Alright, let me tell you what I got up to recently. The holidays were coming up, and I got this weird itch to revisit something from the past. Jagged Alliance 2. Yeah, that old gem. For some reason, I specifically got this idea about playing it with a sort of Christmas feel. Don’t ask me why, maybe it was the cold weather.
So, the process started. First, I had to actually find my copy. Dug through a bunch of old boxes in the storage room. Finally found the discs, looking pretty ancient. Felt like an archaeologist.
Getting it Running – The Fun Part?
Okay, maybe not ‘fun’. Getting old games to run on modern systems, you know how it is. Windows 10 doesn’t always play nice.
- First try: Just installed it straight. Nope. Crashed on launch. Figures.
- Second try: Compatibility modes. Tried Windows XP, Windows 98. Ran, but super glitchy, weird colors. Not really playable.
- Third try: Started searching around online forums. Lots of people talking about patches, community fixes. Found mentions of something called ‘1.13’. Seemed like the go-to solution.
Downloading and installing that 1.13 patch took a while. It’s not just a patch, it’s like a whole overhaul. Had to be careful where I put the files, followed some old guide I found. It felt like tinkering with an old car, hoping it starts.
Success… mostly. The game finally ran properly. Looked okay, stable. Phew.
The Christmas Mod Hunt
Now, back to the original idea: Christmas. I remembered seeing something, somewhere, sometime, about mods for JA2. Maybe a winter theme, or snow? Hoped for something festive.
So, more searching. Found discussions about re-skinning mercenaries, changing textures to look like snow. Sounded complicated. Involved messing with game files directly. Not just a simple download and click install, you know?
I spent a good hour or two looking for a straightforward ‘Christmas mod’. Found a few mentions, some dead links, forum posts from like, ten years ago. It was a real rabbit hole. Seemed like most people just settled for the improved base game with the 1.13 patch.
Honestly, at this point, I was getting a bit tired of fiddling. The initial nostalgia boost was wearing off, replaced by the reminder of how much effort old games can sometimes be. It’s great that communities keep them alive, but man, you gotta work for it.
In the end, I didn’t actually install a specific Christmas theme. I just played the patched game for a bit. Brought back memories, sure. But the whole ‘ja 2 christmas’ project kind of fizzled out. The real activity ended up being the troubleshooting, the digging through files, the remembering how things used to be.
Maybe next year I’ll try again. Or maybe I’ll just play something that works out of the box. We’ll see.
