Jade Empire - Preview @ Games Radar

The latest preview of BioWare's Jade Empire PC build is Games Radar:

A play through the first hours of the PC special edition of Jade Empire reveals that it treads the boards of Star Wars with a glee thoroughly untouched upon in the opening acts of sci-fi amnesia in either KOTOR. That’s not to belittle what BioWare has created here though - from the start you’re embroiled in a deep, wordy and FMV-packed narrative, nimbly facing off against evenly paced tutorial sections
It doesn’t really feel like a converted Xbox game in the way that the KOTORs did either. Yes, the areas you find yourself in are often tight and contained, but the lush, colorful, almost hand-drawn locations and smooth character models and animations easily bring your "console conversion" guard down.

More information.

A pity you didn't insert the first paragraph of this mini-review here, because it's utterly humorous due to its cynical tone.

was mildly interested until i read the part about the game being short. will wait for the bargain bin i guess.

Originally Posted by araczynski
was mildly interested until i read the part about the game being short. will wait for the bargain bin i guess.

The XBOX version took people ~25 hours for one style / path, from what I've heard.

Yes, that's odd as txa1265 mentions, the reviewer must be confused even PatrickWeekes said JE was 20-30 hours iirc.

This was a 14 hour game for me on the xbox. There weren't "multiple" paths. You could punch enemies or you could swing at them or you could mage your way through things. Everything was linear. Nice little adventure title. Glad to see Bioware is bringing back the long suffering third person action adventure genre.

It took me 25-30 hours, doing most of the side-quests, but not quite all of them. 14 hours is lower than I've heard, but maybe on easy, quick-jumping your way through conversations and skipping the cutscenes, it's possible. (I mean, obviously it's possible, unless you're lying, and I'm going to assume that you're not lying, since otherwise there's no reason to show up on messageboards.)

So yeah, shorter than some people are going to want, but if you play it for the story, I think you're still going to enjoy it. Personally, I wish that more of the subquests had made it in, but the smaller maps mean that you're doing less aimless wandering than you were in KotOR. The exploration that you have is shorter but much prettier. (And yeah, some people won't like that. Again, I'm aiming for honesty.)

EDIT: And expect a longer playtime on PC than on the XBox, since the fights will be harder (no more jump-over, A-A-A) and there are new monster types, and at least one new side-quest.

Originally Posted by PatrickWeekes
EDIT: And expect a longer playtime on PC than on the XBox, since the fights will be harder (no more jump-over, A-A-A) and there are new monster types, and at least one new side-quest.

Cool - thanks for the info, Patrick!

Any clue on how the controls will translate? I have heard an early report on the upcoming PC port of Resident Evil 4 … and the word on the street there is 'yuk'.

I dont mind shorter gameplay. Its nice to get games finished in shorter timespans occasionally. Theres only so much time available anyway.

Originally Posted by txa1265
Any clue on how the controls will translate?

Almost none whatsoever. I've been pretty busy on Mass Effect, so I haven't been doing any of the testing.

The people who've tried it said that they liked it, for what it's worth. They said it was harder than the Xbox (which everyone agreed was a bit easier than they wanted) but still pretty intuitive.

We'll see how it turns out.

Originally Posted by PatrickWeekes
It took me 25-30 hours, doing most of the side-quests, but not quite all of them. 14 hours is lower than I've heard, but maybe on easy, quick-jumping your way through conversations and skipping the cutscenes, it's possible.

I did skip through most of the cut scenes. I never really found myself interested in the story. Pretty standard "HERE COMES TEH BETRAYAL" sort of thing. I never bothered with the romance dialogs either, it really infuriarated me when the womanfolk decided she wanted to have a conversation about her feelings while I was clearing a dungeon.

(I mean, obviously it's possible, unless you're lying, and I'm going to assume that you're not lying, since otherwise there's no reason to show up on messageboards.)

Unless you're a spineless twit and want to call someone a liar without calling them a liar because they had a different game experience than you. No reason for that though. You're right. YMMV definitely applies to any game.

So yeah, shorter than some people are going to want, but if you play it for the story, I think you're still going to enjoy it.

It has it's moments.

Personally, I wish that more of the subquests had made it in, but the smaller maps mean that you're doing less aimless wandering than you were in KotOR. The exploration that you have is shorter but much prettier. (And yeah, some people won't like that. Again, I'm aiming for honesty.)

Really? The KOTOR maps had me feeling claustrophobic.

EDIT: And expect a longer playtime on PC than on the XBox, since the fights will be harder (no more jump-over, A-A-A) and there are new monster types, and at least one new side-quest.

new monster types? really!!!?

Originally Posted by Killzig
Unless you're a spineless twit and want to call someone a liar without calling them a liar because they had a different game experience than you. No reason for that though. You're right. YMMV definitely applies to any game.

Apologies if you thought I was calling you a liar. I wasn't. 14 hours is a lot shorter than I've heard, but yeah, if you skipped all the cutscenes and ignored the romances, you can fast-track it a good bit.

Took me about 35 hours for one playthrough, doing all the sidequests including the arcade missions (think 1942). I guess I'm a little slow, eh ?