Slashdot Mirror
Review: Jade Empire
- Title: Jade Empire
- Developer: Bioware
- Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
- System: Xbox (only)
- Reviewer: Zonk
- Score: 9
Jade Empire begins with another day in the simple life of a martial arts student in the town of Two Rivers. You get to pick who that martial arts student is, and can choose from among several different characters with distinct styles and kung-fu names. Whether you pick Wu the Lotus Blossum or Furious Ming, you'll be introduced to Two Rivers and the Jade Empire combat system via sparring and talking with your fellow students. The idyllic scene is broken by the sneers of a bully and, more seriously, a pirate attack. The aftermath of the pirate attack thrusts you and a few followers onto a path to discover your destiny, rescue a friend, and unravel the truth behind the history of the Jade Empire.
The story-based gameplay, then, is very similar to the Xbox version of KOTOR. You move around the world through various maps people with NPCs, and talk (and talk, and talk) to them. What could have been a frustration is a joy in Jade Empire, as every character's lines are voice acted and the quality of the voice acting is almost universally high. Even minor NPCs get performers with heart assigned to them, and the result is very engaging. By default the entire game is subtitled, but I found that the subtitles were distracting me from the quality vocal performances and I switched them off. The Tho Fan language, made specifically for the game, is subtitled to allow you to follow along with the traditionalists who don't speak english. Without subtitles in most of the conversations Jade Empire is a cinematic experience with you as the protagonist.
The cinema of the game is brought to the fore by the impressive graphical presentation Bioware wrings from the Xbox. The graphics are not groundbreaking or extraordinarily realistic, but evoke the world with soft tones, slightly exaggerated character designs, smooth looking animation, and beautiful effects. Much like KOTOR the beauty of the game is occasionally marred by slowdowns, but I found these technical hitches to be relatively rare. Given the story, cinema, and quality voice acting, Jade Empire evokes a well made wire-fu film.
Where there is wire-fu there is combat, and Jade Empire balances the preponderance of storytelling with a thoroughly enjoyable real-time combat system. Unlike Neverwinter Nights or Knights of the Old Republic, you actively control your protagonist character and your reflexes determine the success or failure of the Jade Empire saga. The basics of the combat gameplay, despite this innovation, remain firmly rooted in the d20-like systems of past games. Defeating enemies results in experience gains, and at certain intervals you gain levels. At each level gain you are given points to slot into your attributes to permanently increase them, and points to slot into your martial arts forms to improve their damage, speed, etc.
Your character has three attributes: Body, Mind, and Spirit. In turn, these attributes help determine your consumable personal resources. Body determines Health, Mind determines Chi, and Spirit determines Focus. You also have three social skills: Charm, Intuition, and Intimidate. Bonuses to your attributes affect these skills as well, with a higher Body resulting in more affective Intimidation and a higher Mind resulting in better Intuition. Your attributes, your resource pools, and your social skills can all be modified by amulet jewels. The amulet the protagonist possesses is given to her near the beginning of her quest, a powerful legacy from her mysterious past. By slotting jewels into the amulet you can customize your character beyond the levels you gain. Every jewel modifies one or more attribute or social skill in a specific way. The stones themselves are found at regular intervals throughout the game, and with only a limited number of slots you'll constantly be shifting the stones in your inventory looking for a good combination for combat and social situations. Every character starts with a pair of martial arts styles, and as you move through the game you acquire more through combat, purchasing them, and questing. Every form, in turn, has a specific purpose. Ghosts are unaffected by weapon forms, demons turn aside magic forms, and other forms have supporting roles, such as stunning or blinding opponents. Some forms are pure support, draining chi or focus from your opponents to refill your own bars. Combat itself uses the martial forms in several basic ways, and even small fights tend to be varied enough to keep you on your toes. The basic martial arts forms have three moves: hit, block, and power attack. In the classic rock/paper/scissors style basic hits disrupt power attacks, blocks deflect hits, and power attacks destroy blocks. Each form uses the same moves, with their own variations. Long Sword's power attacks is a sweeping slash, for example, while Spirit Thief (a support/draining form) uses a power attack that fills almost half of your chi bar in one blast. The most visually impressive forms are the shapechanger forms, which allow you to take on the appearance and attacks of a demon or monster. The combat drama unfolds, then, with you switching between four pre-chosen forms (on the D-pad) in such a way as to take advantage of the situation. The flexibility of the combat system makes it rewarding to use, and rarely a chore to work through a battle.
The other element that enters into combat, and ties the combat system into the fully realized story of the game, is your companion. As you move through the game (much like KOTOR) you pick up fellow travelers and miscreants who have something to add to your tale. These individuals range from a fellow student and friend from your days at the 2 rivers school to a little girl possessed by a demon to a mad inventor who maintains the airship you travel in. Each of them has a well fleshed out backstory and as events unfold you have the opportunity to delve into their pasts and fish out interesting information and personal insights. The characters are well written and in some cases downright funny. Kang the Mad, in particular, gets some choice lines.
Next time I hide something, I'm packing explosives around it. Explosives shaped like silver bananas! Stops thieves, monkeys and monkey thieves in one fell swoop. - Kang the MadBesides talking with them, you are allowed to choose one to travel with you as you explore, and when you enter combat your companion fights alongside you. The AI is usually effective in their tactical choices. The companion picks a target and stays with it until it's down, countering the baddies moves as best they can. While they do occasionally take out enemies, as is befitting of a game where you are the hero, for the most part they engage supporting characters while you move in on more important targets. If you don't want them mucking up your battlefield you can also choose to place them in support mode. In support mode your companion doesn't fight, but each individual aids you in some specific way over the course of a battle. One companion regenerates your focus as you fight, for example, while another does so with your chi. The added complexity a companion brings to a fight allows for even more options on the field of combat.
Each companion has their own outlook on life. Some tend more towards a gentle disposition, while others have a harder edge to them. These outlooks reflect the two opposing points of view that your character will choose between as you move through the game. The Way of the Open Palm and the Way of the Closed Fist correlate, roughly, to the light and dark sides of the force as explored in KOTOR. As in those titles, moral choices are presented to you in nearly every conversation and situation. The more you tend towards kindness and understanding, the more enlightened you become towards the way of the Open Palm. The more you tend towards cruelty and indifference, the more accepting you become towards the way of the Closed Fist. Your physical appearance begins to change as you reach a choice along either path, and different martial art forms open up to you as well. In the end, your choice along the two paths determines what your role in the Jade Empire becomes.
Jade Empire, then, is a complicated game. It's a long story (I'm well over 30 hours into it and no where near done), well written, with impressive graphics and memorable characters. The only two real complaints I can lay at the game's feet are occasional slowdowns during combat, and (as with all Xbox Bioware games) sometimes abominably long load times between map areas. Neither of these minor technical hurdles was annoying enough for me to become frustrated by my play experience. Jade Empire is a new high water line for console RPG titles, and in my opinion is Bioware's best work to date. If you enjoy an engaging story, have gotten into Bioware titles in the past, or have a love of well crafted martial arts tales don't let Jade Empire pass you by.
Xbox only WHY?
Jade Empire is the best game I've played in a long time; certainly over the last year, quite possibly a good bit longer.
I've got a bit of an erratic history with Bioware games. The first Baldur's Gate left me a bit cold... it felt like a good idea badly executed and hindered by a determination to be a bit nastier to the player than was strictly necessary. Baldur's Gate 2, on the other hand, felt a lot more polished and I must have played it through half a dozen times. Neverwinter Nights was a huge let-down for me; the toolkit demanded more time and effort to use properly than I was willing to put in and the campaign basically sucked. KOTOR, on the other hand, was awesome. Then KOTOR 2 came along (yes, I know it's not strictly Bioware) and it just felt flat. The writing in particular was pretty horrible and the total bugfest didn't help either.
To be blunt, though, Jade Empire beats anything else Bioware have done into the ground. I'm about 15 hours into my first playthrough of it now and it's an incredible experience. It feels odd at first to be controlling the combat so directly in a game which obviously shares such a strong technical base with KOTOR, but the controls and combat system are pretty much flawlessly implemented. There's a superb learning curve; you can button-mash the first few fights, but successive enemies need increasingly sophisticated tactics.
I must admit I wasn't enthusiastic when I heard Jade Empire would be an action RPG. In my experience, most of these tend to degenerate into either boring button-mashing fests like the Dark Alliance games or tedious movement-puzzle crawls like Zelda. Kingdom Hearts pulled the genre off reasonably well, but even that had some real annoyances. However, one of the most striking things about Jade Empire so far is the relative scarcity of combat. Rather than being attacked constantly as you move around the map, or having to get past the same group of infinitely-respawning monsters every time you pass through a particular area, the vast majority of fights in the game actually seem to be tied into a specific plot point. You don't get randomly attacked by bandits or monsters; there's actually a *reason* for almost every encounter. Moreover, as in earlier Bioware games, it's possible (and sometimes preferable) to talk your way out of fighting.
Graphics are generally excellent. You can occasonally detect that the game is based on a now-aging engine, but the quality of the character and location designs is more than good enough to mask this. Sounds are excellent, particularly voice-acting. John Cleese's cameo (as an "English" explorer, come to enlighten the oriental savages) actually had me laughing out loud. The dialogue is back up to the high-standard of that in KOTOR.
If I'd add one complaint to the two in the review, it would be that the in-game journal doesn't always do a very good job of recording quest objectives. A few times now I've come back to the game after a break and had to think quite hard about where I needed to meet a character in connection with a subquest. Overall, though, it's a stunning game. The X-Box may have had a crap first year or two, but it's got to be the strongest late-cycle performer of the current generation by quite a margin.
Zonk was too busy writing this crap to read his email.
...for the 20 hours it takes to complete. Whatever happened to RPGs that offered 80-100 hours of gameplay the first time thru? I'm not necessarily talking Xenosaga length, but certainly at least FFX long.
The newsletter they sent out was pretty good, too.
See http://xania.org/article.php/jadeempire
How can you write a review without finishing the game? What if there's a bug towards the end that makes the game entirely unplayable? Or the plot suddenly takes turn for the worse and it just becomes boring. There's been plenty of games that are very interesting in the beginning, and then just lose steam or you run out of interesting things to do.
So when, oh when, will someone give me an RPG heroine who actually wears suitable clothing? The first screenshot in this review is a perfect example of what I object to. It's clearly winter. It's fucking snowing. Why the fuck is that girl running around in her panties?!
When Knights of the Old Republic was released it was arguably the best Star Wars tale told since the end of the original trilogy
arguably
You are on Slashdot here, everything here is arguable including statements like:
The reviewer has some very good points, but personally I found the game horribly boring. Long dialogue that never seems to end, parts that are extremely linear, and repetitious fights that only happen at staged parts of the storyline.
The graphics are great, and some parts of it are very enjoyable, but on the whole I found it more of a chore than a fun game.
I just played through this twice and I only have 2 complaints. Both times doing most of the side quests, I beat it in around 15 hours. After KOTOR's 30+ hours I found it to be a bit of a let down. My other problem was the load times. They really chopped up the story in my opinion. Other than those 2 small complaints, this is my favorite RPG of the year...so far.
I say these things not to disparage NWN, but rather to highlight the excellent work that came before it. In fact, I believe Torment to be, arguably, the best rpg to date. Bioware has done a lot of trully top-notch work, and I hope it continues. The ONLY gripe I have with their latest work, is how often the KOTORs would beat pud and destroy a save game.
Please this game is hardly ground breaking or original.
/.!
The game play is very similar to KOTR and the storytelling eventually just gets in the way and slows an already plodding game down even further.
It's a weekend rental at best.
Since when did trolls start writing articles on
Move along, nothing to see here.
[Cue the sound of shuffling and then screams as thousands of broken nerds emerge into the daylight, driven by a lack of slashdot content and curious at what life might hold for them... outside]
That's what I've been trying to tell my niece. You are ruining your ability to imagine things if everything's served to you on a veritable silver platter.
No graphics or surround sound can compete with Zork, Ultima 3 on C64 or Chaos on a Sinclair. to my mind, the youth of today are being corrupted by the game companies.
Watch (or at least listen to) the whole end credit sequence.
Trust me.
This is not always true. water has multiple phases. For instance, ice is not wet if kept cold, nor is steam wet per se.
Sky is Blue
Are we talking sky of earth here? if not, that is an over broad statement. If so, the sky is not always blue, different weather patterns and polution in the air can and does change this regularly
Pope is Catholic
Define "is" please.
Keeping the flamewars alive, one post at a time
--Keeping the flame wars alive, one post at a time
When Knights of the Old Republic was released it was arguably the best Star Wars tale told since the end of the original trilogy.
You have *got* to be kidding. Have you read any of the books? Timothy Zahns trilogy is way better then KotOR - heck, some (myself included) would say it's better then the original 3 movies. Even the mediochre books were better then the storyline in KotOR. Not saying it was a bad game, but the story was nothing special.
I estimate I'm slightly past halfway into the game at present time. Everything I've seen so far I'd consider about par, its not a great game, but it doesn't totally suck.
It also appears that most of the time, regardless of the multiple dialogue options offered, the NPCs will reply with identical messages.
*warning possible spoilers follow*
The combat system seems a bit shallow, case in point, I've gotten up to the Imperial City and up to the second tier of battles in the Gold Division of the Arena, Without using the block move a single time (on Master [normal] Difficulty)
I am using Legendary Strike as my primary Hand to Hand combat style, and it is close to fully mastered, its not only a bit boring to play, its boring to look at too.
I think maybe 2 attack buttons, a punch and a kick, as opposed to the single attack button, as well as some form of button combo system in addition to the silly (IMO) "Harmonic Combo" system would have added a great deal of depth to the game.
You seem to be under the impression that any reviews you read in magazines, or online are written by people who finish the game.
Allow me to disabuse you of this notion. Reviewers can't spend 30 hours beating X number of games before hitting press. There isn't enough time. The few times they actually do are with A list titles, which are going to get steller reviews anyhow.
Also, you seem to be under the impression that if there was a bug which crashed the game, it would be specifically noted in any review. When was the last time you read a review noting bugs? The last I knew of was an arstechnica review for "Pirates!", and that's hardly a games site. With previous, all you get are "I had a few glitches, but that's probably going to be cleaned up before release."
I actually thought this was a nicely done writeup.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
At least the games should have a parental warning.
Pope is Catholic
;P
Define "is" please.
Heh, thats a LOW blow. Where IS he now? 'Sleeping'.
He WAS Catholic
When there's no Pope, "Pope is Catholic" is not a true statment, now is it?
Slashdot is like Playboy: I read it for the articles
I'm currently playing Jade Empire, and am up to the part where it dissolves into a slow-moving, linear mess... but although I like the game, it's got some flaws.
The most prominent one is the load times - the arena is a prime offender in this case. As you have to spend up to 30 seconds loading the fight (which in most cases can be beaten fairly quickly), then another 30 seconds loading the arena back up again. Areas have a lot of backtracking as you try to complete subquests, with each area have lots of loading.
The combat is also really broken, and it's possible to defeat most bosses by powering up White Demon, hitting the weak attack button a few times, then hitting the guard breaker button when the enemy starts guarding (usually the enemy will just stand still and guard when its health is low).
These two flaws mar what otherwise is probably the best Xbox game out.
I have to agree with the poster, this is one of the best RPGs I've played in a very long time. I'd like to add a few of my thoughts to the review however...
Firstly, the game's setting is absolutely fantastic. Bioware have put an enormous amount of creativity into creating their fictional gameworld, and it definitely shows. There are abundant references to Chinese literature and mythology, which are a treat if you already have familiarity with them, but which are so organically woven into the gameworld that even people without familiarity with the Chinese classics will love discovering them. I particularly enjoyed how each of the game's "chapters" opens with 3 lines of foreshadowing (a la Monkey a.k.a. Journey to the West), the rich "celestial beaurocracy" glimpsed so often in Chinese literature, and the numerous historical allusions (the northern horselords clearly refer to the Mongol hordes, while the land of the six sacred scrolls in the west seems to be a reference to Bhuddist Tibet). Actually, the background universe is so vast that it almost seems dissapointing that you don't get to travel to some of the more famed cities like Pheonix Gate (sequel, anyone? please?).
Secondly, there is the utterly fantastic story. The main plot is epic to say the least, and contains some excellent twists (one about 2/3 of the way through the game just blew me away). The numerous interesting side quests keep the game interesting as well, and if you spend the time to really explore the world and get to know the characters, you'll be rewarded greatly (did I mention that a certain Monty Python alum makes a hillarious appearance as the game's only European character?). Interactions with members of your party are interesting as well, with possibilities for friendship, rivalry, and romance. This is a slight spoiler, but if you're a male character and you play your cards EXACTLY right, it is actually possible to arrange a threesome of sorts with the game's two female lead NPCs. I'm not certain if something similar is possible playing as female, but I just started a run as Wu the Lotus Blossum, so I guess I'll have the chance to find out.
Finally, the game is pretty much perfectly streamlined. While you can learn numerous styles and techniques, the fighting is always easily controllable through the 3 basic moves: fast attack, strong attack, and block (area attack is also available by pressing fast and strong at the same time). Having only 3 basic character attributes makes character customization a much less taxing experience (don't get me wrong, I love the depth of the D20 system, but this is a nice change of pace), and the fact that equipable inventory is limited to your amulet and the single-follower system all combine to make a very accessable system. Basically, the typical RPG elements are there, but they never get in your way. You won't ever spend 5 minutes equipping before a battle, you'll pretty much always be directly engaged in the story. And when the combat and story are as good as they are in Jade Empire, this is definitely a very good thing.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
Not going to start a flame war, but your kidding right..??
I would argue that water does not have multiple phases. H2O has multiple phases; water being one of them. Steam is also not a phase of water, it is the gas phase of H2O. As for whether the Pope is Catholic or not, I suppose it depends on who you ask. Some Catholics may not agree with his interpretation of the bible, that he is not upholding God's will. They might say that he is not a true Catholic. That being said, I'm not Catholic, so that might all be BS.
Expired my ass!
'Jade Empire' for Xbox speaks language all its own
The language Tho Fan sounds ancient and distinctly Asian. Its "sh" sounds come from the back of the throat, as they do in Chinese. Its "r" sounds are made with a tap of the tongue, echoing Mongolian.
But Tho Fan comes from Canada and was invented only last year. Created in four months, for just over $2,000, it is a real language spoken by unreal people in the Xbox game "Jade Empire," released this week. Perhaps it is a sign that, these days, languages are not so much discovered as invented.
Early last year, developers at the game maker BioWare were working on a heroic role-playing game set in a mythical Asia and began thinking about language. "We were sort of writing a love song to the history of China," said Jim Bishop, "Jade Empire's" producer.
Still, they wanted to avoid using Chinese or any other Asian language that might shackle their invented universe to actual historical events. At the same time, they did not want to resort to unintelligible nonsense.
"We wanted to make this world seem as real as possible," Bishop said.
Ultimately, more than 90 percent of "Jade Empire's" 15,000 lines of recorded dialogue were in English, but Bishop's team, based in Edmonton, Alberta, also decided to add the exotic aural flair of an Asian-sounding language, subtitled in English.
The attempt to create a language from scratch is rare in modern fiction. J. R. R. Tolkien, a linguist as well as a writer, created several for the "Lord of the Rings" saga. In 1985, another linguist, Mark Okrand, codified the "Star Trek" language Klingon in a published dictionary, which in turn led to Klingon editions of "Hamlet" and the ancient Babylonian epic "Gilgamesh."
But these were exceptions. The alien languages in science fiction and fantasy books and movies largely consist of nonsense: grunts and chirps arranged to convey the illusion of exotic intelligence. Occasionally, as in the "Star Wars" films, writers will introduce a few alien words to which they have given meanings but that don't constitute a working language. "You could use them to find a bathroom and that's about it," Bishop said.
Games have even fewer functional tongues. The denizens of the hit computer game "The Sims," for example, speak in Simlish, a caffeinated warble that is more mood-appropriate gibberish than real language.
In its quest for a new language, BioWare contacted the linguistics department at the nearby University of Alberta and came across Wolf Wikeley, 32, a Ph.D. candidate with a weakness for Japanese animation and first-person-shooter video games. He seemed like a find.
"Not many people have funny anecdotes about Klingon," Bishop said.
Wikeley had grown up in a language-rich household. His parents taught German, French and Italian and could speak several other languages. Japanese lessons had played on the family phonograph. And then there was the linguistic influence of Wikeley's favorite fiction.
"A huge event in my life was seeing 'Star Wars' when I was 4," he said. "Probably a lot of my ear came from that." He said he took to mimicking the film's alien languages, noting that at least one seemed to consist of just three overused words.
If one set of fictional characters had given him his ear, he was eager to answer BioWare's call to give others their voice. He set about asking Bishop's team questions. He wanted to know the speakers' physiology. If they had no teeth, they wouldn't be able to make a "t" or "th" sound. They had teeth.
He wanted to know the speakers' demeanor. In a willful violation of a fundamental tenet of linguistics, his invented language would reflect its speakers' cultural character.
"If they're a violent race, I'm going to give them a lot of really harsh sounds," he said. "If they're an ethereal race like elves, I'm going to give them a whispering, hushing sound."
If you buy the game, what's your beef with copy protection?
Informative??? You're an idiot. It is redundant and/or funny.
I am in about the same place you are and am also using Legendary Strike as my primary.
I've tried other styles like white demon. Trust me - depending on what style you are playing, you WILL need to block from time to time. I think what you are running in to is that Legendary Strike is somewhat similar to Thousand Cuts in its speed. Therefore you are on the offensive more often than not and intercepting enemy attacks with your own attacks rather than blocking them.
My 2 cents.
Bottom line I loved this game and had fun, and I'll probably go through it again following the way of the closed fist. The cinematics, production values, and story are all top notch.
Really JE only has one huge problem:
Load Times....just plain awful load times. I found myself "cheating" (switching to easy) just to avoid having to reload yet again. I think about three times I did this; just before boss battles that had UNSKIPPABLE CUTSCENES plus the loading, just plain frustrating.
It felt like the C64 days at times...
But the reset of the game is just so good that I was able to look past it. The PC version may help in this regard.
But to Blizzard: *NEVER NEVER NEVER* MAKE ME WATCH A CUTSCENE EVER NO EXCEPTIONS! If I miss something important, TS for me, but if it's the third time through it just annoys me. The loading, well they could've had some scenes instantly reloadable, other than that I'm not sure what choice they had.
But lest you think otherwise, this game is awesome.
I know Planescape: Torment wasn't a Bioware game, but it still stands out to me as probably the best computer RPG I've played...how does Jade Empire compare to it?
--- Where's my car, and why are these grass stains on my pants?
I can't find the study, but some independent group did some research for the industry a year or two back and found that a large majority of gamers never finished the games they bought.
I'm not much of a roleplaying game guy, but the last major one I played was Fallout 2. While I loved it, frankly I just do not have the time or patience to play through something like that again. 20 hours is just about right (although I think you're being a bit generous). But I clearly recall that much of that Fallout time was spent travelling, going over the same areas, and in combat. Jade Empire speeds up all of those things; it's much more streamlined than most RPGs, and I think that's a good thing.
I want to finish a game. And if I were designing a game, I'd want people to finish it. A movie in a theater costs you ~$5 an hour. Jade Empire, at your 20 hours, cost you only $2.50 an hour. Sounds like a bargain to me, especially considering that you can replay it later differently.
> Your character has three attributes: Body, Mind, and Spirit. In turn, these attributes help determine your consumable personal resources. Body determines Health, Mind determines Chi, and Spirit determines Focus.
I would think Mind would determine Focus, and Spirit would determine Chi. But IANARM (reiki master).
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
I'm having an excellent time playing JE. I have finished quite a few of the side quests in the imperial city, just took the silver championship and am OMW to infilitrate the Lotus Blossom Assassins before I work my way up to the gold championship.
I think the game is a hell of a lot of fun, and quite a bit more engrossing than many I have played (although I did love the PC version of Morrowind and I'm also finally playing the xbox KOTR 1 and enjoying it as well). One thing that annoys me immensely about KOTR 1 is that I don't have Xbox live, and therefore can't get the bug fixes and game updates for it (why should I have to pay a subscription to get bug fixes?). Anyway, I digress...
The dialogue *is* excellently voice acted. The whole bit with the outlander (John Cleese) was hilarious. The combat is fun, but could be a bit more challenging. It's not completely dumbed down but it's also no Soul Caliber. Using the storm dragon style coupled with any other martial style (I'm using leaping tiger) pretty much leads to a "can't lose" versus anything that's stunnable. Like another poster I read, I almost never use blocks, and I don't think I've ever purposefully done a harmonic combo. Most of the time against normal opponents I can easily win just by tossing a few storm dragon strikes to stun them, then pummel them for 5 or 6 secs before stunning them again, rinse and repeat. During the silver championship, Soldier never touched me, he spent the entire time stunned/shocked/getting his ass handed to him. The final fight in the black leopard school was a bit more challenging, until I finally managed to stun Smiling Raven or whatever his name was and then it was all over.
I'm looking forward to playing it again from the beginning and doing a few things differently... number 1, going full closed fist instead of open palm and turning into a grade A bastard, number 2 not learning every single style I happen across and instead focusing on maxing out 3 or 4 bread and butter styles, and finally number 3 not even using Storm Dragon because it's almost like a cheat mode.
All in all, this game was WELL worth the cash, and I can't say that too often anymore. I've spent more money on a lot shitter games.
-- Gary F.
Too bad it's XBox only. I really enjoy playing Neverwinter Nights (one of the few games to run natively on Linux). Jade Empire looks like a great game that I'd play if it ran on my gaming console (Sony PS2) or even on a Linux-based machine (don't have to buy the OS to run it on).
I never thought KOTOR was all that spectacular. I found it rather pathetic actually how limited the game was:
- can fight only those the game let you
- can kill only those the game lets you
- can travel only where the game lets you
And I'm not talking about sensible limitations. I am talking about limitations relating to what menu options are available.
If the game does not think character X is an enemy, you cannot attack him. ?!?!
In Morrowind, The Best RPG I've known thus far, you can:
- fight anyone--though people you're not (yet) meant to fight will almost certainly kill you (but, at least you can try)
- kill anyone--or try anyways; if the character was crucial to the story line, you are informed and encouraged to restore to an earlier save (but you can do it, and if you are *re*-playing, you very well may want to)
- travel anywhere--though places you're not (yet) meant to travel to probably contain creatures that can finish you off quickly
In short, a worthwhile RPG should not have to cheat. If you don't want a guy to do something, but some *natural* obstacles in his way--and if he decides to and manages to "break the game", GOOD! It's more value to the game that suddenly new possibilities are open.
Games of the KOTOR sort, to me, just seem lazily done by less than brilliant story-tellers and programmers. "Hey, here's the three less than brilliant options we thought of; choose one--our game can't handle anything else so we've programmatically prevented you from even trying other stuff."
If Jade Empire is anything like it... thanks, but I'll pass. (Actually, until reading this review and seeing the references to KOTOR, I was looking forward to getting this game.)
Akarsz Magyar Gentoo fórumot? Akkor
It was obviously rushed by Lucasarts for a Christmas release date, and there's even unused remnants of some of the unfinished material in the retail products. If you have the PC version, there are a number of dialog files which greatly expand on the 'ending', and the Xbox version even has an unfinished location present, together with developer notes, which you can access with a hacked gamesave.
If the reviewers had all played the game to completion, I'm sure they would have given the game a significantly worse score. But, because they don't, companies like Lucasarts can get away with rushing the game, as customers will have no idea of the 'unfinished' state until it's too late.
I'm pretty sure that some of the mystery religions of ancient Rome had a pope as well!
So, are you talking about the MITHRAIC pope?
actually mean? Does it mean that the author argues that it was the best Star Wars tale? No; the author is apparently not decisive enough to actually commit himself to such a strong position. Does it mean that someone has argued that it was the best? Well, no; the author is not willing to go quite that far, either. Maybe no one has actually argued that. The author commits himself only to the proposition that someone, somewhere could make such an argument. If they chose to.
Jeez! Just delete the damn word. If you still like the sentence, great. If you don't, then say what you really mean.
It was supposed to be cross platform. They then proceeded to use bink and miles while still hyping up the linux support. All the while they believe that bink and miles are windows only.
After so many years they game is still incomlpete for Linux users.
So, nope, I aint gonna buy it.
...it's not a role-playing game. Only the character's reflexes should matter.
Funny, for most products, such mis-labelling would be well...illegal.
Come on...thow this guy a mod point bone... I got a good chukle.
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
I continue to be annoyed by the persistent use of the category "RPG" to describe video games. It's marketing hype. What particularly annoys me is when people equate the two:
A fantasy or science fiction adventure video game is not an RPG. You are not playing a role - you are moving an avatar around on a screen and mashing buttons.I play video games - as a member of the Nintendo generation, it would be hard to escape them; presently, my 4-year old son and I are playing "Champions of Norrath". The fact that a 4-year old can play one of these games with a moderate level of competence is a testimony to the level of complexity found in an RPG video game; if this video game were an RPG, and my son was expected to assume a role and make decisions for himself, I doubt he would be able to grasp the concept of "free-play but with rules" let alone have any fun at it. Before you get your undies in a bundle, I know that "Champions" is not a particularly complex game - I bring it up because it is, in style, very similar to Baldur's Gate (mentioned in numerous other comments) which is often bronzed and placed on a pedestal by CRPG enthusiasts (until it is no longer vogue). Also, lest anyone think I'm doing all the work in the game, the game play is truly a "team" effort - I chose to play a Wizard and made my son a Barbarian - we are at a point in the game where it would be VERY difficult for me to go it alone and continue to advance if he were not there to back me up. At higher levels it would be nigh on impossible for a wizard to fight and defeat the boss characters alone (it can be done; but not without a *lot* of frustration).
What differentiates a role-playing game from a video game, in my opinion, is the interface and options available to the player and what is at stake when you mess up. The interface in a video game is severely limiting: there are only so many button and key combinations available and when you make a mistake you simply reload the last save point. The interface in a role-playing game is virtually unlimited: your imagination. When you make a mistake in an RPG, you are often stuck with the consequences: it is a disservice to everyone at the table to rewrite history just to make everything turn out favorably for you. Suck it up - make a *new* character and lets go.
These are huge distinctions; the only thing even remotely analagous between the two types of games would be the "munchkin/monty-haul/min-max" style of role-playing in which the players define character development as improved stats through beating monsters/obstacles and gaining treasures(if they define character development at all). Munchkin'ning is still more "RPG" than "grinding" through levels in a video game; in an RPG there is an opportunity to develop a unique character - you are likely to face different obstacles, have to consider your own verbal responses, etc. In a video game, every player ends up with essentially the same character who confronts the same "boss" who says the same things which lead to a fight where the bad guy uses the same tactics which can be overcome with the same technique in order to win. same...same...same...same. ugh.
What I think is interesting is the apparent need in some people to shit on things for no obvious reason. Speaks to a deepseated need to grow up.
At least you were smart enough to go AC with such obvious tripe.
NWN modules are heavily scripted, and do not accomodate significant deviation from that script. At any given point in a conversation with an NPC, there are only a handful of things a player can say. Player motion is limited to "run" and "walk" -- there is no swimming, crawling, jumping, wall climbing, horse riding, flying, etc. If I decide to leave Neverwinter to its own fate and instead look for adventure in some other land, how will the game handle that other than with the "Quit" option?
Sure, there's a DM client that provides additional flexibility, but it's no substitute for a real live DM that can radically alter the nature of the game world on the fly.
-- $SIGNATURE
Most people beat the game in around 24 hours so I question the accuracy of your statement that you are 30 hours into it and nowhere near done. I also completed all available sidequests.
town of Two Rivers
Nightmares of Robert Jordan are flashing in my mind. Has he finished the blasted series yet? Anyone know if he gets paid by the word or something?
Are there any plans for a PC port of this game? It looks interesting. I haven't owned a console since Atari 2600. ;)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Wow, I detect quite a bit of bitterness.
You aren't one of the tiny and sad group of two time, and possibly three time, losers:
Dreamcast->Xbox->Xbox2
are you?
Nothing but sympathy if so retard.
Dungeon Keeper was very short too, and that was also a Microsoft title, IIRC. Maybe there's a pattern here.
Anyway, nice as it looks, I'll be boycotting this MS junk. It's sad to see Bioware getting into bed with MS. Hopefully someone will pickup where they've left off :(
Thousand cuts, Leaping Tiger and Crimson Tears are all quite a bit faster than Legendary Strike.
Also Fortunes Favorite and all the support styles work just as effectively without requiring the use of the block.
I highly doubt this is the case because my gaming skills are beyond l33t.
Its a more a matter of the combat system being unbalanced/shallow.
I seriously doubt that you would need to block at all with any hand to hand style aside from White Demon.
I challenge you all to just not bother using the block move at all and see how you fare. I bet you'll just plow through the game just fine.
The combat whilst more engaging than in KOTOR is most definately not more "fun"
If you are Catholic, then the late John Paul II is now with God and is (presumably) still Catholic, assuming such terms apply in the vastly different context of post-mortem existence. If you're not Catholic, then the Pope is now presumably either Just Plain Dead, With God But Disabused Of His Mistaken Notions, In Hell Repenting His Errors or Reincarnated As A Week-Old Baby And Of No Particular Religious Convictions Just Yet.
Either way, though, the Pope, Benedict XVI, is most definitely Catholic.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
As an avid Hong Kong cinema fan I've been looking forward to this game for quite some time. Unfortunatly it disappoints in almost all arenas.
Its clear that the game is set in a faux-ancient-China. Superficially, most of the designs are very Chinese cinema in flavor (especially at the begining of the game). This includes characters, environs, and general feel. However, the player will quickly discover that resemblance is superficial at best.
One of the biggest selling points of this game for me was a purported complex fighting system that involved Kung Fu styles that your character can learn. Unfortunatly, the game has a sever lack of styles and an even more sever lack of interesting gameplay during fights. Each style only has one combination, that is to say, the fighting system is as deep as mashing the 'A' button repeatedly. In JE you can simply attack and roll around without any fear of retribution. This made the numerous fights in the game nothing more than annoyances that are increasingly irritating as the game goes on. The poor fighting system itself is enough to ruin the game. The team system is entirely useless. Team members are so braindead when used in combat, I found myself simply using them in "support" mode the whole time. In support mode, your teammate meditates during battle adding some positive effect to you while you confront all of the foes.
The story is completely cliche and entirely uninteresting. Not only is it not interesting, it doesn't even maintain roots in Hong Kong cinema. Not content to pull from the rich culture they have available, Bioware decided that they could create a new world with magic and fantastic creatures and amazing sights. The game felt less like "The Invincible Shaolin" and more like "Final Fantasy". In fact, it should be noted that there was a distinctly Final Fantasy X feel during the course of the whole game. This may be what some people are looking for, but this reviewer was left wanting something more.
There were some definitely positive aspects of the game however. The graphics, specifically the environmental graphics and the facial animations were superb. The music was absolutely amazing. In fact I would venture to say that the music was the best part of the game.
Given the choice again, I would not purchase the game. I found it to be very disappointing and not at all what Bioware initially promised it would be. Both the fighting system and the over the top storyline sunk a game that had otherwise good design.
Neural Nets in Python
From this point on PC gaming takes a back seat to consoles. Really HL2 and Doom3 were the pinnicle of that market and it's downhill from here.
Unless you were wondering about why there's no PS2 version, in which case I'd just say Microsoft said "here's a wad of thousand dollar bills as big as your head to develop only for the XBox".
Still, there may be some possibility we'd see Jade Empire on the PS3 (unlikley), the PC eventually (pretty likley) and the Mac (about a year after the PC version).
I only have a PS2 myself but find the rare really good games games I can't get there don't bother me that much.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
$8 for a movie? That's cheap!
Jade Empire was a very good game. I would recommend it to anyone. I just want to point out the negatives. I just wish Bioware learned from their mistakes. But all they did was update their KOTOR engine, and didnt fix things! The worst of it was the load times. I wanted to claw my eyes out going back and forth between areas (sometimes, like the Arena, you spend more time loading areas than fighting). Even saving took abysmally long late in the game. Yes there was some slowdown in high traffic areas, but it wasnt enough for me to really complain about. The fighting could have been better. It was too easy. Yes, I could have kicked it up to grand master level, but I thought it might get harder. There was no need to diversify your fighting skills. With thousand cuts and the sword I was able to slash through the game dying maybe once or twice. I never needed a transform skill, until there was a fight that appeared to be only winnable by a transform. That was the one time I used the Jade Golem. Plus, the fighting is "interactive" I hardly think hitting X repeatedly is interactive. I *NEVER* used the block button and the only reason I rolled was to get closer to an enemy faster than walking. Also, I *NEVER* used magic. I think this could have used more improvement. Maybe this style was good for beginners, but at least give us a choice for a better combat system. I learned a lot skills, but never used them, other than just to see what they looked like. Also, the inventory system, is better than KOTOR simply because there isnt one. In KOTOR there was no need to buy anything, cuz you picked everything up in battles. Going to a shop was useless for items. In Jade Empire, they stripped most of it out. Unless I missed something, I was able to buy a new sword once, later in the game. I think its better to simplify than to overdo the inventory like in KOTOR. It was a short game. I did it in 19 hours, and I did every quest that I came across with the exception of 1 or 2. It almost looked like there was supposed to be more locations, but they were not included - you can see this if you walked out of the gates of the city... there is a map with only 2 places to go. Another thing I wish they got rid of was the pointless rangom urns, chests, etc.. Nothing is more mindless than walkin up to something and grabbing it. Let me get it out of a fight or something. Not to sound like an ignoramous, but there was simply to much to read. I got tired of the long winded dialog and all the things to read. I got bored and just clicked through them. Plus the circular dialog loops could have been fixed since KOTOR, but didnt happen. Another point is the pointless minigames. I didnt like them in KOTOR and I really didnt like them in Jade Empire. I could spend $20 on a arcade classic set if I wanted to play a 2D fighter arcade and mash the bottons. Another downer was the bugs. I came across the quest bug they mentioned in Jade Empire forums. Fortunately, I saved often and load a save game that was not too far back. I also came across one or two others, but were able to continue without them. Why didnt they Live enable this game? KOTOR was live enabled, but they never put out new content or bug fixes. Dont get me wrong, I really liked the game. It just needed some much needed polishing.
Ummm... does make PC games from time to time. I have a copy of Freelancer sitting on my shelves... promising game but rather repetetive and boring over time, still it's an MS PC-based game though.
For my sake I think I should stop buying games that are as long as Bioware games and are as engaging. Darn it, I have tests to take, essays to write, and work to do! I don't need to be trying to balance if I can get just 10 more minutes out of a game!
As for Sky, half the time it is black and white.
This is not the sig you are looking for...
Apropos to this review, I feel like I should mention that I wrote a stupid little Javascript program to automatically generate "Jade Empire" style names. So if you've been jealous of guys named "Sagacious Zu," now is your chance to get even.
"Pope" is a title.
Spelling, grammar, punctuation? We need something that checks logic.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"It also appears that most of the time, regardless of the multiple dialogue options offered, the NPCs will reply with identical messages."
The game features some 300.000+ words of dialog (The Lord of the Rings book Trilogy has somewhat around 400.000 words IIRC) , I think if you expect a different set of options for every answer you make, the result would be an 3.000.000 word game.
Maybe you should lower your expectations.
After playing a few hours, all I can say is this is one of the best RPG for the XBOX but it also reminds me of Fable, I mean it REALLY reminds me of Fable. I REALLY Think they just rewrote the story a little giving it an oriental flavor.
The title should have been Jade Fable.
There's a Dungeon Seige version of Ultima V--search for Lazarus on download.com, and I believe there's a NWN version of Ultima IV. Haven't tried them myself.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
--Give a monkey a hand grenade, and sooner or later he will pull the pin.
:)
define "give" and "monkey" and "hand grenade"
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
An implication statement X implies Y is true, if either X is false or Y is true. In our case, that means as long as everyone either is not Pope or is Catholic, then the implication is true. In particular, if everyone is not Pope, then the statement is true.
I agree with you. The combat system is a major letdown, which makes all the near-perfect scores JE has been getting dubious, to say the least. The game is great, and I enjoy it immensely... but the combat system sucks.
Legendary Strike, for instance, is a slow, sluggish sequence of three moves : punch, roundkick, roundkick. Whatever you do, this is the sequence. It's slow, it looks like crap, and is not exciting.
It gets better when you speed it up with XP, but all in all, the combat system is a bad feature in an otherwise well-polished game.
I would like to applaud Bioware for some of the things they did in this game. It seems that doing their own IP has unleased their writers from their chains and that they can now create RPGs for the adult audience.
....
... so much more than he appeared to be if you played through the Arena. And Sky's romance was awesome.
Example (small SPOILERs):
- Many morally complicated and ambigous situations.
Right at the start of the game you meet Gao, who is portrayed as a rich snob evil bully - but after you finish the game and think about it, you will find out that while he was rich and a snob, he actually had quite a point to have issues with you
Also the "orphanage" plot in the second chapter is one of the most emotionally gripping moments I have ever experienced in a computer game. The choices for it were tough and I felt dirty after trying out the closed fist solution to the plot. Very impressive.
- Same sex romances. I find it impressive that they put fully developed same sex romances into the game. Not just your usual easter egg kind of weird situation but fully developed romances with believable dialog and characters that support it.
- The "kiss" cutscene. Finally. Movies had this forever, but Jade Empire made the first properly done romance conclusion in game cinematics I have seen. Awesome
- Followers. Wow. Wildflower is downright creepy and the Black Whirlwind was
I'm just happy to see that in times where most companies go for the cheap shot pseudo adult market (DOA) or the early teenies (Hasbro's new D&D strategy), Bioware has the balls to produce a title caters to real adults.
And yes, I'm a girl.
It's so funny watching a character try to get from point A to point B in some of the in-game cutscenes. They'll sprint about 2 feet, stop abruptly, rotate, sprint another two feet, stop, rotate again, etc. It looks absolutely ridiculous. The combat in this game also is just no fun. Your character moves so slowly when you're locked on to an enemy. On top of that, you have to be practically bumping into your enemy for your hits to connect. Before you can use your ultra fast Thousand Cuts fighting style you have to slowly inch up to your enemy. This becomes especially frustrating when you stun your enemy with a support style and then you try to hit them while they're vulnerable. By the time you get within striking range the effect has almost worn off. Jade Empire is very much a standard RPG. You get to a town, talk to everybody, get a million stupid sidequests that have nothing to do with your main quest, finish the one required quest to move on to the next chapter. Rinse and repeat.
You know what the word "is" means that's the first verb you learn in any language. It's the verb "to be" the verb of existance, it's why you went out to get your winky whacked.
*sighs* You know if it weren't for my horse I wouldn't have spent that year in college.
"Genius may shine aloof and alone, like a star, but goodness is social, and it takes two men and God to make a Brother."
Yes, the name's Trent.
But why is this? I was under the impression that this was the reason DirectX existed - to abstract the interface form the hardware, so developing for the PC was more like developing for a console.
These days, with the availability of high-level APIs, does this excuse really stack up? Or is it just a convenient games-industry euphamism for "Microsoft kept throwing money at us until we agreed"?
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
Yeah, Microsoft sure is pioneering with the whole "console exclusive" idea. Never seen that before. Ever.
Sure it's been done for ages. I just wanted to explain what was happening in this case.
Since Sony is a japanese company, I always imagined the persuasion from them would come more in the form of Ninjas. Microsoft is still new at this so all they have to offer is wads of money.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When there's no Pope, "Pope is Catholic" is not a true statment, now is it?
Well taking your line of reasoning to its logical conclusion; since Pope Benidict XVI was selected last week, is your comment currently relevant or meaningful in any way?;)
I'm still looking for a good multi player mod for NWN on PC.
Sure single great, but utterly sucks for multi (not enoug things to kill, plot breaks all over, no random monsters, not enough XP)
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
The number of words does not matter it's how they chose to use those words.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.