What do you get when you cross the deep rooted story lines, enguaging graphics and solid balance of gameplay tied to Knights of the Old Republic, with a staggering and dynamic range of martial arts styles, an original universe and real time combat? Well, a very long sentance at first, but you get a game that proves without a doubt that Bioware, KOTOR's developers, can stand on their own with original content and a title that screams follow up. Jade Empire takes all the best elements of its LucasArts branded sister and does away with the roll of the dice, turn based combat key to every other role playing game out there, on paper or screen.

It's hard not to comapre Jade with Knights of the Old Republic. We spoke with Bioware at E3 back in 2004, and their developers couldn't be more excited about this title. At the time, although a sequel to the award winning 'Knights' was a no brainer, Bioware wouldn't be handling it. Instead, the success they had achieved allowed them take the risks handed to them with KOTOR and improve upon them using their own creative team, unrestricted by the rules of character and story that governs any intellectual property dealing in the Star Wars universe. Instead, Jade Empire thrives in an alternate Chinese dynasty-era world where spirit guardians, ghosts and monsters are less a mystery than that of flying machines that become prominent to the story. Like KOTOR, your character's background is shadowed and as a player, bits and pieces reveal themselves as you play. You are enticed to explore that various areas of the Empire, in search of items, completing objectives and making allies or enemies.

After a short character creation session in which you choose one of 5 characters and some base fighting styles, you begin as the star pupil of a martial arts school in the high forests of the empire's southern region. Master Li, an aging man and the school's leader has begun to reveal bits of how you came to school as an orphan and that you play a much bigger role in the world than you know. When bandits attack the school seemingly unprovoked and Master Li is abducted, it sets the larger plot in motion that will take your character and your followers, allies that join your party and aid in combat, all over the Jade Empire to uncover ancient secrets and evil plots. Like KOTOR, the decisions you make in choosing your objectives and how you react in conversations effect your character's good and evil balance. Two paths, The Way of the Open Palm (think light side of the force) and The Way of the Closed Fist (dark side) are laid out in front of you opening unique fighting styles, the use of some weapons and items, and ultimately the game's ending. As it did in 'Knights' this gives Jade Empire a replayability not common to RPGs.

Combat is GREAT. Real time combat has been missing from this genre for too long and Jade Empire may well be the pioneer of a new sub-genre, the Action-RPG. After an enemy has been spotted, the player assumes a fighting stance chosen from those available at his particular disposable. Fighting techniques are granted by completing quests, paying merchants or defeating various enemies in battle. 5 base types are core and up to 4 can be assigned and called up by a press of the D-pad at anytime during battle, letting the player mix and match to pull some head-popping combos and special moves. Martial Arts are the various weaponless fighting styles both fact and fictional: drunken boxing, legendary fist, thousand cuts etc... . Weapon styles allow you to wield swords, staffs, axes and even table legs or other temporary weapons found on the ground. Magic styles play a big part in combos especially. Throwing fireballs, ice spears, lighning botls and using the ground itself as a weapon can be achieved with magic. Support styles help you to recover or help to set up combos while in combat without actual doing damage. For example, Spirit Thief helps to recover Chi energies used in magic techniques but does not actual damage to the opponent. Finally, transformation techniques radically change the player into one of several demons or creatures he has beaten in previous battles. Beating a Toad demon allows you to transform into an enormous red frog creature whose tongue is poisonous and whose reach far extends yours as a human.

Another key to battle is Focus. Three status bars float on your screen: Health (self explananatory), Chi (magic reserves used for offense and health recovery) and Focus. Focus can be compared to bullet-time. Enemies and environments are slowed as you focus your energies allowing you to dodge projectiles and sudden attacks that gain you an edge over your opponents. This is especially helpful when you travel with weaker (but essential) followers who lack real combat skills and you're ambushed by multiple enemies. Dodging attacks is possible, or rather essential and ACTUALLY WORKS! You aren't able to completely run away from opponents, but rolling out of the way of attacks isn't just a fancy bit of animation. Press B, character dodges, less bleeding. Makes sense, don't it? Since combat is real time and combo based, button mashing isn't going to get you through the game and dodging, rolling or flipping will become just as important to punching and kicking. My only disappointment was a lack of throws. Several times during combat, I desperately wanted to walk up to someone, grab their legs and swing them around to clear out other enemies around us. Maybe next time.

Next to the real time fights, the most impressive feature of 'Jade' is the performances. The voice acting is absolutely phenomenal. Players may recognize several voices from various TV and movie series. John Cleese (Monty Python), Armin Shimerman (Star Trek: DS9), Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Saving Private Ryan) and dozens of others provide a cast of characters both sinister and slapstick in superbly performed roles. No closer have a I seen a game emulate a film than in Jade Empire. Though dialogue can get a bit long in the tooth, captions are provided for the impatient and can be skimmed through quickly before continuing. Betwixed the serious plot driven conversations, barbs and banter are traded between various non-playable and companion characters. Particularly funny are the quips dealt from a spirit guide assigned to buy and sell items to you whenever you like. He reaks of a used car salesman, and his pitches can be laugh out loud funny.

Hardcore RPG fans will likely be disappointed that character leveling isn't excruciatingly deep, although there are several attributes to upgrading skill and mind/body/spirit continence. Action freaks will likely shun so much talking and some of the minor puzzle solving despite the well refined combat system. As a whole though, the game is a no brainer for action players to get a feel for the RPG market without having to dedicate hours to character creation and likewise introduce role-players to action games without having to learn complicated combos or play in disorienting hallways and arenas. Jade Empire is a near perfect combination in a gloriously rendered, original universe. The story is enguaging, the dialogue is funny and the controller is simply hard to put down. Look forward to a sequel round about 2006 and keep tabs on BioWare's new title, DragonAge, still in development.