Click to enlarge

Macworld has published a new review of Jade Empire: Special Edition. In the game players face powerful human and supernatural foes, learn magical martial arts and weapons styles, and discover the darkest secrets of the world. Macworld gave the game a score of 4 out of 5 mice.

From the review:

If you’ve played Knights of the Old Republic, you’ll be familiar with a concept that’s recycled for Jade Empire: moral ambiguity. You can make positive or negative decisions that will affect your standings with others, and in turn, will direct you down two different alignment paths within the game, unlocking new story elements, capabilities and rewards. It isn’t presented as “good versus evil” - instead, it’s “closed fist” choices (often aggressive and can carry with them some sort of extreme negative connotation), and “open palm” ethical choices (more noble and upstanding).

You’ll need to choose a weapon and fighting style, and three main attributes-Body (health), Chi (magic powers) and Focus (special combat techniques)-help you succeed at what you do. You can learn a wide range of techniques, everything from wielding specialized weapons like a master to understanding the arcane arts and mastering shape-changing ability or the control of the elements. You’ll need different styles and weapons to combat different foes, so it’s a good idea to learn as much as what suits your particular playing style.

Mouse and keyboard control is very effective, especially compared to the game’s gamepad basis on the Xbox. They’ve carried over an intuitive targeting system that will help you focus on who (or what) you have to fight quickly. You carry on conversations with computer-controlled characters through branching dialogue trees, but it’s worth noting that those conversations (as well as the action that unfolds around them) are pretty linear. They’re there to dress up the story a bit, but not much more.

Macworld: Jade Empire Review

TransGaming

BioWare

Jade Empire: Special Edition

Buy Jade Empire: Special Edition

Search for other Mac games news stories or browse our Mac Games News Archive.