My new gaming rig’s coming in this week and I’d like something with a different flavour to compliment “Supreme Commander.”
I loved “Knights of the Old Republic.” So, I’m thinking of snagging “Jade Empire.” Has anyone played it? Thoughts? Reviews? Comparisons?
It has some good points; it’s very action oriented. In fact, it’s not much of an RPG. You will spend the entire game fighting, and diplomacy and such play only a small part in it. That’s pretty much the bad points, too. It’s fun, but I wouldn’t shell out full rpice for it. It’s also considerabley shorter than KoTOR and, of course, has the infamous Bioware Twist along the way.
I thought it was okay, but not great. The combat system wasn’t as smooth as I would have liked. The idea is you have regular martial arts attacks, magic attacks, and attacks using a weapon but the use of these three didn’t come together very well. The writing was the usual Bioware standard; the dialog is their usual pick between the saccharinely saintly “good” dialog choice, the bland “neutral” choice, or the obnoxiously rude “evil” choice.
I thought those actually worked well enough, you just have to get smooth at switching between them. I assume it was slightly easier on the original gamepad as opposed to a keyboard.
It does have flaws ( the “Storm Dragon” support style is gamebreakingly overpowered ), but all in all I thought it was a reasonably well-implemented system.
With the added bonus that unlike, say, Galactic Civilizations II, being “neutral” is completely useless :D. This was even more irritating in this particular game, as the supposed dichotomy is phrased philosophically as not really being about good and evil. But they obviously are. And being evil in Bioware games mostly means being a petty-ass punk.
However…predictable twist aside ( if you’ve ever played a Bioware game ), I thought the basic plot was fairly decent and it’s a pretty game. And relationship-wise ( spoilered just in case, but not really shockingly revelatory )…
…you can not only have a gay or lesbian romance, but as a straight guy you can also swing a ( rather anti-climactic ) threesome :p.
It is rather short, though.
For me I’d say it’s enjoyable enough to be worth buying unless you are on tight budget, in which case wait for the bargain bin.
Short, fairly linear but fun.
I acutally liked it more than KotOR, but then, I wasn’t all that impressed by KotOR in the first place, so that’s not saying a whole lot. I wouldn’t pay full price for it, that’s for sure.
I just finished the Xbox 360 version, which was definitely worth what I paid for it (13 dolla!), and I’m sure the PC version isn’t all that different.
If you liked KOTOR, you will like this. It was KOTOR in China. (I liked it better, actually, but I get bored of the Star Wars universe.)
Expect more of the same: simple, but fun. You get the cheesy, artificial good-or-evil dichotomy just like in KOTOR. Storyline’s nothing special, but it’s sufficient. Combat is simplistic but cool to watch. I will say I like the romances way better than the KOTOR ones… especially when you turn your object of affection a little more “evil”. 
All in all, it’s no Fallout or Baldur’s Gate, but it’s a fun little time-waster. If you’ve got a 360, just get it on Half.com or Amazon for like 15 bucks, but I’d wait on the PC version to come down a lot.
You can definitely tell it was an X-Box port. They did a pretty good job on the control scheme and being able to load in a full 10 styles for quick switching is nice, but at times there can be major camera problems and other things that might be easier to fix with a controller. It’s not a bad game but awfully short. Personally, I generally prefer my RPGs in the roll-type combat system and not the action-type combat system.
I actualy liked the “action” type combat system. I wasn’t sure if I would like it, but I actualy did, and have played it more than once. As others have said, if you liked other bioware games, you will like this one.
Hey, what can you say about a game where one of the quests involves winning an argument with John Cleese :cool:Thanks for the input, guys!
I must admit the one thing which bothered me most was their pretensions of not doing it good/evil. It was blatantly good/evil, and moreso, pansy-wuss good versus (as Tamerlane so accurately stated) petty-ass punk evil. What bothered me was that you could very easily have done a Path of CLossed Fist as a heroic route; they just didn’t.
yeah… this is my major problem with BioWare games. Their versions of good and evil are pretty hard to swallow. You’re either like “Of course I will help you find your missing cat! I don’t mind that I should be out saving the world at all; I love kitties!! tralala”, or “Fuck you and fuck your diseased ugly cat sideways with a chainsaw! Suck corpsecocks and die!!!” :rolleyes:
In Knights of the Old Republic II an NPC actually gives you a long spiel about doing other people’s quests for them, thus becoming stronger while they remain weak. I thought, wow, the game just lectured me about being an XP whore.
I actually wanted to be a good-guy manipulator (sort of) encouraging people to be strong, then backing them up when they needed real help getting off the ground, and fixing things myself when I had to. There were a few opportunities to do that, but I wish there had been more.
If I ever make a NWN module, I am so putting that in there somewhere.
I would be honored.