When you think about great western role playing games Bioware's work immediately springs to mind. Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR it's almost a who's who of the genre in the 21st Century. Well their latest game Jade Empire is in the same vein as some of those games, if not necessarily in the same genre. When you're as established as Bioware it's hard not to be compared to your own work and this would weigh any game down but taken on it's own this is a great action-role playing game that really improves a sub-genre of role playing that had gotten more than a little stale. It's not perfect and it may not be quite as good as some of Bioware's previous classics but taken on it's own merits this game delivers the goods. Unlike Previous games from Bioware this game isn't based on a licensed property but rather is a brand new IP. The game is set in a mythical ancient China with all the trappings associated with that. And this new land is rendered pretty darn well. The Character models are all very well done and are impressively animated moving with a certain fluidity and grace. They move through a beautifully rendered environment with lots of varieties from the pastoral Two Rivers region where the game starts to the grandeur of Palaces to the horror of dungeons this game has some great looking environments. Another nice thing to mention is the use of a wide selection from the color palette. They really used some very vibrant colors which help give the game a lived in feel. But for all that they did right their were things they could have improved upon. For one thing they seized heavily on the trend of using lots of bloom and generally it's used well. Occasionally this game like Fable before it over does it and characters start to look reflective. The other fly in the ointment is that for all the games great graphics it does suffer from a few frame rate hiccups as lots of things are happening on the screen. To be honest there is not much memorable about the game's soundtrack. For good or bad. Everything sounds pretty much like you'd expect in a game about Martial arts. However one positive note about it is the voice acting is pretty good. It's not exceptional but it's pretty good; one of the best points about it is there is a whole lot of it. It does help bring life to the characters but this level of voice acting is starting to become par for the course. Then we get to this game's game play which is you guessed it, a mixed bag. The innovation here that separates this game from the pack of Bioware games is it is an action-RPG. That is to say that the combat takes place in real time, there is none of that turn-based stuff here. The fighting takes place in a variety of styles from hand to hand Kung Fu, to swords, or spells whatever is up your alley. You can even get a gun if you're so inclined to use one. The trouble with this is, well it's easy, it's ridiculously easy. I think I had to reload more than once on about 4 fights throughout the game despite the ridiculous odds you're facing in most fights. The good side to these styles is there are a lot of them and you're bound to find one you like. The down side is a lot of them feel just there to be there. I beat the game without having too much trouble using 4 of the first 5 or so styles you get. They may offer a hojillion styles but you're gonna need to focus on upgrading a few so most of them won't be used in one play through. You've got a party of characters whom you can draw on one at a time. Trouble with this is most of them aren't terribly useful and I pretty much used one character, the first one you get the whole game. You can't control the members of your party in combat you can either set them to fight or have them in the more useful support stance which grants your character a bonus to their stats or recharges one of their meters. Like other Bioware RPGs, this game starts a bit slow so you'll need to stick through the first chapter and a half (about 4-5 hours) before you're really gonna know if you like the game, so don't quit on this one if it's not grabbing you right away as the story takes a bunch of time to get through the exposition. One last minor quibble I had with the game, it doesn't really have an inventory to speak of. You can buy a few statistical modifiers but that's about it, don't expect to see any healing items or anything of that nature that we take for granted in a role-playing game. It's not necessarily a bad idea but I didn't really like it so much. I'd have liked to have seen a more traditional inventory management system. The game's story is very good for an action-rpg. While this isn't gonna stand toe to toe with KOTOR or Baldur's Gate 2 in the story department it's got a pretty good one. Without giving too much away this is a classic revenge story but with a few twists along the way to keep it interesting. You'll do all sorts of things on the way from fighting demons to keeping the forces of the emperor at bay. The biggest complaint I have with the story is it's really really short. My save game time was under 15 hours, given a small bit of repetition My actual time was probably around 17-18 total hours from Soup to nuts. Admittedly I left a few quests on the table because once the main quest grabbed me I didn't want to go off and do something for a trivial reward. I'd really have liked for the story to be a bit longer and have the characters fleshed out more but I suppose i wouldn't like filler in the game either. I was happy with the game's morality system but like KOTOR it is a bit on the comic book side. You're either a paladin, a self-centered guy or a total jerk. Take your pick, it works in the mythical setting as that kind of story isn't prone to shades of gray like you'd see in Deus Ex or something but it'd be nice to see Bioware take another step with this idea. The game's characters are pretty good even if most of them are pretty thin and archetypal. I really enjoyed almost everyone of the characters and they've all got some surprises buried up their sleeves so to speak. Like KOTOR your interaction with them will be done through dialogue trees and the more you chat with them the more you'll learn about the game. Unfortunately I didn't run into any Character quests like KOTOR although I'll admit I may have missed some of them. They had a lot of stuff I liked including a love story which was really nice too. All in all, this game is a bit better than the sum of it's parts. The combat really could have used some work but it's better than a lot of RPGs. The story could have used some real improvements but they're a heck of a lot better than stuff like Diablo or Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance. Keeping that in mind, Jade Empire definitely warrants a rental as it's very good. Purchasing it is going to be more to taste, if you feel you'd want to play this type of game over and over again it's worth the price, if not play it once and be done with it. You won't have seen everything the first time so there is potential there. Despite it's problems this is one of the best Action-RPG's I've ever played.
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