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[Dr_Cogent]

I was just playing Jade Empire and

Spoiler

I ran into this totally snobby englishman berating me and my people right and left

and then I realized it was John Cleese!

Awesome! :lol

 

[Sinatar]

I was so hoping that guy would join my party so I could listen to Cleese-ism's for the rest of the game, alas it wasn't meant to be. It also has Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Buffy), Armin Shimmerman (DS9), and a bunch of VG Voice acting regulars (Cam Clarke and so on).

 

[MightyHedgehog]

Yeah, one of the highlights of JE. I hope the inevitable sequel lets you journey over there and play the same scene out w/ roles reversed.

 

[temp]

Hey, I JUST played that, too. I really love some of the side-quests in Bioware's games.

Spoiler

Too bad Mirabelle sucks

 

[temp]

Not so fast, thread.


Does anyone feel like telling me why Jade Empire's supposed to be worse than KOTOR? I don't see anything wrong with it. I'd say it's just as good or better in pretty much every way, actually.

 

[CousinLump]

I don't think the experience was any worse than KOTOR. I, for one, was caught in the hype machine. I was expecting something truly unique from BioWare. However, I felt as though I got KOTOR: Live From China. Not that ChinaTOR was bad, it was just more of the same. Meh.

 

[Kobold]

Don't forget some features where abandonned in the last year of production. (Like creating your own forts, etc.)

It was MEGA Star Wars, but not Star Wars. Way of the Closed Fist Open Palm (Light, Dark). I thought that the excecution in general was very dissapointing, but the combat was very cool. Story was nice, but would've fitted a Star Wars games as well.

 

[Fowler]

Creating your own forts? What do you mean by that? And what else was abandoned? I'm curious...

The other posters have hit on why Jade is supposed to be "worse" than KOTOR -- it's basically Star Wars again without the license and set in China. Oh, and it's also a lot more linear and supposed to be a lot shorter (though I haven't finished it yet).

 

[Kobold]

Forts is maybe a wrong word, you where supposed to create your own 'base', it would shadow your position in the world (right or wrong). However, this never made it to the final game.

It's been a while since it's been mentioned, I don't know if I'm describing this very well. It was in some of the early video's and fact sheets, I believe. Those are all removed now though from the official sites.

 

[Azure Dream]

I like what I've played of the game (up to the Capitol, I think; haven't even started to do much of anything there yet, though), but in terms of it being "worse" than KotOR... I don't know about that, but things have been streamlined and are easier to keep track of, which is good for casual gaming, but that might remove some of the depth for those who appreciated it in KotOR. Plus the game starts off nigh-impossible until you start learning to use the dodge and flips, then you become almost untouchable.

I also agree, the Open Palm/Closed Fist idea isn't executed too well. Dark Side/Light Side made plenty of sense in KotOR and when you should earn points from it, but they spend a lot of time explaining that Closed Fist isn't necessarily evil, it's about expecting people to fight their own battles, but they also say that a Closed Fist will step in when the odds are unfair. However, you get Closed Fist points for things that don't fit that description, such as

Spoiler

the rock suspended over the bridge with the pirates. The servant doesn't have a fair chance or even a warning, so that doesn't fit what is said to be the Closed Fist philosophy, but you get Closed Fist points anyway.

It just seems like some of the areas and choices weren't designed while properly keeping the supposed details of OP/CF in mind.

But it's an amusing game with a lot of interesting design work and some very pretty visuals. (Plus, got to love Focus Running when you already know the area.) But I don't know if it was a tease to the gamer or not, but mid-way through the game,

Spoiler

you go to Heaven, and you see the foxpeople fight the monsters on the way up and help them out; one of them is inexplicably white, just one if I remember correctly. You go up, spend a bit of time conversing with Forest Shadow, then you leave and go do your thing, and then she pops up and says "OK NOW I AM CLOSING PORTAL FOREVER BYE." Which sucked because Heaven was, of course, pretty, but I also figured I was going to get an interesting helper/standby out of the subplot. Maybe it's possible that I just haven't seen an event later on yet, but I figured that if they bothered to program in enemy combat AI, one of them would end up tagging along with you.

 

[The Abominable Snowman]

However, you get Closed Fist points for things that don't fit that description, such as

Spoiler

the rock suspended over the bridge with the pirates. The servant doesn't have a fair chance or even a warning, so that doesn't fit what is said to be the Closed Fist philosophy, but you get Closed Fist points anyway.

It just seems like some of the areas and choices weren't designed while properly keeping the supposed details of OP/CF in mind.

Actually,

Spoiler

You came there solely to deal with pirates. The choice there was to wipe out the bridge and kill all the pirates there, therefore saving you a battle, while killing the guy who had no chance OR fighting them OR IIRC you can scheme with the servant to efface the pirates.

 

[Azure Dream]

Spoiler

I don't remember a choice to scheme with the servant on the bridge. I have a save file there, so I might be able to check.

But either way, it didn't seem to fit the supposed Closed Fist mentality, it was just a "Bad Side" choice with no honor or correlation, so to speak.

I think the primary problem is that they put both of them on the same sliding scale. Open Palm is supposed to be the opposite of Closed Fist, but they didn't quite describe it as such, because there are supposedly some things both sides would still agree on. (Helping an unfairly overwhelmed person.) But taking the easy way out like the example mentioned above doesn't seem to fit either philosophy, yet you still get Closed Fist points for it. That's kind of what I mean, they spent too long explaining something as complex that really isn't in the game design. Closed Fist in-game just usually equates to "Be an Asshole" about anything.

 

[temp]

That was all really unnecessary, too. They have all these conversations and scrolls and stuff in the beginning trying to explain the differences between Closed Fist and Open Palm, and how Closed Fist isn't just evil, but then Closed Fist is just evil anyway. And that's fine, I like evil. Just don't bother next time, Bioware. I don't think anyone cares.

 

[Cormacaroni]

Did anyone notice Tycho from PA in the teahouse?

 

[Azure Dream]

Considering his many visits to Microsoft, I'd believe it. Which one was he supposed to be?

 

[Cormacaroni]

the ridiculously verbose and pompous one. It was when he mentioned "the neighing and braying of farmyard animals' that I twigged

 

[temp]

the ridiculously verbose and pompous one. It was when he mentioned "the neighing and braying of farmyard animals' that I twigged

Oh hey, I remember that. I thought about Penny-Arcade when he said that, but I didn't think about him actually being Tycho. I forget, what he someone you could actually talk to, or just a [hit A for one line] guy?

 

[Azure Dream]

He was the one upstairs that you could

Spoiler

propose as a husband to that woman who was a gang leader

, right?

 

[temp]

Oh yeah, that's the guy. He didn't seem all that much like Tycho, though. Not fat enough, I guess.