City 16

It’s day four of my quest to play an hour of a game that has been sitting untouched on my hard drive each day this week. Going into this I had a vague idea of how much I’d enjoy each game being sampled, mostly based around their genre and history and, so far, I’ve not been too wrong. My suspicion has always been that Jade Empire, today’s choice, would be my personal favourite.

What is it?

An action-RPG set in an ancient China inspired locale. It was made by Bioware.

Why’d you buy it?

Re-read that last sentence: it was made by Bioware. Baldur’s Gate is my all-time favourite series of games, maybe next to Little Big Adventure; and, unlike LBA, I know that Baldur’s Gate is a good game even without the nostalgia specs on. Mass Effect was also enjoyable, if far from flawless. It was bought during the force-of-nature that is the Steam sale.

The Playtest:

0:01 – I’ve been forced to make a detour to the system config on the off chance that there isn’t one in the main game. I know that many people balk at the idea of standardised settings for PC gaming but it would be bloody useful if we could all agree on one system for configuring our stuff.

The least exciting screenshot of this entire series. Excepting Empire: Total War's naval battles, of course.

2:00 – A Bioware character creation screen. I spent hours constantly re-rolling my Baldur’s Gate character to get the perfect set up with as many creation points as possible (18/100 strength with enough spare points to plough into the rest) so I’m going to risk one of the default characters. I pick the one with the main skill of “fast” as, you know, I’ve not got time to be waiting around.

4:00 – Ah, my old friend the training arena. I’m always nice in role playing games, perhaps as a counterpoint to my day-to-day self. This time I might try to be as much of a bitch (I’m playing a female character) as possible. I accuse my opponent of having the grace of a cow and get complimented on my ‘acid wit’. This is a culture that knew no Oscar Wilde.

7:00 – I’ve just been informed that Master Li wants to see me but that I can take my time about it. This is the most casual dojo in existence. I’m not sure what good taking my time would serve though; there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to actually do yet.

10:00 – “You are my best pupil, though you came to me an orphan.” That is quality dialogue. The way he managed to integrate my character’s backstory so seamlessly into the topic at hand was truly the sign of a script writing team at the top of their game. I see it as a testament to my own abilities that I was able to detect it, though I had spaghetti for tea last night.

11:30 – Important destiny… Fate of the world… You know they could have cut this entire chunk of dialogue and just hung up a sign that said “You are in a Bioware game. Mind the fate of the world on your way out.”

15:00 – It seems everyone in this game is an arsehole. It’s seriously undermining my own attempts at being an arsehole. In fact I’ve reverted to being nice to people in an effort to stand out from all the pissy NPCs.

16:30 – Ah, I’ve met my first NPC party member, Dawn Star. She’s also the only person I’ve met who has a name that isn’t completely tied to their physical appearance. To be fair the only person I’ve really talked to through choice so far has been Smiling Mountain, but he was a jolly fat man so my point stands. As is par for the course in my playthroughs of Bioware games I’ve started laying the foundations for a lesbian tryst.

22:00 – Oh God, the weapons master doesn’t speak English but everyone else does. It’s basically the reverse of the time I watched Ichi the Killer while stoned and thought I could speak Japanese when the one character who insists on speaking English started talking.

27:00 – Dawn Star is stuck behind a tree. Her attempts at rolling through it are being performed with some gusto but ultimately it seems an act destined to fail.

That's Dawn Star on the left stuck in her own personal battle against a tree. I'm not sure whether to admonish her stupidity or admire her perseverance.

30:00 – Ugh, the combat is somewhat ropey. The main attack goes on slightly longer than you expect it to making it impossible to have any flow or finesse.

31:00 – Bugger, I’m dead. I’ve been killed by ghosts that were immune to all my attacks. That was a dick move Bioware, for shame.

33:00 – Dead again. This time I didn’t even get to the ghosts.

34:00 – Oh look, it’s my friend the “You are dead” screen. The cannons are not making this easy.

37:00 – FOR THE LOVE OF ALL FUCKING CHRIST!

40:00 – You know, I always forget the secret to winning fights in these games: turn the combat down to easy. It’s a lesson I should pay more heed to.

45:00 – Gorion! Nooooooo- Oh, wait Master Li’s not been killed. Jesus, Master Li is kicking ass. Why didn’t he do this earlier, like all those times I was getting my ass handed to me? Maybe he just likes seeing young girls being brutally killed. Pervert.

49:00 – Master Li has told me to come see him, at which point he walked off. Wouldn’t it have been easier to- you know what, never mind. I’m sure this is just some dojo master bullshit that I’m not getting. I don’t remember Mr. Miyagi ever being this bad though.

50:00 – Oh my God! The forward roll works outside of combat! I shall endeavour to use it for all motion henceforth!

The forward roll: My favourite thing about this game.

53:00 – I’ve got to go to the spirit caves for what I’m sure will turn out to be a spirit quest. Sounds enthralling. With any luck it won’t happen for about seven minutes.

57:00 – So… Much… Exposition…

1:00:00 – Oh you’ve opened the door to the spirit caves. I’d love to go, really I would, but you see the timer on my phone is going off.

Conclusion:

Wow, was I wrong. I like Bioware games and I’m interested in Chinese mythology so I figured this one would be laser-targeted to my tastes. Instead the game gave me sloppy combat, uninteresting characters and the most generic saviour of the world plot I’ve seen in a while (and I played Ghostbusters last weekend). This might seem like sour grapes after I was so spectacularly shite at the combat but dying at the hands of ghosts that I can’t hurt while I wait for my support character, who inexplicably can harm them, to actually get close enough to kill them off doesn’t strike me as my fault. It’s just plain bad design.