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Jade Empire

Sam looks at Bioware's eastern odyssey...

The far-east is resplendent in mythology and fantastical stories so it's odd that is very rarely utilised as inspiration for RPGs. The last game that bore any similarity to an RPG with Eastern flavouring was the exorable Blade & Sword. Now the leading western developer of RPGs has crafted their new game from the arcane mystery that typifies tales from the Far East. As well as searching pastures new for their storyline BioWare have broken with RPG convention and made the combat a wholly real-time affair. Yet for all its braveness in design, is Jade Empire actually going to appeal to BioWare's core audience?

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In a bold move against the standards of the genre, Jade Empire does not begin with the player's character in a prison or waking up from a long coma suffering with amnesia. The game begins at Master Li's training school, your home since before you can remember, and gently introduces the player to the various individuals that live at the school and its surrounding village. The first few hours are spent learning the game's controls and interface while absorbing as much background on the gameworld as you can handle. Sure enough though, some bad people come along and things kick off in a viciously spectacular fashion. BioWare are to be applauded for this different approach, even if it's not long before things revert to RPG type as you come to learn that you are a chosen one whose destiny it is to save the world from the clutches of an evil tyrant and his equally unpleasant henchman. The story that unfolds in Jade Empire tends to conform to the standards a little too much for my liking, especially after such a refreshing start. I've played this kind of character, the loner with an unusual provenance and an even more fantastic destiny, so many times that I'd actually be more interested in playing a dustman called Sid as he goes about his day, tries to pay his bills on time and pull the barmaid down at his local pub. RPG developers have been getting away with rehashing the same story types for a quarter of a century now, and while it may be a bit unfair on Jade Empire, I've had enough. A little more originality in future please.

Still, while it's the same familiar story archetype rolled out puffing and wheezing once more, BioWare do tend to know how to present their stories very well. So when things are still obviously in need of some more work they are likely to be more noticeable than if they came form another development team. For example, the expositional cutscenes which are such an obligatory part of modern RPGs are a hit and miss affair. Your ability to skip them is apparently determined at random, with some short scenes by-passable while other meandering monologues are mandatory, even if you've seen them a couple of times already. While the quality of the images is very good, they are often rather boring to watch. The camera is usually static and is used about as creatively as a hammer on a nail. The conversations in the game are practically screaming out for some more animations. As there's so much talking in this game that the prospect of watching yet another pair of near-motionless characters waffle away about the history of the Jade Empire and their part in the story is enough to make Coronation Street seem a slightly more appealing alternative. The camera never moves anywhere and is never used to accentuate the action or draw the player's attention to details in the background. That last is probably because there isn't that much in the way of detail in the backgrounds. Except for the main areas of the Imperial City, the world of the Jade Empire seems like a sterile place. Maybe that's a result of the sanitation required after the plague that seems to have wiped out most of its citizens. Hopefully one day an RPG developer will not only detach the camera from a fixed point and use it to explore the richness of the gameworld but they will also populate their worlds to look a little fuller than a Marie Celeste's survivor's reunion.

While the story's attempts to forge a new path are ultimately doomed to failure thanks to its adhesion to an overly familiar archetype, the gameplay is markedly different from any other RPG I've come across. Jade Empire is billed as an action RPG and it mostly manages to live up to this definition. Rather then passively watching animations as the CPU determines the outcome of combat the player's skill with the controller determines the outcomes of Jade Empire's battles. No more pausing the action to line up a series of attack moves or spells, every fighting move is carried out under the player's direct control. In effect this leaves us with a curious hybrid between a fighting game and a typical RPG. Kicks and punches along with ranged attacks and buffs are all just a button press away. At first it's a wonderfully liberating experience to be in actual control over your character.

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1. YES FIRST COMMENT

   WELL IVE PLAYED JADE EMPIRE AND IS A WILDELY WICKID GAME THAT IS AWSOME AND BIO WARE DID REALY GOOD ON THIS GAME

   JJ Wednesday, 20 July 2005, 05:57:3

2. You guys suck.

   Someone that has a clue Sunday, 6 November 2005, 11:55:52

3. uummmm does it work on pc ;-)

   morsopan Saturday, 31 December 2005, 03:47:56