Jade Empire - BioWare Newsletter Goodies

Lucky Day
"Jackie Chan literally invented this style for the first big, big movie he made in 1979."

Lucky, Jackie didn't invent it he was protraying the the life of the Real Drunken Master as many have even Jet and the name he uses is the Real life hero of Chineese people. :)

I too found both films brilliant,though I saw the orginal versions in Mandrain, iirc.

ahh, thank you. methinks Jackie decided to give himself a little too much credit in that documentary I saw.

@cormac
I think the movie you are talking about is the one where Jackie plays soccer and ends up getting three girlfriends, which for some reason, never quite works out.
 
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I can't imigine Bioware wouldn't refine it more in a sequel if it was popular enough, though I am unclear how Bioware works with nasty pubs like m$ and if m$ trys to get their mitts on Biowares IP in the exclusive deals, would totally suck if m$ has a say about sequels. :(

JE sounds very well done for what it seems to be intended as, sort of a interactive story/movie with you deciding plots points.
I am not sure you well it sold but I imagine even if it was enough for a sequel they are very much focused on ME and DA, atm.
Bioware has done well in the past developing in developing gameplay so if the orginal has is to easy, it sounds as they already are taking active steps to make it more challenging.

Also it sounds like they added a whole new character and inproved the grapics, so there is only so much they can do with a budget.
Especially when having to call in voice actors again for the new character, which could including new dialogues for many of the orginal characters.
 
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I think that the main character is going to be voiceless like in KotOR. It would be nice if they would have include at least 2 distinct voices for the main character - male and female.
 
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Did we already post that JE for PC is gold? The German print mags say so.
 
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In the Xbox version, the "exploit" is that even though the game was more or less made with "block, attack, or power attack" in mind, the coolness of the jump meant that you could effectively bring "nuke" to the "rock, paper, scissors" game.

...

(I was a little bothered by it, but not much -- after all, if you don't like the exploit, you don't have to use it.)

It was funny reading this - brought me back five years to Jedi Knight 2 and how the patches kept rebalancing multiplayer combat as people learned to exploit special moves (e.g. spamming DFA - death from above) ... perhaps it is good that Jade doesn't have MP ;)

I think it is looking good - I have spoken quite a bit with Dave Long (from Games for Windows mag as well as GamerDad) and he was the opinion that it is over-rated but still a pretty good game. And that liking the PC version depends on your feelings about many of the things that Patrick mentioned.
 
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Acleacius & Lucky Day:
I suppose it's the one with Jackie Chan, titled Drunken Master. I remember the protagonist drinking wine from jugs all the time and reeling all over the place -- and of course the hilarious dubbing. Soccer ? No.
 
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I am definetly getting this one, looks like KotOR in a samurai setting - can't go wrong with that. To be honest, I feel the old japanese/chinese settings aren't used enough in big budjet games. It's always a knight with a greatsword instead of a samurai with a katana.
 
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I played the Xbox version. If you've played previous Bioware games you should find the story rather familiar; combat is simplistic (for my tastes) and the characters, with one or two exceptions, are uninteresting.
To be honest, this is probably why I am fighting the urge to pass this up entirely. After some of the uninspired story elements in NWN2, I'm feeling a bit finicky about devoting 20+ hours to a game with little thematic pay-off.

The game is very linear, with small maps and locations...
Again, this appears to be the new gold standard for today's RPGs: extremely linear main story with small maps and little exploration coupled with a few area-specific sidequests. This design has been chosen by Bioware, Obsidian, and others for one simple reason: it is the easiest (read: cheapest/fastest) to implement. It is also a lot easier to bug-fix. ;)

However, linearity can often be a game-killer for me and is the reason that I've been struggling through NWN2 and still haven't finished it yet. So, I guess I'm still undecided on this one. Gothic 3 might actually suit my tastes better, once it gets a few more patches under its belt.
 
I remember reading in several interview with the good doctors that MS actually is very helpful to Bioware and try helping them as best they can.

Of course, MS also do this to get people to buy good games for their xbox and their xbox 360, so if they don't treat Bioware nice, then Bioware might be going to the competetion...

In the same interview the good Dr. Muzyk said that Mass Effect would have main quest of at least 40+ hours, combined with at least 25+ hours of side quests.

Here is the interview:

http://interviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/1886/BioWare-Talks-Mass-Effect-Part-1/p1/
(sorry, don't know to to this link as just 'here' and then an line under 'here')
 
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Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses isn't anything like Oblivion either.

Oh, I didn't know there was an C-RPG out with this name !

Can you tell me more about it ? :)
 
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Dr. Muzyk said that Mass Effect would have main quest of at least 40+ hours, combined with at least 25+ hours of side quests.

The length sounds good, but that still doesn't say the type of "game" Mass Effect is going to be. My guess is it will follow a similar design as Jade, just a bit longer, because this is the style of game that Bioware likes to make these days.

From a financial perspective, there's plenty of good reasons to choose this option over some sprawling, interwoven magnum opus like BG, Fallout, or Gothic. However, these linear games don't stay on one's hard drive as long and simply don't have the replayable "legs" that keep one coming back for more.

And that's the point: they don't care if you come back for more, when a publicly-traded game company's primary goal is to move as many copies of a game in the first few weeks as possible. Longevity only serves to prevent you from purchasing their next linear game (as you are still exploring the complex nooks and crannies of the first one).

I think mods can fill this gap and the occasional indy developer not shackled to the whims/desires of shareholders.
 
Think less Jade and more KotOR. Most of the planets you visit for the critical path are fairly linear (and getting significantly cooler combat-wise every day as we move from "ugly place you can walk through and technically complete the plot for by talking to placeholder people" to "holy cows, did they put in the geth with the explosive things today?") in much the same way that each planet in KotOR was fairly linear (some branches, some options, but generally speaking, we know where you'll end up and pretty much how you got there). However, you can do the planets in the order that interests you, as in KotOR.

Also, what KotOR didn't have were the uncharted worlds, which let you break up the big quests with smaller areas (either short fight-y plots or brief moments set up to reward roleplayers) and explore a little bit.

It's not a completely wide-open world game where you can explore anything, and I don't feel like I'm hurting the game by saying that. It's not trying to be that kind of game. It's trying to expand the side-quest quantity while sticking to a critpath layout that worked for the average gamer.
 
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Well, from all I've heard of Jade, KOTOR by its very nature is less linear. I enjoyed KOTOR a great deal, so comparing Mass Effect to that gets high marks in my book. In fact, KOTOR-style non-linearity is fine, as it at least makes you feel like you can avoid going to Planet A then B then C each time you play, even though the difficulty-level of certain creatures on said planets does restrict access to some degree.

Thanks for info. on ME. Sounds promising.
 
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