Gorgeous ‘Jade Empire’ has it all

REVIEW

By Tom Loftus

Tom Loftus Columnist • E-mail

MSNBC

updated 2:59 p.m. ET May 13, 2005

Why the rush towards next generation consoles with games like "Jade Empire" still hitting the shelves now?

Released for the Xbox last month, the role playing game "Jade Empire" has it all: Eastern philosophy, a drop-dead gorgeous setting and a powerful story about a world out of balance.

It's also an enjoyable fighting game blessed with moves that conjure both "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and the rock 'em sock 'em video game "Tekken."

And if that wasn't enough, "Jade Empire" boasts its own language, Tho Fan, created specifically for the inhabitants of this quasi-ancient Chinese kingdom.

All of these elements are deftly wound around a classic — perhaps the classic — storytelling trifecta: an orphan with a mysterious past, a wise man with a dark secret and a mystical land where the natural and the spiritual collide.

"Jade Empire" Platform: Xbox Rated: M for Mature Price: $44.95

The player controls the 20-year old orphan who hits the road after his (or her, the player's choice) martial arts school burns to the ground in a violent attack. The Jade Empire is falling apart. Angry ghosts are popping up throughout the land. Pirates and other thieves are terrorizing the peasants. Meanwhile, a shady government hit squad, the Lotus Assassins, makes mincemeat of any one who defies the emperor.

This sets the stage for a journey through a large setting of villages and cities populated by a typical array of farmers, townspeople and more nefarious folk and spirits. In typical role-playing fashion, encounters with these non-playing-characters, or NPCs, drive the story. They may prattle off a story about the land or, perhaps, request assistance in fending off thieves or rescuing a lost object.

Fortunately, "Jade Empire's" writers have avoided the creaky role-playing game dialogue boilerplate — a pox on "Lord of the Rings" and their "thees" and "thous" — for natural sounding and evocative dialogue. There's often a sense of humor in the give and take between characters. The voice acting is top notch. It needs to be with colorfully named empire inhabitants such as Sagacious Zu and Gao the Lesser.

The quests your orphan undertakes shape how the story unfolds. In one early scene, the player has the choice of either saving a fishing village's livelihood by releasing an upstream dam or keeping the dam up to avoid any bad karma from spirits whose grave lies near the dam.

Karma is a big deal in "Jade Empire." Your character can choose the path of good, "Way of the Open Palm," or evil, the "Way of the Closed Fist," and there are repercussions. Other Eastern philosophies like reincarnation and the spiritual and mental qualities surrounding the practice of martial arts appear in dialogue and convenient little signs posted throughout the empire.

These ethereal notions are most manifest in how the orphan "levels up" during the game. Abilities are broken into three areas: body, mind and spirit. It is spirit that controls the orphan's "chi," or inner energy used to heal wounds or deliver devastating blows.

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