Despite losing the rights to use any of the intellectual property of Strategy First, GFI came up with a game which is structurally similar to Jagged Alliance series, offering a real-time mode when your mercenaries are moving on the designated location and shifting to turn-based mode when combat starts. There is no guarantee though about how long it will take until you shift between these modes, but it is triggered by visual contact with enemy forces so it pays off to be extra careful when deploying your troops because once the battle starts there is very little you can do to regroup. Poor path finding can become an issue if you are caught off guard since one of your teammates will probably stay behind and has slim chances of catching up with the rest of the squad in tactical mode.

Once the game enters the turn-based mode every action you perform costs action points, more or less, depending on the move you plan to execute. It's been done before and it's pretty much the cornerstone of this genre, but even so there are some disturbing issues here that are worth mentioning. First of all the costs of firing different weapons vary a lot, and even using the same gun from different distances won't require the same amount so you'll frequently get the feeling that you're fighting in the dark. To make things further worse, you consume a lot of APs just for walking a short distance and if you are not careful enough, it's most likely that you'll consume a bit more than planned, which leaves you with insufficient point to take the actual shot.

Just when you start thinking that you're finally mastering the AP system, you'll discover that being wounded, losing your breath and other factors can subtract from a characters action point before they have the chance to receive orders. Suffice to say that once the Aps run out, your mercenary finds himself in harms way, unable to anything and the only reasonable solution is to end your turn. Losing breath is not something even the hardcore fans of the turn-based games were forced to deal with a lot, but it is a crucial element in Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge, one nobody can dismiss or ignore. If you run too long or carry some heavy equipment, you'll run out of energy and collapse on the ground after taking just a few steps, with deadly consequences.

Aiming issues are definitely the most important and frustrating of all problems one might encounter when playing this title, a lot of things appear to be arbitrary and simply unrealistic and this can weed off even the most dedicated players. You'll never know if your next shot will hit the target, as it's possible to miss while firing a submachine gun from just a few meters while aiming a dying man and hit with a pistol a target sitting far away, with additional cover. It's up to you to decide which body part it's better to aim at, but since the accuracy is virtually unknown it's pretty much the same thing. Add to these issues some stupid lines indicating that your mercenary lost a specific amount of "wisdom" point after being hit in the head and you've got the full picture of what I'm talking about when I complain about the inadvertences of the tactical mode.

On the other hand we've got an overpowered AI which is capable of delivering pin-point accurate shots from incredible range, throw grenades further than a pistol's range and occasionally able to take a round of bullets in the chest without scratch. They will counterattack from different areas and at different intervals, always trying to surprise you so even if you decide to choose the easiest mode the computer will be more than a challenge. Resilient as it may be, the AI will occasionally get disorientated and rush blindly towards your enforced position, getting vulnerable from all sides and becomes nothing more than a sitting duck. Maps are generated randomly which is fine, since there is a good chance the dictator will send reinforcements to reclaim an area you control, forcing you to return to the same zone.