Jade Empire Previews

A handful of hands-on previews for BioWare’s Jade Empire have hit the web, based on what was seen at this year’s Game Developers Conference. The first is at GameSpot:

The next locale that we visited was called Tien’s Landing, which was a beautiful wooded area with waterfalls, interesting trees, and some spectacular views. Most of the enemies that we encountered in the forest were ghosts known as “lost spirits,” who attacked us at range using two different kinds of magic projectiles. Most of the attacks weren’t too difficult to avoid using Jade Empire’s intuitive controls, but when the ghosts started throwing projectiles that tracked our movements, we were left with no choice but to stand our ground and block them. The first time we attempted to beat the ghosts we were fighting alongside Wildflower, who, if you’ve been following our previous coverage of the game, you’ll know is a young girl whose body is inhabited by two demons. When we told her to enter attack mode, Wildflower transformed into one of the demons and did a good job of helping us out, right up to when we ran out of chi to heal with and died. It was at this point that one of the BioWare representatives suggested we take a different approach and introduced us to a follower character named Dawn Star, whose “support” mode has her working to restore your chi rather than fighting enemies. We were also introduced to a fighting style called spirit thief, which, although it didn’t actually hurt the ghosts, let us drain chi from them using ranged attacks.

The second is at GameSpy:

When you’re talking to a charcter, you’ve generally got several choices as to what you’ll say, ranging from the extremely polite to the downright aggressive. It’s funny, I had played the game a number of times, but I never really noticed that your character’s expression actually changes, depending on the tone of your questions and answers. A pleasant smile crossed your face when you said something nice, and a scowl twisted your visage when you were acting like a jerk. You can also try to influence or trick people, options which are denoted as such in the conversation tree. Also, unlike KotOR, which generally offered obviously good or evil responses, there were more innocuous answers to choose from this time around.

The third is at TeamXbox:

Like the majority of action games with various player characters from which to choose, Jade Empire features six history makers that each brings something a bit different to the table. The categories of fighters are at the true foundation of every RPG ever made: fast, strong, balanced, and magic. Each character can then be given more specific direction with the distribution of skill points in the areas of chi, health, and focus. So, as you can see, it’s easy to form a totally imbalanced fighter to satisfy the compulsive nature in all of us, to create the perfect blend of might and mage, or just about anything in between. Sounds sweet already, right? Well, we haven’t even begun to touch on what makes Jade Empire so special. It is the blending of your basic character’s composition with over twenty different fighting styles in five different categories which makes Jade unlike anything you have ever played where you actually have control of the action (none of this die rolling crap – sorry D&D/KotOR et al fans). Basic martial-arts styles can be used in combat and are sufficient for nearly any foe encountered in the Jade Empire universe. One that seems to be a BioWare developer and play tester favorite is the Thousand Cuts style which features lightening-quick pecks and punches which do a world of damage. The Weapon style is a stand-by form that does big damage, especially when the long sword is the metal of choice. We quickly learned that not all enemies fall by the sword, so it’s important to try and have a mixture of styles mapped to the D-pad in order to cover every confrontation.

And the fourth is at IGN Xbox:

Much has already been written about Jade Empire’s morality scale but it’s still impressive how much this feature permeates the game. Following the path of the open palm or the closed fist dictates what fighting styles are unlocked. There are also a number of subtle indicators that accentuate a player’s choices. As a master of the closed fist a player’s shadow develops tendrils that extend after a period of inaction. Also, different responses during conversations will cause your character’s facial expression to change. BioWare has emphasised that the game’s multiple endings are severely different encouraging more than one trek through the game.