Review: Jade Empire

Neverwinter Nights introduced a new generation of gamers to D&D style roleplaying. When Knights of the Old Republic was released it was arguably the best Star Wars tale told since the end of the original trilogy. Given the chance to create their own world, Bioware has produced an immersive action/RPG with a compelling plot, memorable characters, and entertaining gameplay. Jade Empire is a most worthy addition to Bioware's library of games. Read on for my take on one of the most original RPG's in recent memory.

• Title: Jade Empire
• Developer: Bioware
• Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
• System: Xbox (only)
• Reviewer: Zonk
• Score: 9

Jade Empire begins with another day in the simple life of a martial arts student in the town of Two Rivers. You get to pick who that martial arts student is, and can choose from among several different characters with distinct styles and kung-fu names. Whether you pick Wu the Lotus Blossum or Furious Ming, you'll be introduced to Two Rivers and the Jade Empire combat system via sparring and talking with your fellow students. The idyllic scene is broken by the sneers of a bully and, more seriously, a pirate attack. The aftermath of the pirate attack thrusts you and a few followers onto a path to discover your destiny, rescue a friend, and unravel the truth behind the history of the Jade Empire.

The story-based gameplay, then, is very similar to the Xbox version of KOTOR. You move around the world through various maps people with NPCs, and talk (and talk, and talk) to them. What could have been a frustration is a joy in Jade Empire, as every character's lines are voice acted and the quality of the voice acting is almost universally high. Even minor NPCs get performers with heart assigned to them, and the result is very engaging. By default the entire game is subtitled, but I found that the subtitles were distracting me from the quality vocal performances and I switched them off. The Tho Fan language, made specifically for the game, is subtitled to allow you to follow along with the traditionalists who don't speak english. Without subtitles in most of the conversations Jade Empire is a cinematic experience with you as the protagonist.

The cinema of the game is brought to the fore by the impressive graphical presentation Bioware wrings from the Xbox. The graphics are not groundbreaking or extraordinarily realistic, but evoke the world with soft tones, slightly exaggerated character designs, smooth looking animation, and beautiful effects. Much like KOTOR the beauty of the game is occasionally marred by slowdowns, but I found these technical hitches to be relatively rare. Given the story, cinema, and quality voice acting, Jade Empire evokes a well made wire-fu film.

Where there is wire-fu there is combat, and Jade Empire balances the preponderance of storytelling with a thoroughly enjoyable real-time combat system. Unlike Neverwinter Nights or Knights of the Old Republic, you actively control your protagonist character and your reflexes determine the success or failure of the Jade Empire saga. The basics of the combat gameplay, despite this innovation, remain firmly rooted in the d20-like systems of past games. Defeating enemies results in experience gains, and at certain intervals you gain levels. At each level gain you are given points to slot into your attributes to permanently increase them, and points to slot into your martial arts forms to improve their damage, speed, etc.

Your character has three attributes: Body, Mind, and Spirit. In turn, these attributes help determine your consumable personal resources. Body determines Health, Mind determines Chi, and Spirit determines Focus. You also have three social skills: Charm, Intuition, and Intimidate. Bonuses to your attributes affect these skills as well, with a higher Body resulting in more affective Intimidation and a higher Mind resulting in better Intuition. Your attributes, your resource pools, and your social skills can all be modified by amulet jewels. The amulet the protagonist possesses is given to her near the beginning of her quest, a powerful legacy from her mysterious past. By slotting jewels into the amulet you can customize your character beyond the levels you gain. Every jewel modifies one or more attribute or social skill in a specific way. The stones themselves are found at regular intervals throughout the game, and with only a limited number of slots you'll constantly be shifting the stones in your inventory looking for a good combination for combat and social situations.

Every character starts with a pair of martial arts styles, and as you move through the game you acquire more through combat, purchasing them, and questing. Every form, in turn, has a specific purpose. Ghosts are unaffected by weapon forms, demons turn aside magic forms, and other forms have supporting roles, such as stunning or blinding opponents. Some forms are pure support, draining chi or focus from your opponents to refill your own bars. Combat itself uses the martial forms in several basic ways, and even small fights tend to be varied enough to keep you on your toes. The basic martial arts forms have three moves: hit, block, and power attack. In the classic rock/paper/scissors style basic hits disrupt power attacks, blocks deflect hits, and power attacks destroy blocks. Each form uses the same moves, with their own variations. Long Sword's power attacks is a sweeping slash, for example, while Spirit Thief (a support/draining form) uses a power attack that fills almost half of your chi bar in one blast. The most visually impressive forms are the shapechanger forms, which allow you to take on the appearance and attacks of a demon or monster. The combat drama unfolds, then, with you switching between four pre-chosen forms (on the D-pad) in such a way as to take advantage of the situation. The flexibility of the combat system makes it rewarding to use, and rarely a chore to work through a battle.

The other element that enters into combat, and ties the combat system into the fully realized story of the game, is your companion. As you move through the game (much like KOTOR) you pick up fellow travelers and miscreants who have something to add to your tale. These individuals range from a fellow student and friend from your days at the 2 rivers school to a little girl possessed by a demon to a mad inventor who maintains the airship you travel in. Each of them has a well fleshed out backstory and as events unfold you have the opportunity to delve into their pasts and fish out interesting information and personal insights. The characters are well written and in some cases downright funny. Kang the Mad, in particular, gets some choice lines.

Next time I hide something, I'm packing explosives around it. Explosives shaped like silver bananas! Stops thieves, monkeys and monkey thieves in one fell swoop. - Kang the Mad

Besides talking with them, you are allowed to choose one to travel with you as you explore, and when you enter combat your companion fights alongside you. The AI is usually effective in their tactical choices. The companion picks a target and stays with it until it's down, countering the baddies moves as best they can. While they do occasionally take out enemies, as is befitting of a game where you are the hero, for the most part they engage supporting characters while you move in on more important targets. If you don't want them mucking up your battlefield you can also choose to place them in support mode. In support mode your companion doesn't fight, but each individual aids you in some specific way over the course of a battle. One companion regenerates your focus as you fight, for example, while another does so with your chi. The added complexity a companion brings to a fight allows for even more options on the field of combat.

Each companion has their own outlook on life. Some tend more towards a gentle disposition, while others have a harder edge to them. These outlooks reflect the two opposing points of view that your character will choose between as you move through the game. The Way of the Open Palm and the Way of the Closed Fist correlate, roughly, to the light and dark sides of the force as explored in KOTOR. As in those titles, moral choices are presented to you in nearly every conversation and situation. The more you tend towards kindness and understanding, the more enlightened you become towards the way of the Open Palm. The more you tend towards cruelty and indifference, the more accepting you become towards the way of the Closed Fist. Your physical appearance begins to change as you reach a choice along either path, and different martial art forms open up to you as well. In the end, your choice along the two paths determines what your role in the Jade Empire becomes.

Jade Empire, then, is a complicated game. It's a long story (I'm well over 30 hours into it and no where near done), well written, with impressive graphics and memorable characters. The only two real complaints I can lay at the game's feet are occasional slowdowns during combat, and (as with all Xbox Bioware games) sometimes abominably long load times between map areas. Neither of these minor technical hurdles was annoying enough for me to become frustrated by my play experience. Jade Empire is a new high water line for console RPG titles, and in my opinion is Bioware's best work to date. If you enjoy an engaging story, have gotten into Bioware titles in the past, or have a love of well crafted martial arts tales don't let Jade Empire pass you by.

My own thoughts...

Jade Empire is the best game I've played in a long time; certainly over the last year, quite possibly a good bit longer.

I've got a bit of an erratic history with Bioware games. The first Baldur's Gate left me a bit cold... it felt like a good idea badly executed and hindered by a determination to be a bit nastier to the player than was strictly necessary. Baldur's Gate 2, on the other hand, felt a lot more polished and I must have played it through half a dozen times. Neverwinter Nights was a huge let-down for me; the toolkit demanded more time and effort to use properly than I was willing to put in and the campaign basically sucked. KOTOR, on the other hand, was awesome. Then KOTOR 2 came along (yes, I know it's not strictly Bioware) and it just felt flat. The writing in particular was pretty horrible and the total bugfest didn't help either.

To be blunt, though, Jade Empire beats anything else Bioware have done into the ground. I'm about 15 hours into my first playthrough of it now and it's an incredible experience. It feels odd at first to be controlling the combat so directly in a game which obviously shares such a strong technical base with KOTOR, but the controls and combat system are pretty much flawlessly implemented. There's a superb learning curve; you can button-mash the first few fights, but successive enemies need increasingly sophisticated tactics.

I must admit I wasn't enthusiastic when I heard Jade Empire would be an action RPG. In my experience, most of these tend to degenerate into either boring button-mashing fests like the Dark Alliance games or tedious movement-puzzle crawls like Zelda. Kingdom Hearts pulled the genre off reasonably well, but even that had some real annoyances. However, one of the most striking things about Jade Empire so far is the relative scarcity of combat. Rather than being attacked constantly as you move around the map, or having to get past the same group of infinitely-respawning monsters every time you pass through a particular area, the vast majority of fights in the game actually seem to be tied into a specific plot point. You don't get randomly attacked by bandits or monsters; there's actually a *reason* for almost every encounter. Moreover, as in earlier Bioware games, it's possible (and sometimes preferable) to talk your way out of fighting.

Graphics are generally excellent. You can occasonally detect that the game is based on a now-aging engine, but the quality of the character and location designs is more than good enough to mask this. Sounds are excellent, particularly voice-acting. John Cleese's cameo (as an "English" explorer, come to enlighten the oriental savages) actually had me laughing out loud. The dialogue is back up to the high-standard of that in KOTOR.

If I'd add one complaint to the two in the review, it would be that the in-game journal doesn't always do a very good job of recording quest objectives. A few times now I've come back to the game after a break and had to think quite hard about where I needed to meet a character in connection with a subquest. Overall, though, it's a stunning game. The X-Box may have had a crap first year or two, but it's got to be the strongest late-cycle performer of the current generation by quite a margin.

Re:My own thoughts...

I've got a bit of an erratic history with Bioware games. The first Baldur's Gate left me a bit cold... it felt like a good idea badly executed and hindered by a determination to be a bit nastier to the player than was strictly necessary. Baldur's Gate 2, on the other hand, felt a lot more polished and I must have played it through half a dozen times. Neverwinter Nights was a huge let-down for me; the toolkit demanded more time and effort to use properly than I was willing to put in and the campaign basically sucked. KOTOR, on the other hand, was awesome. Then KOTOR 2 came along (yes, I know it's not strictly Bioware) and it just felt flat. The writing in particular was pretty horrible and the total bugfest didn't help either.

FYI, Bioware *really* had almost nothing to do with KotoR2; it just used their engine. I'm sure obsidian GOT the job because they're in good with Greg & Ray from the days when Black Isle (run by Feargus, who's now running Obsidian) was their publisher/partner. But it wasn't "co-developed"; it was just a double licensing deal with Lucas and Bioware for the IP and Engine, respectively.

Likewise, Obsidian is developing NWN2, but again, Bioware is only "periodically advising", and the deal is with Bioware for the engine (which, unlike KotoR2, is getting a HUGE revamp) and Atari for the D&D license and publication.

That said, I think Baldur's Gate was largely an attempt to simulate this huge, mostly nonlinear PnP game we always wished we could play, and in that, it succeeded. It does a great job of giving you a LOT to explore and do and slowly send you through a plot, without dragging you from place to place. The nonlinearity and the robust implementation of D&D play was the best part. Certainly, BG2 was better, far better, with a great story, it was larger, it was grander, the NPC dialogue was even more priceless, and so on.

NWN has become a "love it or hate it" affair; Bioware did botch the NWN OC in many ways. Everyone had their objections, from "uncompelling story" to just "too many boxes/chests to open". People apparently were not real fond of the 1 character+1 henchman setup. I certainly enjoyed it but it was nowhere near as compelling as BG2. However, where NWN shined was in the toolset. You may not have liked the learning curve on it, but there were a lot of very talented community designers who have produced *amazing* work. Adam Miller stands out in my mind for his work on the Dreamcatcher modules, but there are many great Persistent Worlds and dozens of great modules that rival the quality of a professional game. Adam's work was noticable largely because a lot of people considered it *better* than the OCs that had come out at the time. If you didn't play it, I'd recommend the Hordes of the Underdark expansion and campaign; it was the best of the 3, whereas the original was the worst of the 3. But I've probably played 15-20 home-grown modules and put a lot of hours into a particular persistent world. I think Bioware deserves a *lot* of credit for creating a game that was so immensely customizable. The best parts of the toolset require some programming ability, but otherwise, it's pretty amazing. (Also, note that they introduced a 'plot wizard' in a patch that helped a great deal, because it would autogenerate scripts for a lot of stuff, and someone in the community did a 'script generator' that did pretty good stuff)

Sure its a great RPG....

...for the 20 hours it takes to complete. Whatever happened to RPGs that offered 80-100 hours of gameplay the first time thru? I'm not necessarily talking Xenosaga length, but certainly at least FFX long.

Re:Sure its a great RPG....

I dunno, but there seems to be a whole industry [imdb.com] devoted to doing character development in 90 minutes to two hours.

--
Evan

Re:Sure its a great RPG....

So then go play Dragon Warrior 7 or Morrowind or a game that let's you mess around for 100 hours.

I guess I don't see your point. If you're disappointed that the game isn't long enough, there are plenty of games that are longer. Personally I think that games becoming shorter is a blessing. Thinking back about the games I've played in the past few years, one thing that most of them have in common is that they are too long-winded. It's a good thing for games to be tighter and more 'efficient'.

Also, I spent roughly the same amount of time playing through Xenosaga as I did FFX.

Re:Sure its a great RPG....

JE feels very linear, despite the effort spent by the development time devoted to the sidequests. Even if you were to complete every sidequest available, you would still wind up only clocking in at about 20 hours. For most harcore RPG gamers, this lack of gameplay hurts the title more than it helps.

Remember, the standard for RPGs have been set by games like the Final Fantasy series, the Star Oceans, and XenoGears/Sagas. Unfortunately short play RPGs like JE and Fable doesn't do anything but support the fact that American development houses still can't compete with Japanese ones.

Re:Sure its a great RPG....

So then go play Dragon Warrior 7 or Morrowind or a game that let's you mess around for 100 hours.

Yeah, but with Morrowind, half of that is spent rebooting your machine.

Re:Sure its a great RPG....

Those were the days because I was 15, and had time for long games! These days, with a job and a kid, I'll take an 12 hour God of War or an 8 hour Ico over a long game any time. Thank you, higher development costs, for making my game experience awesomer but shorter.

Re:Sure its a great RPG....

We caught a lot of grief from players for making Ultima V so long, actually. There was just too much vacant real estate (e.g., most of the Underworld) in the game.

What I personally don't understand is why people who are fine paying $8 for tickets to a 2-hour movie will bitch at spending $40 for a 20-hour gameplay experience. Not everybody *has* 200 hours to play games these days, and if you don't finish the game, at least part of our effort as developers is wasted.

-- Anonymous U5 developer

Re:Sure its a great RPG....

if you don't finish the game, at least part of our effort as developers is wasted.

I don't understand this. I am not a developer, though, so perhaps I'm just not in the loop. If you wanted to do something that every single person will have a relatively equal chance of finishing, why are you not writing novels, or movies, plays, things that are linear and their scope clearly pre-defined.

Games, as far as I can figure out, are meant to be challanges to the player, whether through visual puzzles, word-play or hand-eye coordination. I have never once finished a game of Dragon's Lair and I doubt that the developers are all that disappointed. I would hope that they were more concerned with how I enjoyed what I did get through.

This is somewhat beside the point, however, if people are more interested in finishing the game. This would explain the derth of games with no concrete endings like Tetris ... and Bejeweled ... and ...

Well damn.

Still, I'd rather a game be more concerned with the journey, not the destination.

Re:Sure its a great RPG....

You have to take into account that "FFX long" is at least half random battles and leveling up enough so you can beat the next boss.

I'd say there is almost as much content in Jade Empire as FFX, especially considering there are two ways to approach most situations (Open vs Closed fist, or Good vs Evil), and probably more dialog considering all the branching conversation possibilities.

To see most of the game, you'd have to play through it at least twice, which could provide similar time as a Japanese RPG.

Re:Sure its a great RPG....

I don't understand all the people that are disappointed that it's taking only 20 hours to finish. I'm not even done with Chapter 2 yet, and I'm at 9 hours already.

If you don't take the time to enjoy the sidequests and the story itself, did you really play the game? Seems to me that there are some types out there that try to "speed read" their way through the game only to bitch about how short it was.

Jade Empire Saves marriages

The newsletter they sent out was pretty good, too.

See http://xania.org/article.php/jadeempire [xania.org]

Write a review without finishing the game?

How can you write a review without finishing the game? What if there's a bug towards the end that makes the game entirely unplayable? Or the plot suddenly takes turn for the worse and it just becomes boring. There's been plenty of games that are very interesting in the beginning, and then just lose steam or you run out of interesting things to do.

Thats funny

You seem to be under the impression that any reviews you read in magazines, or online are written by people who finish the game.

Allow me to disabuse you of this notion. Reviewers can't spend 30 hours beating X number of games before hitting press. There isn't enough time. The few times they actually do are with A list titles, which are going to get steller reviews anyhow.

Also, you seem to be under the impression that if there was a bug which crashed the game, it would be specifically noted in any review. When was the last time you read a review noting bugs? The last I knew of was an arstechnica review for "Pirates!", and that's hardly a games site. With previous, all you get are "I had a few glitches, but that's probably going to be cleaned up before release."

I actually thought this was a nicely done writeup.

She looks cold.

So when, oh when, will someone give me an RPG heroine who actually wears suitable clothing? The first screenshot in this review is a perfect example of what I object to. It's clearly winter. It's fucking snowing. Why the fuck is that girl running around in her panties?!

Re:She looks cold.

So when, oh when, will someone give me an RPG heroine who actually wears suitable clothing?

When the adolescent, videogame-playing male demographic ceases to exist.

You've got a long wait.

Re:She looks cold.

Yeah, what the hell man? And why don't the characters ever stop to go to the bathroom? Or get tired from running everywhere? Or get dirty? Or lose chunks of flesh from being repeatedly hit with bladed weapons?

Come on, how am I supposed to escape reality if these games aren't totally realistic?

Re:She looks cold.

Well... to balance things out, theres a guy running around with no shirt too! (and is snowing!)

-Master: So what do you want to master the Ice or the fire chi?

-Shirtless guy freezing in the snow: Ar-ee y-ouuuu F--ffucking ki-kiiid-dd-ing? (teeth rattling)

-Master: Ok, fire it is!

arguably

When Knights of the Old Republic was released it was arguably the best Star Wars tale told since the end of the original trilogy

arguably

You are on Slashdot here, everything here is arguable including statements like:

• Water is wet
• Sky is blue
• Pope is Catholic

Re:everything here is arguable including statement

Water is wet
This is not always true. water has multiple phases. For instance, ice is not wet if kept cold, nor is steam wet per se.

Sky is Blue
Are we talking sky of earth here? if not, that is an over broad statement. If so, the sky is not always blue, different weather patterns and polution in the air can and does change this regularly

Pope is Catholic
Define "is" please.

Keeping the flamewars alive, one post at a time :)

2 complaints...

I just played through this twice and I only have 2 complaints. Both times doing most of the side quests, I beat it in around 15 hours. After KOTOR's 30+ hours I found it to be a bit of a let down. My other problem was the load times. They really chopped up the story in my opinion. Other than those 2 small complaints, this is my favorite RPG of the year...so far.

NWN vs. BG.

I think the two games that recently introduced rpg'ers to D&D were the Baldur's Gate games. I mean, the reason that Never Winter Nights release was so big is because of the following generated by the first two games (and Torment and Icewind Dale). I always thought of NWN as more of an experiment in user created D&D sessions, than as a true stand-alone game. There are probably a lot of people who disagree with that last statement.

I say these things not to disparage NWN, but rather to highlight the excellent work that came before it. In fact, I believe Torment to be, arguably, the best rpg to date. Bioware has done a lot of trully top-notch work, and I hope it continues. The ONLY gripe I have with their latest work, is how often the KOTORs would beat pud and destroy a save game.

Best. End Credits. EVAR.

Watch (or at least listen to) the whole end credit sequence.

Trust me.

From what I've seen so far, I'd rate this average

I estimate I'm slightly past halfway into the game at present time. Everything I've seen so far I'd consider about par, its not a great game, but it doesn't totally suck.

It also appears that most of the time, regardless of the multiple dialogue options offered, the NPCs will reply with identical messages.

*warning possible spoilers follow*

The combat system seems a bit shallow, case in point, I've gotten up to the Imperial City and up to the second tier of battles in the Gold Division of the Arena, Without using the block move a single time (on Master [normal] Difficulty)

I am using Legendary Strike as my primary Hand to Hand combat style, and it is close to fully mastered, its not only a bit boring to play, its boring to look at too.

I think maybe 2 attack buttons, a punch and a kick, as opposed to the single attack button, as well as some form of button combo system in addition to the silly (IMO) "Harmonic Combo" system would have added a great deal of depth to the game.

Word

I have to agree with the poster, this is one of the best RPGs I've played in a very long time. I'd like to add a few of my thoughts to the review however...

Firstly, the game's setting is absolutely fantastic. Bioware have put an enormous amount of creativity into creating their fictional gameworld, and it definitely shows. There are abundant references to Chinese literature and mythology, which are a treat if you already have familiarity with them, but which are so organically woven into the gameworld that even people without familiarity with the Chinese classics will love discovering them. I particularly enjoyed how each of the game's "chapters" opens with 3 lines of foreshadowing (a la Monkey a.k.a. Journey to the West), the rich "celestial beaurocracy" glimpsed so often in Chinese literature, and the numerous historical allusions (the northern horselords clearly refer to the Mongol hordes, while the land of the six sacred scrolls in the west seems to be a reference to Bhuddist Tibet). Actually, the background universe is so vast that it almost seems dissapointing that you don't get to travel to some of the more famed cities like Pheonix Gate (sequel, anyone? please?).

Secondly, there is the utterly fantastic story. The main plot is epic to say the least, and contains some excellent twists (one about 2/3 of the way through the game just blew me away). The numerous interesting side quests keep the game interesting as well, and if you spend the time to really explore the world and get to know the characters, you'll be rewarded greatly (did I mention that a certain Monty Python alum makes a hillarious appearance as the game's only European character?). Interactions with members of your party are interesting as well, with possibilities for friendship, rivalry, and romance. This is a slight spoiler, but if you're a male character and you play your cards EXACTLY right, it is actually possible to arrange a threesome of sorts with the game's two female lead NPCs. I'm not certain if something similar is possible playing as female, but I just started a run as Wu the Lotus Blossum, so I guess I'll have the chance to find out.

Finally, the game is pretty much perfectly streamlined. While you can learn numerous styles and techniques, the fighting is always easily controllable through the 3 basic moves: fast attack, strong attack, and block (area attack is also available by pressing fast and strong at the same time). Having only 3 basic character attributes makes character customization a much less taxing experience (don't get me wrong, I love the depth of the D20 system, but this is a nice change of pace), and the fact that equipable inventory is limited to your amulet and the single-follower system all combine to make a very accessable system. Basically, the typical RPG elements are there, but they never get in your way. You won't ever spend 5 minutes equipping before a battle, you'll pretty much always be directly engaged in the story. And when the combat and story are as good as they are in Jade Empire, this is definitely a very good thing.

Redirect THIS

Expired my ass!

'Jade Empire' for Xbox speaks language all its own

The language Tho Fan sounds ancient and distinctly Asian. Its "sh" sounds come from the back of the throat, as they do in Chinese. Its "r" sounds are made with a tap of the tongue, echoing Mongolian.

But Tho Fan comes from Canada and was invented only last year. Created in four months, for just over $2,000, it is a real language spoken by unreal people in the Xbox game "Jade Empire," released this week. Perhaps it is a sign that, these days, languages are not so much discovered as invented.

Early last year, developers at the game maker BioWare were working on a heroic role-playing game set in a mythical Asia and began thinking about language. "We were sort of writing a love song to the history of China," said Jim Bishop, "Jade Empire's" producer.

Still, they wanted to avoid using Chinese or any other Asian language that might shackle their invented universe to actual historical events. At the same time, they did not want to resort to unintelligible nonsense.

"We wanted to make this world seem as real as possible," Bishop said.

Ultimately, more than 90 percent of "Jade Empire's" 15,000 lines of recorded dialogue were in English, but Bishop's team, based in Edmonton, Alberta, also decided to add the exotic aural flair of an Asian-sounding language, subtitled in English.

The attempt to create a language from scratch is rare in modern fiction. J. R. R. Tolkien, a linguist as well as a writer, created several for the "Lord of the Rings" saga. In 1985, another linguist, Mark Okrand, codified the "Star Trek" language Klingon in a published dictionary, which in turn led to Klingon editions of "Hamlet" and the ancient Babylonian epic "Gilgamesh."

But these were exceptions. The alien languages in science fiction and fantasy books and movies largely consist of nonsense: grunts and chirps arranged to convey the illusion of exotic intelligence. Occasionally, as in the "Star Wars" films, writers will introduce a few alien words to which they have given meanings but that don't constitute a working language. "You could use them to find a bathroom and that's about it," Bishop said.

Games have even fewer functional tongues. The denizens of the hit computer game "The Sims," for example, speak in Simlish, a caffeinated warble that is more mood-appropriate gibberish than real language.

In its quest for a new language, BioWare contacted the linguistics department at the nearby University of Alberta and came across Wolf Wikeley, 32, a Ph.D. candidate with a weakness for Japanese animation and first-person-shooter video games. He seemed like a find.

"Not many people have funny anecdotes about Klingon," Bishop said.

Wikeley had grown up in a language-rich household. His parents taught German, French and Italian and could speak several other languages. Japanese lessons had played on the family phonograph. And then there was the linguistic influence of Wikeley's favorite fiction.

"A huge event in my life was seeing 'Star Wars' when I was 4," he said. "Probably a lot of my ear came from that." He said he took to mimicking the film's alien languages, noting that at least one seemed to consist of just three overused words.

If one set of fictional characters had given him his ear, he was eager to answer BioWare's call to give others their voice. He set about asking Bishop's team questions. He wanted to know the speakers' physiology. If they had no teeth, they wouldn't be able to make a "t" or "th" sound. They had teeth.

He wanted to know the speakers' demeanor. In a willful violation of a fundamental tenet of linguistics, his invented language would reflect its speakers' cultural character.

"If they're a violent race, I'm going to give them a lot of really harsh sounds," he said. "If they're an ethereal race like elves, I'm going to give them a whispering, hushing sound."

Some Critiques of JE

Bottom line I loved this game and had fun, and I'll probably go through it again following the way of the closed fist. The cinematics, production values, and story are all top notch.

Really JE only has one huge problem:

Load Times....just plain awful load times. I found myself "cheating" (switching to easy) just to avoid having to reload yet again. I think about three times I did this; just before boss battles that had UNSKIPPABLE CUTSCENES plus the loading, just plain frustrating.

It felt like the C64 days at times...

But the reset of the game is just so good that I was able to look past it. The PC version may help in this regard.

But to Blizzard: *NEVER NEVER NEVER* MAKE ME WATCH A CUTSCENE EVER NO EXCEPTIONS! If I miss something important, TS for me, but if it's the third time through it just annoys me. The loading, well they could've had some scenes instantly reloadable, other than that I'm not sure what choice they had.

But lest you think otherwise, this game is awesome.

how does it compare to Planescape: Torment?

I know Planescape: Torment wasn't a Bioware game, but it still stands out to me as probably the best computer RPG I've played...how does Jade Empire compare to it?

Mind = Chi?

> Your character has three attributes: Body, Mind, and Spirit. In turn, these attributes help determine your consumable personal resources. Body determines Health, Mind determines Chi, and Spirit determines Focus.

I would think Mind would determine Focus, and Spirit would determine Chi. But IANARM (reiki master).

Personally, I'm loving it

I'm having an excellent time playing JE. I have finished quite a few of the side quests in the imperial city, just took the silver championship and am OMW to infilitrate the Lotus Blossom Assassins before I work my way up to the gold championship.

I think the game is a hell of a lot of fun, and quite a bit more engrossing than many I have played (although I did love the PC version of Morrowind and I'm also finally playing the xbox KOTR 1 and enjoying it as well). One thing that annoys me immensely about KOTR 1 is that I don't have Xbox live, and therefore can't get the bug fixes and game updates for it (why should I have to pay a subscription to get bug fixes?). Anyway, I digress...

The dialogue *is* excellently voice acted. The whole bit with the outlander (John Cleese) was hilarious. The combat is fun, but could be a bit more challenging. It's not completely dumbed down but it's also no Soul Caliber. Using the storm dragon style coupled with any other martial style (I'm using leaping tiger) pretty much leads to a "can't lose" versus anything that's stunnable. Like another poster I read, I almost never use blocks, and I don't think I've ever purposefully done a harmonic combo. Most of the time against normal opponents I can easily win just by tossing a few storm dragon strikes to stun them, then pummel them for 5 or 6 secs before stunning them again, rinse and repeat. During the silver championship, Soldier never touched me, he spent the entire time stunned/shocked/getting his ass handed to him. The final fight in the black leopard school was a bit more challenging, until I finally managed to stun Smiling Raven or whatever his name was and then it was all over.

I'm looking forward to playing it again from the beginning and doing a few things differently... number 1, going full closed fist instead of open palm and turning into a grade A bastard, number 2 not learning every single style I happen across and instead focusing on maxing out 3 or 4 bread and butter styles, and finally number 3 not even using Storm Dragon because it's almost like a cheat mode.

All in all, this game was WELL worth the cash, and I can't say that too often anymore. I've spent more money on a lot shitter games.

-- Gary F.

Too Bad

Too bad it's XBox only. I really enjoy playing Neverwinter Nights (one of the few games to run natively on Linux). Jade Empire looks like a great game that I'd play if it ran on my gaming console (Sony PS2) or even on a Linux-based machine (don't have to buy the OS to run it on).

Pet Peeve

I know this is off-topic, but my nomination for the greasiest weasle word of all time is "arguably". What the hell does

...it was arguably the best Star Wars tale...

actually mean? Does it mean that the author argues that it was the best Star Wars tale? No; the author is apparently not decisive enough to actually commit himself to such a strong position. Does it mean that someone has argued that it was the best? Well, no; the author is not willing to go quite that far, either. Maybe no one has actually argued that. The author commits himself only to the proposition that someone, somewhere could make such an argument. If they chose to.

Jeez! Just delete the damn word. If you still like the sentence, great. If you don't, then say what you really mean.

CRPG != RPG

This may be off-topic; mod as you see fit.

I continue to be annoyed by the persistent use of the category "RPG" to describe video games. It's marketing hype. What particularly annoys me is when people equate the two:

Player 1: "yeah, I've been playing RPGs for, like, 5 years."
Player 2: "Really? What systems? D20? GURPS? Hero? Vampire? Shadowrun?"
Player 1: "What? No. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance."

A fantasy or science fiction adventure video game is not an RPG. You are not playing a role - you are moving an avatar around on a screen and mashing buttons.

I play video games - as a member of the Nintendo generation, it would be hard to escape them; presently, my 4-year old son and I are playing "Champions of Norrath". The fact that a 4-year old can play one of these games with a moderate level of competence is a testimony to the level of complexity found in an RPG video game; if this video game were an RPG, and my son was expected to assume a role and make decisions for himself, I doubt he would be able to grasp the concept of "free-play but with rules" let alone have any fun at it. Before you get your undies in a bundle, I know that "Champions" is not a particularly complex game - I bring it up because it is, in style, very similar to Baldur's Gate (mentioned in numerous other comments) which is often bronzed and placed on a pedestal by CRPG enthusiasts (until it is no longer vogue). Also, lest anyone think I'm doing all the work in the game, the game play is truly a "team" effort - I chose to play a Wizard and made my son a Barbarian - we are at a point in the game where it would be VERY difficult for me to go it alone and continue to advance if he were not there to back me up. At higher levels it would be nigh on impossible for a wizard to fight and defeat the boss characters alone (it can be done; but not without a *lot* of frustration).

What differentiates a role-playing game from a video game, in my opinion, is the interface and options available to the player and what is at stake when you mess up. The interface in a video game is severely limiting: there are only so many button and key combinations available and when you make a mistake you simply reload the last save point. The interface in a role-playing game is virtually unlimited: your imagination. When you make a mistake in an RPG, you are often stuck with the consequences: it is a disservice to everyone at the table to rewrite history just to make everything turn out favorably for you. Suck it up - make a *new* character and lets go.

These are huge distinctions; the only thing even remotely analagous between the two types of games would be the "munchkin/monty-haul/min-max" style of role-playing in which the players define character development as improved stats through beating monsters/obstacles and gaining treasures(if they define character development at all). Munchkin'ning is still more "RPG" than "grinding" through levels in a video game; in an RPG there is an opportunity to develop a unique character - you are likely to face different obstacles, have to consider your own verbal responses, etc. In a video game, every player ends up with essentially the same character who confronts the same "boss" who says the same things which lead to a fight where the bad guy uses the same tactics which can be overcome with the same technique in order to win. same...same...same...same. ugh.

D&D style roleplaying

Neverwinter Nights introduced a new generation of gamers to D&D style roleplaying.

From this statement, I conclude that either Zonk played really boring D&D, or the later NWN expansions were really revolutionary. I found NWN to be pretty fun, but a far