Rihards Unplugged

Sixteen hours and forty minutes later I find myself watching the closing scenes of the very excellent game that is Jade Empire. Yes, sixteen hours on medium difficulty does seem quite little in terms of gameplay, especially considering that this was my first time playing it. But you know what they say, better short and sweet than long and boring.

Let’s start with the things that make this game a good game. First of all, BioWare was involved with Jade Empire. Now for some it may not mean much, but for me it does, even more than say if a game was made by Blizzard. BioWare is one of those companies that if you see their name on a game, then you can buy the game without thinking about it too much.

As with most (all?) BioWare games, the world, the characters and the story are what make the game really great. They aren’t just some sort of boring 2D personalities, or some half-assed setting. Things have been very well thought out and designed. The locations in the game are also pretty much the best that I have seen from BioWare yet and they really do design the best looking ones out there.

The great atmosphere in the game can also be attributed to the excellent voice actors that really did a great job. It makes me cringe when I think about voice actors in other games. While we are on topic of sound, I’d also like to add that the music is top notch as well, and it comes and goes at the right points.

There are only two things that one could say disappointed me in the game, well actually it would be three, but one of them isn’t really that noticeable or even that bad as a matter of fact. The first thing would be the limited character customization options, there are only so many models that you can pick from, and the same goes for the character level up options as well. While yes there are many fighting styles, you usually just pick three or four and stick to those, and just balance your attributes out.

The second thing would be the slightly predictable plot. At least that’s how it seemed to me. I talked to a few other people who have played it and they actually thought that things really panned out differently than they were expecting. Not so much for me, I was already expecting most of the things that happened.

And finally the third thing would be that this is a console port. It’s a game that was made for consoles, so it comes with quite a lot of console limitations, but they aren’t that bad really. Things like big interface when looking at your character attributes, styles, inventory, or for that matter any menu. And of course the simple control scheme. Now as I said, this isn’t really a bad thing as such, because sometimes simple is good, and it’s certainly better than overcomplicating things needlessly.

Overall rating? If I had to give it a rating out of five, I’d give it a four and half. It really is a very enjoyable, if short game. So go out and pick it up if you are looking to spend some excellent time. I’d even recommend it to people who aren’t too fond of RPG games in general.

Considering that I have pretty much played Jade Empire the whole day long, there aren’t really a lot of things that I could update the blog with. So I decided to make the best of it, and upload all the screenshots that I have taken so far from the game.

A word of warning though if you are going to have a look at the complete gallery. It contains spoilers, very big ones at it as well, so only view at your own risk. Or if you have already completed game. Though as always, I always forget to take screenshots when the best things are going down, like the fights in the arena, big elephant daemons, huge fights, and battling the Emperor comes to mind.

Jade Empire screenshot gallery.

It would seem that I have found a new game which will consume quite a lot of my free time. That is until I complete it. But it’s no wonder really, considering it comes from BioWare. A company that has been pushing out games that I can’t just put down. I have only played for a short while, so for now only screenshots from me.

It’s really a shame though that their next big game, Mass Effect, is an Xbox 360 title only. Or maybe it’s not a shame, maybe it’s a reason for me to get an Xbox 360.