Sweet! Brigade E5 (New Jagged Union) going international

[Fresh]

http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php ... ad&order=0

Strategy First Signs 'Brigade E5: New Jagged Union'

"I'm very happy to announce that Strategy First will be publishing "Brigade E5: New Jagged Union" in North America. This is a game that will challenge and entertain strategy gamers with its innovative combat and control systems, extensive weapon selection, great single player experience and several multiplayer modes," said Pro Sotos, Business Development Manager at Strategy First.

"We are very pleased that "Brigade E5: New Jagged Union" will be introduced to the North American market," said Nikolay Baryshnikov, International Sales Director at 1C Company. "We feel that this title has the potential to be a huge success."

"Brigade E5: New Jagged Union" is set in the fictional, small tropical country of Palinero. Players are required to assemble a band of mercenaries and take control of a rapidly deteriorating situation in order to survive the imminent civil war and avoid having their country left in complete ruins.

"Brigade E5: New Jagged Union" is a tactical strategy title. The story offers players the opportunity to experience three different viewpoints of the conflict, or work outside the political structure to achieve their own goals towards global domination. Game play for the title is based on an innovative combat system called SPM (Smart Pause Mode) that successfully blends together the elements of both real-time and turn-based games.

Features:

* Innovative combat system called "Smart Pause Mode" that blends together the elements of both RTS and TBS games.
* Storyline and scripts of the game are written by Shaun Lyng, designer of the famous 'Jagged Alliance' series.
* More than 100 accurately modeled firearms.
* Varied ammunition types: grenades, body armor and specialized equipment.
* Option to upgrade and modify weapons by adding various gadgets, sniper scopes, bayonets, mini grenade launchers, etc.
* Selection of specially balanced maps for Deathmatch (up to 4 players, up to 6 players per party)
* Provides extensive LAN and Internet Multiplayer modes, with CTF, Deathmatch and Fortress dynamic gameplay.


Official Homepage with some screenies: http://int.games.1c.ru/e5/

Any1 played the russian release? How is it?

EDIT: According to this preview the game is due november 2005: http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/brigade-e5-new ... 820p2.html

 

[Balor]

It's being discussed on Russian forums now, most people absolutely love it, some don't - but mostly because of no 'top-notch' graphics and effects, not the best voice-acting (don't apply to international release, of course) and a few bugs, most of them cropped out due to "dreaded" (c) Starforce protection, which will be fixed literally in a few hours, as I understand.
Since I'm quite sure that international release will have this included (and, perhaps, a few other patches, E5 devs are very quick to fix bugs, that's to be sure.) - I think that overall impression should be 99% positive. (See links below).
Of course, I am a bit biased because I'm beta-tester of this game - but you can treat me like just any other fanboy of a particular game - I'm not getting anything from PR'ing it, I just liked it since it was an alpha version.
Oh, btw, there is a discussion of this game at Bear's pit.
It went from:
WTF? A Ja2 clone with RTWP gameplay?
http://www.ja-galaxy-forum.com/ubb/ulti ... 000160;p=1
to
OMG! That game is FUN!
http://www.ja-galaxy-forum.com/ubb/ulti ... 7;t=000175
Check for yourself

Also, there is an english thread on the official forums:
http://forums.games.1c.ru/?type=flat&tid=294917

 

[Deacdo]

While I'd MUCH prefer a traditional JA style game with TBed combat, I may still end up picking this one up. At the very least these guys are *trying* to make a hardcore tactical game and seem like decent folks (unlike those pricks at ALTAR).

Too bad it was Strategy First who picked it up, though. I really don't like them and their track record blows (after a good start some years ago).

 

[Fresh]

Balor: Great to hear you guys are liking the game. As for the graphics I think they are more than adequate after playing the demo.

Dec: Strategy First might as you say be a pretty poor choice of publisher, havent heard to much positive things about them lately sadely.

If you havent downloaded the demo (+engrish translation-patch) yet- go get it now.

 

[obediah]

I'll be picking this one up. -3 points for RT, +2 points for developers making choices on what they want in a game rather than what will draw in the casual gamer. 0 for shitty graphics (as opposed to 0 for great graphics). -1 point for coming from the fun vacuum that is between germany and japan. -1 point for the marketeering name, "hey look a NEW Jagged allia...errr..um. there's a sniper it must be the new jagged allliance game" +2 points for tactics in a game.

-1 is better than anything else in the past 6 months, so I'm in.

 

[poq]

Pity they went with strategy first, they hardly have the greatest reputation around.


btw, ja-galaxy-forum is shitty, a forum full of pussies, nazi(and stupid) admins, although it has some decent members.

btw Balor, any idea if this is the same rtwp game that I beta tested around 2001 or 2002? Would have heard about it from ja-galaxy

 

[Balor]

Perhaps.
Their first try at game developement was "Remeber tomorrow" - a game that I've never heard about untill recently, I admit.
And @ obediah:
I'd say not -3 for RT, but +2 for SPM .
But it depends on your preferences, though.
If it was indeed RT, I'd agree. But it's not.
Oh well, this was discussed at length at the 'main' thread of the game and really got nowhere.