November 15, 2005

Jade Empire

On Friday I passed by Best Buy and picked up a copy of Jade Empire. It was only $19.99, and since this was a game I always meant to play, I figured what the hell.

I’m about 10 hours into the game and I am thoroughly enjoying it, but I’m amazed at some of the review scores this game received when it came out. 9.9 from IGN. 9.7 from TeamXbox. The game is good, but those are some pretty high scores. This game is basically Knights of the Old Republic set in a fictional Asian-style universe and with real-time combat. But, KotoR was absolutely fantastic, so that’s not really a knock against this game. It is just that after KotoR, Jade Empire might be a little too similar. We have the same long and constant load times, same conversation system (which is very good, but flawed), and the same good/evil game mechanic, which again ultimately feels extremely shallow and cosmetic since the game basically plays the same regardless of which path you chose: the open palm or closed fist. Disappointing.

The graphics are far better than KotoR, but this is also tied with one of the game's biggest flaws. As with KotoR, the environments are completely un-interactive. You have a set pathway you may walk through but there are invisible walls everywhere. The environments feel like Resident Evil’s prerendered ones. They look nice, but you’re basically walking through invisible hallways. Areas you think you can go to are not accessible and so the whole world begins to feel extremely artificial after a while.

The gameplay can be pretty predictable and repetitive as well. You go to a new area, you talk to everyone to get info and quests, then you leave the town and enter the combat segments, followed by more conversations, rinse, repeat. Standard RPG fare, but it is getting dated.

And yet, even with its overly simplistic design, I cannot stop playing. Something compels me to keep going . It’s the same addictive quality all RPG’s share. I enjoy powering up my character. I want to see that next section and there is never a moment when I actually want to stop playing. After all is said and done the game is just fun to play. I don’t think I can play another game using this mechanic though. I never played KotoR 2, but after playing the original and now Jade Empire, the engine is getting a bit tiresome, so I don’t think I would be able to play another full game using it unless major changes are done.

So, Jade Empire is a very solid RPG, which would be fantastic if it didn’t play so similar to KotoR. I haven’t finished it yet, so I don’t want to give it a final score, but so far it is looking like a solid 8.

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