Bioware's Jade Empire Coming To the PC

They did mention on the official forum that they needed a wee-bit more time for polishing. Can't get a straight answer out of the devs on widescreen support, though.

 

Well I'm sure we're all for a month of extra polishing.

I don't see why they wouldn't include widescreen support since this was originally an xbox game, although we've seen stranger things left out in various ports (like gamepad support). I'd take heart in the fact that this game kinda sorta runs on Aurora which to my knowledge always supports every mode available to your monitor. Except maybe KOTOR.. I recall they added 12x10 in a patch to that one. Anyway not my problem all I need is 12x10

 

Derek French, the game's technical producer, popped into the official forums and stated that Jade supports WS without stretching or cut-off views. Woot! It's also being released on DVD, another plus.

 

Great news on both counts. I'd been wondering which project French was on...

 

i'm certainly peeing myself in anticipation of this one. it was difficult to resist the original release, preferring to wait for the PC release. :9~

 

The game is at CES.

 

Posted on the official forums today:

Minimum System Requirements
Windows XP
* Pentium 4 1.8 GHz or AMD Athlon 1800XP
* 512 MB RAM
* 8 GB free HD space
* 1x or better DVD-ROM drive
* NVIDIA GeForce 6200 or ATI 9500 or better (Shader Model 2.0 required)
* 100% DirectX 9.0 compatible sound card and drivers.
* DirectX 9.0

Recommended System Requirements
Windows XP
* 3 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
* 1 GB RAM
* 8 GB free HD space
* 1x or better DVD-ROM drive
* ATI X600 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series, or higher recommended
* 100% DirectX 9.0 compatible sound card and drivers.
* DirectX 9.0

 

New screenies and videos: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/jadeempire/screenindex.html

 

GOLD!

 

Sweet!

Derek French, Jade's technical producer, chimed in with this post over on the official forums concerning Vista compatibility:

 

One thing I hope they changed in the game is if you decide to play the bad guy. I remember you have to be a complete psycho and that didn't settle too well with me. I mean, to me, if I'm going to be bad (in a game) I'm gonna be a smart ass and hurt a few folks, but not deliberately kill something I normally wouldn't.

 

http://www.steamgames.com/v/index.php?area=game&AppId=7110&cc=US

Another notch in Steam's bedpost.

 

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/jadeempire/review.html?sid=6166271&tag=topslot;title;1

A 7.8 score isn't too shabby.

 

Please somone assure me combat in this and KotOR is apples and oranges. I mean no turn based combat, or non of that silly pausing mid-combat to plot out attacks. Also in terms of actual size of the world, hopefully it will borrow nicely from KotOR respectively in that sense, and be rather sizeable.

 

This one's an action game, not a full-bore RPG.

 

Jade Empire definately does not use anywhere near the same combat engine as KOTOR, and the fighting in Jade Empire is definately very action-oriented. I'd say that KOTOR might be a tad bit bigger, but at the same time I never felt like I was closed in while playing Jade Empire.

Edit: I'd also like to say that I'm surprised that the game is getting fairly low scores from places like GameSpot and IGN when it received much higher scores from those same sites for its release on Xbox... Either way, I just want to assure anyone looking at the game that it's a great experience and an excellent story.

 

I wasn't too impressed with this game when I played it back on Xbox. It was WAY over-rated. IGN gave it a 9.9 IIRC. I'd personally give it a 6.5 or maybe 7.0.

The developers stated they wanted to make it more interesting than just picking the "good" or "bad" side. Basically, your character becomes aligned either to the way of "Open Palm" or "Closed Fist". They were intended to be different philosophies. Open Palm is compassionate and humble, Closed Fist is focused on strength and power. However, they really just boil down to good vs. evil anyway. The only way to be Closed Fist is to be a complete asshole/sociopath. I.E. an elderly lady will ask you to rescue her cat for her. . . you can choose either to help her out and refuse the reward (Open Palm), or skin the cat, sell the skin to a fur trader, and then punch the old lady in the face for good mesure (Closed Fist). Obviously that particular quest isn't actually in the game, but the ones in the game aren't too much better than that.

Considering this game was supposed to be about Kung Fu, the combat system was pathetic. It always boils down to jumping around like a maniac, mashing on the attack button, and keeping your fingers crossed that no off-screen enemies will hit you with cheap-ass projectile attacks. There's no rhyme or reason to it. You learn new "styles" over the course of the game (like 25 of them IIRC), but there is way less variety than it seems. 5 magic styles, 5 transformation styles, 5 hand-to-hand styles, 5 weapon styles, and 5 "tactical" type styles (that do status effects and the like). The hand-to-hand styles are all merely different compromises of speed vs. power. You are way better off picking one hand-to-hand style and dumping all your points into it, rather than mixing it up. The weapon styles are all pretty much useless because they drain so much stamina. Transformation styles look cool but aren't very effective. The "tactical" styles are really a waste of time. I TRIED hard to play this game in a strategic way, changing attack styles and trying to take advantage of weak points, trying to drain my enemies' stats and such, but it was always more effective to just pick one hand-to-hand style and slam on the attack button over and over. It should also be noted that, although you can upgrade all the styles, they don't fundamentally change very much. You can increase their speed + damage slightly and decrease their mana consumption, but that's about it. It's not like e.g. Diablo 2 where you are constantly learning awesome new techniques and significantly powering up the old ones. Basically, the hand-to-hand style you select at the very beginning is likely the primary style you will use for the entire game.

Jade Empire is also way more linear than previous Bioware games. You arrive at a town, get a bunch of sidequests from people who are all just standing around waiting for their hero to come along, do the one key quest to finish the chapter, and then move on to the next (pre-determined) town.

The Chinese-style plot and setting sounded really cool to me, but in the end it felt really cheesy. It seemed more like caricatures of Chinese culture like you would see in bad Kung Fu movies. I found the setting harder to get into than I expected it would be.

Overall, Jade Empire isn't a TERRIBLE game, it's just way overrated and not worth my time.

 

I'm really interested in picking this up, but some of the comments I've read are disheartening. I think I read on Gamespot's forums that you're unable to create your own character, which KOTOR allowed you to do, and have to stick to picking one of however many premade characters there are. Is that true? Also, there's no inventory? How is that even handled? How large, in terms of the world, is the game compared to KOTOR?

 

Ink:

Yes, it's true that you have to choose a pre-made character. Yes it's true that there isn't really an inventory. Basically by choosing one of the pre-made characters you're choosing what your character looks like, what fighting styles they start with, and that's about it. You still build your character. As for the inventory, you don't really need it because you don't get weapons or armor, just these little stone things that buff your stats. In some ways, the lack of weapons and armor to get can be thought of as "rpg-lite", but it's really not... The storyline, character advancement in terms of skills and stats, and the small amount of item equipping you can do work well with this game.

As for the size of the game world, I'd have to say that it's definately smaller than KOTOR, however I don't know if I can really give an accurate description of how much smaller since it's been a while since I've played Jade Empire. I suppose the best way I can describe it is how I felt while playing the game... I do remember thinking that the game was going to be over a bit too quickly for my tastes when I realized that I was nearing the end, but the game doesn't feel unfinished at all, just a bit short. (20-25 hours or so) I can also honestly say that I never really felt like the world was too small, as there were plenty of new and interesting places I was able to visit. So even though I know the world is smaller than in KOTOR, I also know that it didn't really bother me while playing the game.

I'd recommend giving it a try. It had a good story, and if you liked KOTOR then chances are you'll enjoy Jade Empire as well. Just remember that this game is more action-oriented and you actually have to fight in real-time, as opposed to to the KOTOR fighting system of choosing actions and letting your characters carry them out.

 

So it's basically super fighter with quests and stats?