Jade Empire: Special Edition Preview

E3 2006 First Look Preview

Those denied the opportunity to play Jade Empires because they did not own an Xbox will be getting the opportunity to enjoy the martial arts-driven story on a PC near them.

BioWare unveiled the PC version of the title during the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. And the game, which garnered a lot of awards, never looked better. LTI Gray Matter is doing the technical conversion, and BioWare is adding a seventh character to the game, which will also feature more graphical depth and a couple of new martial arts styles – Iron Palm (a Sumo style) and Viper Style (an evil attacking style that can do thinks such as poisoning the chi of the targets).

Those needing a refresher, the original game’s featured:

·                     Award-Winning Action-RPG. The original release of Jade Empire for Xbox received numerous industry awards and ~90% Metacritic and Gamerankings review scores for its excellence in story-telling, graphics, role-playing, and action. The PC version includes the entire original game with additional content in the form of new monsters, combat styles and combat re-balancing for extra challenge, and new items.

·                     Rich and engaging storyline. An incredible, engaging story that puts you in the role of a noble hero….or a treacherous villain! Journey across the beautiful and mysterious lands of the Jade Empire to interact with a wealth of fascinating characters, as you learn to master the way of the Open Palm or the Closed Fist. Forge a legendary tale, filled with danger and deception.

·                     Enhanced for the PC! The mysterious world of Jade Empire comes to life with beautiful high-resolution graphics and new visual effects and details. Take command of your journey with intuitive controls optimized for the PC platform – support for both game pads and keyboard-mouse layouts is included. Also included in the PC version are new monsters to battle, new items to find and new combat-styles to learn, as well as more challenging encounters and better enemy AI. The power of today’s PC-gaming systems is fully utilized by Jade Empire to bring gamers very short load-times, smooth frame-rates, and ultra-crisp visuals.

But the improvements will not be without a cost. While the game itself will be optimized to work on lower-end systems (such as a P4 1.8-gig processor with 256 megs of RAM and a GeForce 3 series card) the game will eat eight gigs of hard-drive space.

That, though, may be a small price to pay for a game as well written, and as graphically rich, as this title. The ability to drive it with either a keyboard-and-mouse combination, or a game controller (such as a joystick) is an added bonuse.

Look for the game to release by the end of the year.

For All E3 2006 Previews