Not since the early days of comical Japanese translations have I seen a game so poorly translated as this. Hired Guns is originally a Russian game and some of the text in this very text heavy game looks as though it was put through one of those useless translation websites. If you are going to release a game to English speakers then the least you can do is have someone who actually understands the language look over your game before release. If they had done that it would have been immediately apparent that this title needed a lot more work before it hit the stores.
Everything is explained via text so trying to work out what they mean through the awkward phrasing is quite a challenge in itself. You start on your map screen with access to the Internet. This is where soldiers of fortune do business and you can receive missions via email, hire mercenaries and buy weapons online. You can also undertake the strangest psychological test I have ever encountered which is so poorly translated it made me laugh out loud a few times.
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You can select potential recruits and see a fact file which reveals their speciality, you can even have a quick phone conversation and they’ll decide based on your rep whether they want to join your team or not. Once you have hired a few mercenaries you organise them into a squad. You have several squads with empty slots organised with animal names. Having made up Hyena squad, for example, you need to make sure that they all have guns and also that their guns have ammunition. The set up is pretty tedious. When you are ready for action you can choose a mission from the marked spots on the map.
This is where things get really strange. You place your squad out in the field, each map is a top down view and then you can move them around individually. As they stalk around and perform actions they use up action points and once these are gone you have to end your turn and let the enemy have a turn. Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that turn based gameplay does not work for this kind of game. My first turn I walked a man into a heavily guarded hut, picked up all their ammunition and cash and then dropped a grenade into the center of the room. My solider then ran out of action points and lay down in the corner. I hit the end turn button and after some jerky animation my guy disappeared and it informed me he was dead. It was a struggle to try and keep playing because this sucks beyond belief.
