|
Jade Empire
The game plays as
good as it looks. It’s not just one of those games that has great eye
candy, but is a dog in its game play. No not at all. Jade Empire
surprisingly has a lot going for it. Great visuals, great game play,
great sound, great music, great story line, and here it is for the Xbox.
What more can one ask for? If all of this was not enough there is
martial arts action, interesting characters and magic abound. Ok you
have me hooked. Now I have to admit, for me when I saw the demo of the
game, it actually almost turned me off. It is not until playing the full
game with more of its story line and options to start a character was I
sold on Jade Empire.
It seems like the creative team over at BioWare never get tired of
turning out some of the best games around, and I hope they continue to
keep them coming.
Jumping right into the meat of the matter Jade Empire mixes Elements of
Kungfu movies, mythology and aspects of role playing. The combination
results in a rather intriguing game. The character you play is an orphan
with a past that is shrouded from you. The character lives at a training
school and the master of the school knows a lot of your past and the
answers to the secrets that are far from your reach.
In no time though your character is thrust into an adventure of epic
proportions. Using not only combat, and magic skills, but conversational
skills as well. In the beginning you get to make the choice of a
character type you want to play in the game. To kick things off you get
a choice of three male or female ready made character templates. Each
one of these has a different set of skills emphasizing a fighting style
such as brawling, a fist stylist or a magic using character…or the
ultimate in a character class a combination of the types rolled into
one. While the templates are all preset, the player does get the chance
to tweak the attributes a bit. The main attributes are Body which
translates into total health for the character, mind which translates
into magic powers, and then spirit which ties in with the characters
focus abilities.
It does not stop there with the physical attributes alone; there are
different fighting styles also. On top of the martial art style the
character also has something called a support style. As the player moves
on in the game their character is able to learn other skills such as
weapon skills, and magics and transformation skills.
The fighting styles are plentiful and enough to please just about
anyone’s playing preferences. The Martial styles are more direct and as
the name implies is unarmed combat. The styles vary in the damage they
do so choose wisely. Magic styles draw directly from the pool of Chi and
will do damage to an enemy. The magic style also can cause other effects
on a targeted enemy, and the effects can last longer than a conventional
attack. Weapon styles use a weapon, but the down side is that this style
draws on your focus. So using it in long battles is not advised. The
Transformation style enables the player’s character to absorb the spirit
of an enemy that they defeat and gives the character the fallen foes
special attacks and abilities. Then the support style, this style does
no damage to the enemy but with proper use the player can enhance the
characters other styles and then they can stun or slow down an enemy o
even paralyze them in their tracks.
There are a lot of things that can be done during combat, including
leaping over the enemy and attacking form the other side, or even
leaping into them with an attack. Rolling away or leaping and flipping
backwards to avoid an attack is rather fun also. Stringing different
attacks together can mean the difference between finishing off the enemy
or your character laying in defeat. Harmonic combos are very useful.
Using a support attack to slow the enemy down and then finish them off
with a martial art attack. Mastering the system means finishing the
enemy off in rather satisfying ways.
The player has a chance to choose what path they want, going with the
good guys or going down that path with the bad guys. There are plenty of
reasons to make Jade Empire a game to play a couple times more after
finishing it the first time. Some of the missions can only be accessed
by certain alignments and several of the styles are specific in what
philosophy they are aligned with. As if this was not enough there are
three different endings and each one of these are very different from
one another. So no one is left out there is a good ending, an evil
ending and one that is for the neutral.
While the first part of the game is pretty standard in the respects that
it takes the player in sort of a tutorial mode, things pick up pretty
darn fast soon after this. The action from one mission to the next is at
break neck speed at times. Or it may just have been my eagerness to get
to the next chapter of events that comes up in game play. The game
intrigues you so much you almost don’t want to put it down.
Sprinkled throughout the adventure and interesting story line are hordes
of enemy. Some times you just have a bad go at it and your butt is
handed to you by these enemies. So, it is a good thing that throughout
the game the character has the chance to pick up some followers who will
aid them on these quests. Some of them fight along side, and still
others provide support or sell goods to you. All of them have some sort
of back story to make them a little more personal to the player’s
character. This is a very welcome thing since knowing abit about other
characters gives you more of a feeling of caring about what happens to
them.
Voice acting in the game like most games can be a hit or miss, but for
the most part the line delivery from the actors is very well done and
lends itself well to the over all production of the game. Other sounds
in the game such as the ambient sounds are all well done and make the
world more real for the player. The fighting sounds are also well done
and conjure forth memories of old kungfu movies; the sounds are all very
pleasing.
Graphically Jade Empire is absolutely a site to see. It’s one of those
games that if you’re not careful your character will be killed off
because you’re too busy looking at how spectacular everything looks.
There are a few games that have come out this year also that raise the
graphic bar a bit higher, but Jade Empire certainly holds its own.
Now repeat after me, Hot graphics, awesome and entertaining game play,
kick butt combat, and a story line that actually grabs hold of you and
may not let go until the final quest is complete…all of it ads up to a
spectacular game. Grab the special limited edition and get an extra disk
with some demos and also the making of Jade Empire courtesy of G4 video
game television.
Have fun, play games
Edwin Millheim
 |
