Jade Empire Comments by Rob Fahey

Arrgh? (looking down). Almost a bit generous that score.

For a game so heavy on combat it is quite a shame that it (the combat) never is enjoyable.

I would personally give this a 9. But that's because I buy Bioware games for all the reasons in paragraph seven.

The story is brilliant. As surprising as KOTOR1. Every level is beautiful, and the imperial city in particular is one of the best game environments ever.

It also has the best voice actor cameo of ALL TIME. Even better because they never advertised it, and because fans of epic Chinese martial arts are currently imagining up the wrong tree.

But you are right about the combat. I loved hammering through 7 guards with my sword in true "Jet Li vs the henchman" style. It was just disappointing that the evil nemesis (nemesii ?) took only slightly longer.

I loved it though. And am just starting out for a second play through.

I'd say the combat is my only real disappointment in the game. It's just too simplistic with little incentive to explore the various styles on offer, but it's still enjoyable, IMO.

/waits for bargain bin PC version

I agree that the combat is a little simplistic but it is still an extremely good game which I am enjoying more than any other since the release of WoW...

For me it's a 9 out of 10

Hmm, almost a good review. Very nice work on pointing out the bad points of the combat and the performance problems. But just using superlatives as "Great script, an imaginative fantasy world, interesting and varied characters, loads of missions, moral dilemmas and a wide open, branching storyline. is a missed opportunity.

The storyline is about as open as a nun's legs. It leads you along on a very strict path. The script is a mixed bag at best. The conversations of your team great and interesting. Those of many (not all) npc's longwinded and dull. The music is nice but forgettable. The story cliched and they very laborously tried to make everything and everyone connected to eachother.
Also choosing the way of the closed fist is often too unrewarding and too obviously evil. Just like in KOTOR, actually. Bioware needs to work on making the dark choices more viable.

As you say, still a very enjoyable game. But the combat isn't it's only fault.

also, how can you not mention the minigame??

"falls sadly short of the status of all-time classic which some seem to want to confer upon it."

Ooh, get back in the saucer of milk, Mr. Drawer! Table of knife for handbag 9!

Joking aside, I agree with this review, I've been playing this the last few days, and while good, it lacks RPG depth; the combat, while immensely frustrating at first, does get better but remains fairly frustrating with the digital controls on the Xbox pad being so inaccurate as to cause you to select the wrong style half the time and take damage as a result; the graphics chug a lot (this is downplayed in the review but I find it happens in most areas that aren't a simple corridor).

Also I would have preferred the Ways to be separated from the light/darkside business. I think that they should have made it so that if your styles are more open-palmed then you would BE more open-palmed, yet free to screw people over and be an arsehole if you so wished, and vice versa - using strength and force of will to make good of a bad situation should be an option.

The other thing I would have preferred is more emphasis on non-magical styles, but that would change the game completely in combat, RPG elements and setting. Doing what I want here would result in a different game, so fair play.

For my part, I'm enjoying it and it won't be going back to the shop.

Drumbaby, there isn't going to be any PC version. The PC will have Dragon Age though, wich won't appear on consoles.

/high fives Hicksy

/raspberries the rest of you

/eats raspberries

Who doesn't love them?


Anyway, just because you are enamored by a game doesn't mean you shouldn't recognise it's faults as well. otherwise things will never improve. I wasn't slagging of the game in general, hell, I finished it in 2 sittings.

Which reminds me, it's a bit short as well. :-)

>Which reminds me, it's a bit short as well. :-)

Really good games tend to be :-)

And I know no one else has to love it. I am equally aware that it wasn't what we were promised (early showings talked about strongholds, sending your followers off on their own quests and so on) but it is still a very good game.

It is a lot like Fable: not everything we expected, still good, and selling enough so that a sequel can be made annd hopefully deliver the missing bits.

Combat in this game trulyis overrated. It's a solid game though, spot on review :-)

"Drumbaby, there isn't going to be any PC version. The PC will have Dragon Age though, wich won't appear on consoles. "

If that's the case then I'll never get to play Jade Empire then, I guess. But I'm sure I read at Gamespot that the game's creators were hinting at possible PC porting.

This too:

http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=12531

Personally I think it's very likely, but I'm not exactly counting the days.

:)

If I remember correctly, wasn't KOTOR originally an xbox exclusive not to be available on any other machine, then 9 months down the line, hey presto, a PC version?

Dragon Age, ooo /drool

I'm really enjoying this at the moment, and I've found the loading times not too bad. But then I have recently finished KOTOR2. which in my admittedly limited experience has the Worst Loading Ever.

The combat is simplistic, but I prefer it to the turn-based system in the Kotor games. Watching two groups of combatants missing wildly with blasters while you drink a cup of tea isn't the most enthralling interactive experience I have had, tbh.

You can beat the game with a hefty dose of button-mashing, but for me part of the fun is exploring the combat system and finding a style that lets you fight with panache. Or as giant horse-demon, if that suits.

I agree totally, plus that STUPID language they made up!! WHYWHYWHYWHYWHY!!!!! The game should have been in Putonghua (Mandarin) with subtitles... :/

ah, it just makes me nostalgic for the old days of baldur's gate and planescape (and 2d point-and-clicks but don't get me started). These Kotors and so on look lovely but the gameplay mechanics seem much more limited than the earlier games. Oh well, if it sells and proves there is a market outside of the starwars license maybe we will get there eventually...

I took this back to GAME today. Graphics were good but suffered from 'run everywhere look' and keeps on running when running against walls fences etc. which is silly really.

The combat should have been deeper and I have to agree with the review in that it doesn't shine as an RPG and it doesn't shine as an action game, but it is above average and it is very big.

7/10

I'd give it a 7/10.

The combat is extremely weak, I had to force myself through it to see the end of the game. I'm genuinely amazed that Bioware shipped a game with such weak fighting.

The game is too short, right to the letter. I had hoped there was far more to the game after the imperial city/palace (As that's where the game started getting genuinely fun IMO) but there really wasn't a whole lot more to it except for that little plot twist and some final "closure" which was nearly as weak as the KotOR 2 ending.

I'm pretty disappointed. If this is the future of Bioware, count me out. Still, for what is there the game is pretty good while it lasts, sans the combat (You know a game has lame fighting when you can button mash through every single fight, including the final boss).

In my opinion Baldur's Gate 2 has yet to be topped.

8 ? Bah, I feel the need to transform into a huge Golem and pound you into dust.

Loved this - combat is too easy but that aside the whole thing was a joy to play. Great story, top graphics and martial arts asskicking. What more can you want ?

I agree totally, plus that STUPID language they made up!! WHYWHYWHYWHYWHY!!!!! The game should have been in Putonghua (Mandarin) with subtitles... :/

The whole point of not going with a Chinese dialect was that they didn't WANT to tie it explicitly to ancient China, apparently.

Personally I'm glad they didn't run with Mandarin since I think it sounds bloody horrible, but there you go :)

>8 ? Bah, I feel the need to transform into a huge Golem and pound you into dust.

Loved this - combat is too easy but that aside the whole thing was a joy to play. Great story, top graphics and martial arts asskicking. What more can you want ?

Clive? THE Clive? Or has a happy, optimistic person borrowed your login? :-)

No.

Twat.

"Widescreen - Yes"

Huh? The game is definetely 4:3. HDTVarcade lists it as 4:3 and Bioware have publically said that it's not widescreen.

Besides, it certainly doesn't look like widescreen.

>Besides, it certainly doesn't look like widescreen.

It isn't. No left shift correction either.

Cheers Clive. Glad it's really you after all.

I'm actually liking this quite a lot although it's a shame that the other characters aren't more useful. Definately an ACTION(rpg)!

Arrgh? (looking down). Almost a bit generous that score.

For a game so heavy on combat it is quite a shame that it (the combat) never is enjoyable.

Actually, I'd rather say that it's a shame that a game relying so heavily on dialogue and story fails to conjure up anything enjoyable or involving. And what's with the animation?! The stilted, underproduced non-characteristic animation that suffuses the entire game? Cut-scenes are woefully directed, with mostly horrid camera placement or movement, incredibly static actors and ... just no grandeur. There's nothing but bare bones here. Imagine if Devil May Cry 3's cut-scenes looked like this! Why don't BioWare take any pride in the presentation of their games? Neverwinter Nights was simply horribly uninteresting, both KOTOR games carried themselves well almost on virtue of their meta-presentation of the Star Wars universe: they didn't have to adhere to the rules of the movies, they could present whatever the player wanted to explore, and Star Wars being such a familiar world, they got away with presenting graphics that most of all were representations of concepts the player should be familiar with, and were able to fill the blanks of themselves. Yes, I know the second game was developed by Obsidian, but they did an equally shitty job with the presentation. All static, stilted and poorly directed.

So's Jade Empire. There's no drama, except in the written lines. The voice work is generic and safely emotionless most of the time ... it seldom attempts to be intelligent, with even wise men spouting completely trivial "musings" that sound like they could have been lifted right from Yoda, whose dialogue-lines should mostly read "The obvious I state, yeeees". Blah. No subtlety, no ... intelligence. This is just acceptable because it is better than the grey mass of video games, most of which are poorly written, horribly directed and thus not very interesting. Cinematic presentation of videogames is not a good idea until developers learn that 250 characters are not necessarily better than 20 interesting characters with individual personalities. Yes, it all worked fine in Planescape: Torment, which despite its D&D setting was quite interesting and well-written, using mainly symbolic graphics that allowed the players to imagine the bustling world, and even presenting action as TEXT, which actually left me more satisfied than a stilted cinematic would have.

I don't like games that try to be "cinematic" when their creators obviously have no grasp on what makes good cinema. In the words of the regulars: Meh.

Oh, and why the bloody hell did they decide to CONDESCEND upon the player in such a horrible manner with the facial expressions that judge your dialogue choices?! What if *I*, the PLAYER, wants to decide whether an answer is good or bad? What if I want to imagine that my character, ME; for all intents and purposes, should hold a straight face when arrogant? What if I don't WANT that meek answer to be accompanyed by a pout that I want to beat the hell out of? What if I don't want to see an expositionary smile upon Li Ziyang's face every time I feel for making a good decision? I want my avatar to represent ME, and I sure as hell don't screw up my face every time I talk to someone. I wonder how people would react if I started giving an innocent pout every time I asked them a simple question, or grimaced evilly every time I was arrogant? Another sure-fire way of removing the player from the context of the game. Very uncharming, and very unelegant. 9/Meh.

I'll give this some more hours tonight. It shall have to make drastic improvements to keep my attention anymore.

Shadar, take off your beret, put down the Film Studies with Semiotics course notes and relax, ffs. You'll do yourself a mischief if you're not careful.

:p

Yeah, it's so lofty to ask for a proper plot from a story-driven role-playing game.

So anyway, is this an exclusive? Or a Microsoft "exclusive"?

Ah, you'll be referring to the tightly plotted, logically consistent and profoundly meaningful drivel that's served up as action cinema then?

: )

The last action movie I watched was Running Man. It was really great, featuring interesting one-liners such as "I'm going to make you eat that contract, but leave some room in your stomach, 'cause I'm going to ram my fist into it and break your spine, YEAAARGGHHU!"

I expect something from role-playing games. I expect that the role-playing approach be used to present an interesting story revolving around your character. I expect that my actions influence the setting I roam, instead of just replacing one NPC with another, or unlocking new weapons in a store. I expect the game to wow me when it purposefully takes away my control and prevents me from engaging in the most interesting scenes it presents.

And now, I should finish my literary analysis of The Dunciad. Fuel for hatred, anyone? :)

Ace Grace: A PC is NOT a console, duh!

"It also has the best voice actor cameo of ALL TIME. Even better because they never advertised it, and because fans of epic Chinese martial arts are currently imagining up the wrong tree."

Who's that then, John Cleese?

Damn it. Why cannot they learn to make the combat systems challenging, fun AND tactical, if they insist on half of their game consisting of said combat?

No, let's make it be so that you only have to press one button repeatedly...

Also, I'm very much agreed with what Shadar says on the cutscene directing in games in general. You have a modelled 3d world around you, and free-roaming cameras, and skeletal systems for the characters, especially in this game where they have many good martial arts moves readily animated. Make some damn use of those and look at what makes cutscenes interesting.

People standing still with arms on their sides, turning around a little, is not such, which is still what most games go for. Especially with unimaginative people like Bioware's, who can write dialog a little, but seem to lack a sense of the art of telling a story.

Runing this off the hard drive definately speeds up loading times making them not an issue.
I also felt i had to 'force' myself to play this just to see how the plot panned out but kept thinking i was doing something wrong in the fighting as it seemed to easy. I ended up trying to kill people stylishly with harmonic combos etc.. rather than just hammering A button knowing it would do the job this made the fighting more fun but still didn't seem right. Why have all the extra styles and attacks if you don't need them to kill a boss?
After all the talk of Baldurs gate 2 i reinstalled it to see if it really was as good as every1 remebers and i have to say although the graphics arent as good the actual gameplay is much, much better the combat and magic use is 10x better. So is the story and subplots . Yep not as good as Baldurs Gate is true. Shame i really wanted to like this.

Brombeer, eh?

"Krakende krukassen. Wat is dat nou weer voor goochelstreek?!"

So the American reviews are a load of cobblers then.

So the American reviews are a load of cobblers then.

Not at all.

gamespot has a decent review. 1up does as well. And so do others. Just go to gamerankins Look for scores around the 8/8.5 mark and there are sure to be well written American reviews in there.

IGN? yes, total bollocks.

BBIAJ -

What does it have to do with other consoles?

I know a PC is not a console. I was merely saying that originally microsoft said that it was going to be available on the xbox only implying that it would never be available on any other format!!!!

Then a few months later it appears on the PC.

Where in my original message did I say anything about other consoles?

/clicks ignore poster

re xbox eclusives:
I remember reading somewhere that an xbox exclusive is only guarenteed so for 9months or so.

and probably the most accomplished BioWare RPG in a number of respects.

Which respects are those? Because it's generally considered to be the least rpg-ey bioware game so far.

Hmm some *ahem* interesting comments.

Playing the game, unlike some of the people making comments here, and am about 10hrs in and I am loving it. It's nice that the combat isn't all that heavy and that the RPG elements are not too thick IMHO (then again I did love Fable too). The story is keeping me interested, as any RPG should. The visuals are some of the nicest I have seen in a game.
So far 9/10.

LogiK, BG2 had very good music & sound in general.

Well, the acting isn't bad, though it's mostly so safe and emotionless that it borders on the boring.

But the music of jade is completely forgettable. I'm not sure if it's superior to BG2 on that front.

"He estimates that 75 per cent of Xbox players are male"

Surely it's much higher than that.

I just feel so disappointed by this game. I never bothered with the hype as the martial arts theme never really had me interested when the game was announced, only occasionally checked the screenshots and info on it. I was just expecting/hoping that Bioware would deliver a great RPG as usual.

:|

Dragon Age better be amazing.

Spanish_monkey - the greatest post ever. I salute you.

Brombeer - I loved this, but I also loved Planescape and BG2. They are different kinds of game.

' All these people finding Jade Empire a great game, probably never have played Planescape Torment or Baldur's Gate? '

Nah, I've played both to completion. Both are fun games but I wouldn't go back to them now (but then again I personally hardly ever go back to any old games). Shock horror, some people like this game, and some don't! So don't even try to start his 'ahhh, you simply don't know enough about games if you think it's a good game' crap.