BioWare - Lost Game: Five Fingers of Death

This one is just for interest because it's now lost in time - or perhaps the idea became Jade Empire. IGN has a snippet from the DICE summit where Biodoc Ray Muzyka revealed they once prototyped a kung-fu game using the Infinity Engine, called Five Fingers of Death:

Speaking at DICE last night, BioWare's Dr. Ray Muzyka revealed that many, many years ago, he created Five Fingers of Death, an adventure that combined the successful Baldur's Gate formula with a love for kung fu movies. In fact, those movies were going to play a pivotal part in Five Fingers, as cutscenes to punctuate the action and advance what sounded like a rather unserious narrative. Apparently, Muzyka himself edited old footage in Premiere and provided a good number of the voice overs.

Sounds crazy, right? Too bad Bioware's then-publisher didn't quite see it that way.

"We took it out to Interplay and they laughed us out of the building," said Muzyka.

More information.

Jade Empire meets Baldur's Gate? That sort of thing has massive potential! They should complete that game as an indie - the Infinity Engine is just gathering dust at the moment anyway.

Yes, this is exactly the sort of thing I'd have liked BioWare to do (prior to their acquisition).

Dont tease me man that game would of been great on a modified infinity engine. Instead we got Jade Empire while not a bad game was very short.

Like Dragon Age using the NWN engine…

I have Jade Empire but never played it, this lost game seems quite close to it.

I wonder if they'll ever get around to Jade Empire 2. I sure hope so. The first was one of my favorite Bioware games.

I'd play it.

Also, Jade Empire was a fun game.

sounds like it may have been a fun title, taking the monotonous action of Jade Empire and making it a bit more strategic instead.
Jade Empire was a fun game for me, at least until I found myself doing the exact same motions ad nauseum for literally every single encounter in the game after about the 1/4 mark. It's my fault I guess for maybe not exploring the combat options or something, but if you find something that works well you generally use it. And of course, then sink your points into it thus solidifying your committment to use that attack forevermore. I cant remember exactly what the attack sequence was, but I used it the entire game until I finally found myself asleep at my keyboard one evening after grinding thru and winning the arena matches using the exact same thing. I never finished the game

Great artistic style, fun NPCs, fun "evil" path, but absolutely boring as all hell gameplay once i started sinking points. It just rolled-then-kicked me right into snoozeville.

True, the combat needed some help. I enjoyed it quite a bit nonetheless. Wonderfully different setting and characters, plenty of humor (remember the John Cleese character?), beautiful art design, and an interesting plot.

Ah well, to each his own. It's still one of my favorite Bioware games, though. I hear it's an office sentimental favorite, too, so I hope they resurrect it at some point. However, the longer we go without hearing anything, the less likely it seems.

@Samhain: Huh, that's too bad, how far did you get?

I also enjoyed Jade Empire, but I have to agree with Sammy, the combat left a lot to be desired. I finished it, but I doubt I will ever replay it.

An even bigger issue for me however was the single active companion at any given time. My first thought was -"Seriously? Now we're down to a 2 person party?"

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
…I found myself doing the exact same motions ad nauseum for literally every single encounter in the game after about the 1/4 mark. It's my fault I guess for maybe not exploring the combat options or something, but if you find something that works well you generally use it.
…
Great artistic style, fun NPCs, fun "evil" path, but absolutely boring as all hell gameplay once i started sinking points.

That can happen, but it's a bit of laziness. But as it's just game, a bit of laziness can fit. But yes perhaps you spoiled to yourself a great fun. For me The Witcher started be like that, almost a stupid constant repetition of clicking feast. Then the game was clearly so good that I tried something else and get a lot of fun, even in fights by using more diversified tactics mixing attacks, moving and runes.

Venetica certainly suffer of the same problem, when it didn't for me it's probably more because I hadn't yet found the right clicking feast for that type of opponents. But thanks I played the fights with curiosity to try things and found good fun even if not all along the game, at some points the difficulty was just a lot too low to not destroy the fights mood even at hardest level. Interestingly G3 fights never work fully for me, despite an amazing amount of effort I put in trying find them fun. The key point is that I never master anything and was constantly pushed to jump into a clicking feast a lot too efficient. My bet, could be wrong is that this clicking feast hole in G3 fights didn't allow me learn the fight system by dragging me out constantly from most of the learning.

Jade Empire was pretty "meh" for me. I enjoyed about 8 hours of the 15 hours it took me to complete it. The first part was quite nice, with some nice environments and what I consider to be some of BioWare's best writing humour-wise. It was a great game to play as an asshole character. But after 8-10 hours my interest in the story started to fade, and the ultra-boring combat was getting a bit too tedious. I didn't help that the game was amazingly easy (I think I even beat the "boss" without taking a single hit, but my memory could be muddled), and the terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE plot twist at the end was unforgivable. And the "evil" ending was very unsatisfying as well. It was just mindless bloodshed, not the "funny" evil that the game had before the ending.

On a side not, does anyone else remember what score the game received from IGN? When it was reviewed I still read (and believed) IGN reviews, but this one had me raising an eyebrow or two… Or three. WARNING: This review is not for the faint of heart!

Jade was OK…especially on Xbox where it actually shined at the time. My major gripe was with the whole representation of `martial arts` - about as bland and generic as you`d expect from a geeky fan. Kill Bill style, of sorts.

Let's face it: Bioware has never been that good at combat or gameplay. Bioware's strength has always been story, characters and dialogue. And to that the visuals, the combat and the gameplay play second fiddle..

Originally Posted by aries100
Let's face it: Bioware has never been that good at combat or gameplay. Bioware's strength has always been story, characters and dialogue. And to that the visuals, the combat and the gameplay play second fiddle..

Depends which games you're talking about. I thought the Baldur's Gate series had excellent combat and gameplay.

I agree about most of their games since then though. Although DA:O wasn't too bad in those aspects.

Krzychu -
I got to the spirit world. Now that I look at a walkthru it looks like I was much closer to the end than I thought I was…

IIRC it did start to pick up a little around that time, but by then it was too late and I started playing something else.

Too bad it was on PC or I'd still probably have a save. Maybe that was part of the problem too, some games clearly feel like they belong on a console and if I dont play them w/ a controller I get bored. Like the Resident Evil games, Tomb Raiders, etc. Very hard for me to sit at a keyboard and feel like Ive got the best control and want to experiment more w/ a total console title.

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
Krzychu -
I got to the spirit world. Now that I look at a walkthru it looks like I was much closer to the end than I thought I was…

IIRC it did start to pick up a little around that time, but by then it was too late and I started playing something else.

Too bad it was on PC or I'd still probably have a save. Maybe that was part of the problem too, some games clearly feel like they belong on a console and if I dont play them w/ a controller I get bored. Like the Resident Evil games, Tomb Raiders, etc. Very hard for me to sit at a keyboard and feel like Ive got the best control and want to experiment more w/ a total console title.

I have the same problem to when it comes to action based games and some fps on the pc. The controls don't work well when ported to the pc. One example is the assassin creed series. To many keyboard keys to use.

yeah, the fighting definitely felt detached and awkward on the keyboard, so the survival instinct takes over. Learn an effective method of attack and stick w/ it. It may not be the most fun way to go, but you'll survive.. if you dont die of boredom, that is!