I've played about six hours of Jade Empire, the new RPG from Bioware (xbox only). My save game is a bit over 3 hours into the game, as I spent the first couple trying different characters to find the one whose fighting style I liked most.
The first thing to know about characters is that, I think, they are all the same. The game comes with a bunch of premade characters with certain attributes and development trees. But you can customize each to anything you want, thus leaving you with the choice of your character's look, as all abilities can be whatever you want.
This game is basicly Start Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in an old China story with a fighting game style. It looks a bit better than SW: KOTOR, behaves the same (down to the dialogs) but fighting is no longer a turn-based thing. It's a button masher thing... kinda.
Pros and cons so far:
Pros
- Great story (so far).
- Looks amazing.
- Characters have very life-like facial movements during dialogs. Sometimes you'd think you can reads the words off their lips!
- Combat is accessible to the masses (you don't have to be a punk 16 year-old with god-like reflexes to win a fight) while remaining complicated enough and plenty diverse.
- "Every choice you make changes the world around you and how people percieve you." You can be "good" or "evil" and it changes the story, the dialogs, everything!
Cons
- Camera. Always camera. I always end up in a situation, usually in the middle of a fight, where the camera is exactly in the wrong place. And since you control the camera with the same thumb as you fight with, I end up button mashing and hoping for the best (which usually works, too).
- Story is pretty linear. There are some side quests available, but they are "overshadowed" by the main quest. For instance: a side quest recieved as I was heading to meet my master to get the next step of the main quest, required me to go back to the other side of town. Since my master is waiting for me, I figured I would go talk to the guy next time I'm on the other side of town. After I got the next step of the main quest and found my way to the secondary character, I no longer had any dialog options related to the side quest! All I could do was the main quest. And once that was done, the secondary quest wasn't even available anymore (I had moved to a different town).
- Invisible walls. If you've played SW: KOTOR you know about invisible walls. They are as subtle in Jade Empire. "Oh, look! Water! Let's see if we can swim!" "Would you look at that... an invisible wall one foot short of the water..."
- Some wierd NPC movements in dialogs... There was one guy I was talking to that decided to scratch himself behind the head. With the camera angle, I could clearly see he was scratching about a foot *behind* his head. Sorta takes you out of the mood (specially when you can't ask about it!)
- Time is irrelevant. When a character say "let's hurry back to the master to inform him of this", it really means "let's talk to him when we get there" and take all the time you want.
- Every choice you make barely has any effect... I understand how huge of a task it is to make so much content that every little detail changes everything, but what you end up with is that only the more important choices have any effect at all. And even then, the effects are mostly with the reactions in dialog; very little in the way you play and absolutely none on the actual environment... At least so far. I have barely started the game, so there's still room for something to surprise me, but I've also played SW: KOTOR...
I admit I got frustrated a couple of times already. I yelled a couple of "freaking camera!" and I was really pissed off when the guy I talked to didn't have any dialog options for my side quest (even though my side quest was still available). I died a couple of times because I failed to notice my low health -- I was too concentrated on fighting the bad guys. I also ran into a bunch of invisible walls during combat; I tried to evade by back-flipping away only to find myself in the exact same spot (after having done the back-flip).
But the story is fun, even if it gets thrown at you without your choice or involvement. Characters are somewhat predictable, but then again so are most movies nowadays. Combat is different and fun. I love martial arts and that's what combat is all about, so I'm happy to just look at the character's movements (which are really well done).
I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining a lot. I do that... sometimes. (Ok, often.) The game has it's down sides, but the up sides are so good that you quickly forget the side quests and invisible walls. I will definitely be playing this game all the way through. And most likely will be playing it again as an "evil" character, just like I did SW: KOTOR.
