A great RPG, especially for those who don't normally play this genre.
User Rating: 9.3 | Jade Empire: Hisui no Teikoku XBOX
Jade Empire is the new RPG from the king of RPG's, Bioware. It does in most respects have the same qualities of other Bioware games, but this time around is in a mythical, ancient Japanese setting. Jade Empire can be compared to a game like KOTOR easily. The pause menu is almost identical in it's structure, and as well as the interface. But this tine around, Bioware has gone in the direction of a highly action-RPG. It's combat is certainly unlike any other games, but once you come to think of it, it is quite a shallow combat sytem. In the game there are many styles to choose from, the categories being: weapon, martial arts, magic, transformation. But the dissapointing thing is, there are no counter-attacks, blocks, nor any cool grabs or throws. There are not even any combos. It's just bare-bones tapping on A, and X to break through a block barrier, and b to block. There are some evasion attacks in which you have to press two buttons, but that's pretty much it. But at least the styles add a generous amount of depth to the game's combat, but most definitely don't make up for the bare-bones combat. Let's stop being negative here, what are the good aspects of Jade Empire? Well, pretty much everything else. You start the single-player game and you get to choose a character, but sadly, you can't customize him or her's appearance like in KOTOR or other Bioware games. But you can still level up your character's stats at the beggining of the game, and during the game when you level up. Also, like in KOTOR, you have to get a number of "experience points" to level up, then upgrade your character's stats. You also get, like in KOTOR (once again), you get the good and evil meter, but now good it "open palm" and making your character bad is "closed fist". Everything here adds to the open-ended nature of this game. The story of this game is a great one. It first opens up as predictable and boring, but then unravels into a complex mystery of your characters past. I won't add any details about the story, because I don't want to spoil it. Despite this game's lack of a great combat system, that doesn't mean that there can't be a marvellous atmosphere and scenery. You start off in a town, which you may think is beautiful, but wait until you get to the sprawling mountains and stupendously amazing scenery. The atmosphere could have been more interactive, but who the hell cares? This game will literally take your breath away. Bioware has definitely gone the extra mile towards the games mythical, ancient Japanese world, and they have taken the scenic route (wink wink, nudge nudge). Scenery like this lives up to the quality of a game like Myst: Revelation. The game's graphics are, surprisingly, probobaly the best part of Jade Empire, and the atmosphere and scenery definitely make them so. And if you thought that the atmosphere is where the superb graphics quality ends, then you're wrong. This game has some amazingly imaginative and overall awesome character models. Just look at the screenshots and see for yourself. The sound in this game is also utterly superb. The voice acting is amazing, as well as the voiceovers, and the SFX are great. The music is probobaly the best part of this game's aural display, and adds to the mood AND theme of the game, which some games don't bother to do. Overall, this game is one of the greatest games to come in 2005, and I think certainly lived up to the hype, in a much more surprising way. I think that this is the game that people that don't usaually play RPGs will enjoy, because of the easy-to-get-into combat. And this is also great for RPG vets because of the brilliant role-playing and atmosphere. So I guess you can say, this is a game for virtually anyone, especially those who normally don't play this genre. Yep, this is an extremely unique game, one that you probobaly won't find anywhere else. 
