch up, like Baldurs Gate 1&2. Because without nostalgia it is the thing that keeps me jumping of it.

This is my favorite KZfaq channel, I wish you got millions of views per video cuz they deserve it

Your videos are gems my dude, thank you so much

You have quickly become one of my favorite channels. I am happy you're continuing with the series. Though I was too young to play boomer RPG's I watched my dad play them. I wonder if there is something like a JA tabletop RPG...

Amazing video and spoiler free review. Getting a video from a series veteran like myself who I spent 4 months of '99 summer trying to conquer Arulco, hits like home. I agree on everything you say, especially the narrative. Arulco felt like a giant easter egg and discovering things, mercs, quests were so awersome! Also due to our young of age but still, it would make you think, there were some adventure game elements to it, like that card that opens Orta or that porn tape to Βrenda or even merging items to create other items. I mean, even the description of guns were so amazingly written with a dose of black humor! -I miss the inventory system and Tony... I get 1.13 can be overwhelming but come on man... This is so dumbed down. -Fun fact, Ian Curry, the series veteran developer is the one who assisted on making JA3. -I disagree with you on one thing; the interrupt system was so much better. I discovered after so many playthroughs you could right click and press that target icon, that would mean to cover that angle (and get an interrupt). Much more tactical and real life combat simulator. This is a fun game to play, but as a series veteran, I wish it had the isometric camera/graphics of Pillars of Eternity, a true oldschool inventory system and the soul of ja2.

Massive nostalgia dose from the mention of that one particular rendition of Lord's Prayer.

I am here once again to spend my life on watching your videos

This feels like Fallout 1 vs Fallout 2. Fallout 1 took its setting seriously whilst sneaking in lots of pop culture references, whilst Fallout 2 looked at the pop culture references and made it the entire point of the game.

Dear Perun, i knew Kompost. He is not mia, he lost his legs, left to up from knee and right just foot. He got snapped by drone and was in care by some cossak pmc. He actually got his 4mil rubles

I started back in 1995 with JA1, had a blast with DG on the company's LAN and drove 100km to pick up JA2 on release day (because my local vendor didn't have it in stock). Then I kept things going for years and years with the truly excellent 1.13 mod-collection/mega-mod and I still have it installed on this machine - though I'm not sure what it would look like on my 1440p monitor, lol. I think I might even still have a PDF of Patusco's Guide to JA2 on one my my older HDDs somewhere (had a printed version of that one back in the day, of course). In any case: I stayed away from all post 1.13 attempts to resurrect/milk dry the series but then I saw a pop-up telling me a Steam-buddy was playing a game called "Jagged Alliance 3" the other night and couldn't believe my eyes. Didn't go into too much depth with the reviews (silly me) and decided to just buy it last night. I haven't done a whole lot yet (three or four sectors on the tutorial island) but I already agree with most of your criticism: The tone is all wrong, the story and characters are mostly forgettable, the UI is overly simplistic but still manages to be confusing and clumsy somehow. Inventory management is way too basic, even compared to vanilla JA2, etc, etc. I think the most profound statement from your review concerns the tone: JA2 (and JA1 and DG for that matter) had a ton of subtle and not-so-subtle humor, but they weren't a goofy spoof-movie version of a war-/mercenary-story. If JA2 was "Scream", this feels more like Scary Movie, Hot Shots! or one of those God-awful and unfunny later spoof-movies like "Meet the Spartans". I think I'll stick with it for now and hope for some mods to come out - thankfully someone has already done a mod to reduce the frequency of silly Merc-chatter but the modding community doesn't seem to be *that* active. And some parts like the sometimes underwhelming voice-acting probably can never be fixed. The saddest bit about all this is that there seems to be real potential to this game in some areas and with some tweaking/re-focusing this could've been much better. Think JA2 1.13's inventory and UI system but with the more modern look and presentation of this game.

When I heard Omryns voice for the first time, I was dead sure that Warlockracy was given a voice role in the game. Personally I love this game, really hope they would make some merc and item add-ons. Sure the tone is a bit all over the place, but it's still an excellent squad based tactical game. And I'm saying this as a veteran of the original three games

31:30 "He had no fighting experience, but managed to build a mercenary persona by reading Soldier of Fortune magazines,". I find it disturbing how easy it is to trick people.

New warlock vid, what a good day today!

It was many years ago, when I was amused by your content about fallout and morrowind, I'm glad you became better person and better content maker, keep it up and wish you good luck

I loved hearing warpugs mentioning he loved your videos in his coop stream of this game with rimmy

I've been waiting for your opinion. Thank you Mr

Just watched the vide on JA 2 yesterday. What great timing.

funny how much of an impact a game can have over 20 years past. Haven't seen the game in so long and still it evokes vivid memories of playing the game with a pal of mine.

This is one of the best game review I ever watched

I like this game, and Barry Unger is my bff forever. The gangster granny in Port Cacao who sells you heavy armor, hand grenades, and fully modded RPKs is pretty great. I hope they make more, so I don't have to fight in the same country over and over for 20 years like some sci-fi existential horror story while I'm waiting for a sequel. Again. And also that you also make more Warlockracy videos!

>Posted 5 minutes ago Never clicked on the video so fast. Love Jagged Alliance series, and love watching your JA vids.

I was waiting for you to talk about this game.

You remainded me of sir tech. Now i must instal wizardry 8 and spend 6h creating party.

Nice presentation there, Woodman!

Thanks for the video, it's very interesting seeing the game through someone that knows JA2 in and out. The game is pretty modable, and there are already a lot of mercenary mods. One mod also adds a smuggler operation (contact smuggler is the name of the mod) and while it's not Bobby Rays it adds a shop where the currency is diamonds, making them more valuable. You can get a late game weapon early but it's going to cost 24-30K in diamonds. Also you can buy 5.56, 7.62 (WP and NATO) and other kind of ammunition, which gives you a wider range of options. I'm surprised you didn't mention the lack of different starting gear, nor the gradual weapon progression (WW2>Soviet>NATO). Gotta say I'm enjoying the game, and the camera didn't give me any problem personally.

I require a HOI 4 Old World Blues review now that I know you're aware of it. Love the videos.

3:36 "The original games had a sense of humor and parody at times but we're looking to tailor things to modern audiences." Why would you start your game like this?

Awesome glad you covered the new one

FINALLY, I WAS WAITING FOR YOU

I've been waiting for a good sequel to JA2 forever glad you brought up Silent Storm. I loved that game (once you download the pk remove mod) I'll wait for some mods to come out and I'll buy and download it.

I've been asking those questions to myself all this time and I am grateful for your weighing in on this important cultural issue.

African? The setting is more seems more closer to Haiti, but expanded, Haiti and the Dominican Republic were French Colonies, so that made sense to me, so this more Algeria than Haiti.

13:25 One of my most hilarious moments in my first playthrough (V1.0, I pre-ordered) was watching an enemy completely obliterate the roof of a building he was shooting from with a grenade launcher because the round struck the inside of the building. It left a hole in the roof that I could, in turn, launch grenades into. I haven't played since they've patched the game but environmental destruction is a part of the game. Granted, I didn't see much of it until I got my hands on the RPG or the grenade launcher. I agree with you on the writing. I ended up not choosing mercs based on how annoying their dialogue was. Igor/Kalyna combo is a great example of that. On the other hand, some of the mercs are pretty funny and I appreciate the new faces in the roster and well as seeing some familiar ones. I'm glad they made this game. It's one of the few games I've followed through development and the first game I've per-ordered. I had a good time playing it and I think it's been a good addition to the series. I hope it brings new fans to the franchise and that they continue to develop and balance JA3.

"It is so very strange that a game from 1991 feels more modern than the game from 2023." To you and me both pal. Every time I boot up a modern game with quarter of features from the 90s, 00s. It makes me question whenever graphic advancement was all the game development could present us with.

this video along with planet alcatraz have the best "closing statement" parts

Pretty sure since the game is out, I'm clear of my NDA but I was actually able to playtest this game months before its release and honestly had to be one of the most fun games I ever got the opportunity to test out with that company.

I remember thinking JA2 needed a bit more polish. 20 years passed by it has remained without equal

I’ve never played JA2, but I kept returning to your video because of your storytelling. I may buy this, or I may just buy JA2! And yeah, the CIV IV menu music was the best ever. I used to leave it on to listen to whilst walking about the house. Haven’t done that before or since.

Was thinking about buying this game, nice time for this review to come out

>chilling and watching the vid > Baba Yetu kicks in HEADBANG MY ASS OFF.