Brigade E5: New Jagged Union

Brigade E5 is a tactical role-playing game from the Russian developer Apeiron, released in Russia in 2005 and in North America in October 2006. Its subtitle makes the debt plain. You hire a band of mercenaries in Palinero, a small tropical country on the verge of civil war, and try to take control of a situation that is falling apart.

Combat uses a system called Smart Pause Mode. The game runs in real time, and pauses automatically or on command so that you can give each character an order, which is then carried out over a short period of real time. It does not use action points in the usual way: how fast and how well a character does something depends on their skills and attributes.

It is one of the most serious attempts to do Jagged Alliance 2 in something other than turns. Its weapon detail is extensive and its smart pause is a genuine middle road between turns and real time.

It is rough, with a dense interface, a weak English translation, and a steep learning curve. It is for players who want a mercenary campaign with the detail turned up and are willing to work for it.

Brigade E5 keeps Jagged Alliance 2's mercenaries, its campaign in a small troubled country and its love of guns, and plays the fights in a pausable real time instead of turns. It is one of the clearest examples of a game that tried to keep Jagged Alliance 2 while changing its clock.