Currently scheduled for release in March 2005, Jade Empire is an action role-playing game in which you'll assume the role of a martial arts expert who must combat evil in the titular Jade Empire, a territory loosely based on those found in several periods of Chinese history and one of many that makes up the high-fantasy world created specifically for the game by developer BioWare. During a recent visit to BioWare's Edmonton office, we had the opportunity to play through the early stages with a couple of different characters and are pleased to report that the developer looks certain to maintain its track record of making every game better than its last.

The early stages of the game are set in the idyllic Two Rivers school.

If you've played BioWare's last game, the multiple-award-winning Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, you'll actually have a reasonably good idea of what you can expect from Jade Empire, at least in terms of its structure. As in KOTOR, your character in Jade Empire will evolve as you progress through the game, both as a result of actions that sway your alignment toward good or evil and through experience points that can be applied toward improving certain attributes and skills. You'll also have the opportunity to add up to 12 non-player characters to your party as you play, and each of them has his or her own combat style, storyline, and alternate endings. Jade Empire isn't set in the Star Wars universe, of course, but the game definitely owes a lot to numerous martial arts movies. Fist of Legend and Five Venoms, for example, have been cited as influences by members of the development team, along with the classic 14th century Chinese novel Outlaws of the Marsh.

Before we actually got hands-on with Jade Empire, we were treated to a live demonstration that showed off three previously unseen areas from the game, as well as a number of different enemies. The first area was an ancient neighborhood known as The Necropolis, which was inhabited by lost spirits. These lost spirits were translucent enemies that, because of their immunity to all weapon-based attacks, were defeated by employing a combination of ice attacks (temporarily freezing them) and "thousand cuts" punches. The second locale was a forest that, although it had evidently once been an area of great beauty, was inhabited by ghosts and basically didn't look like the kind of place you'd want to go to for a picnic. While in the forest, the BioWare representative's character, Lu the Prodigy (more about player characters later), was accompanied by a previously unseen and particularly intriguing follower named Wildflower, who looked as harmless as her name suggested because she was a young girl with pigtails. However, Wildflower's body played host to two demons, one good and one evil. We got to see Wildflower transform into one of these two demons once combat got under way, and we were also shown one of the ways in which you'll be able to use the environment to your advantage. In this case, ghost enemies, who dislike light and heat, were lured toward a flaming altar where they spontaneously combusted. The third level we were afforded a glimpse of was taken from much later in the game, and it was set place in a cave system underneath the city of Dirge. The caves were never so dark that it was difficult to see what was going on, which was good, because the caves were frequented by "horse demons" that had skeletal heads and fires burning on their backs. Predictably, the demons were immune to flame attacks, but the overall challenge they posed was relatively insignificant compared to the boss encounter with the "Minion of Suffering" that concluded the demonstration (for which the BioWare player eventually resorted to the easiest of the three difficulty settings).

Wu the Lotus Blossom is a balanced character who studies magic and weapons equally.

Once we got our hands on the game, our first task was to select one of five available characters to play. The characters at our disposal included: Wu the Lotus Blossom, a balanced female fighter who studies magic and weapon techniques equally; Furious Ming, an incredibly fast, agile, and brash fighter who specializes in unarmed combat; Tiger Shen, an unbelievably strong, young but slightly ponderous fighter whose barbarian-like appearance belies his charismatic and gentle nature; Scholar Ling, a female magic user; and Lu the Prodigy, a young student who is remarkably adept at learning new skills, whether they're fighting styles, musical instruments, or languages. For our first play, we chose Lu the Prodigy. And after checking out the limited pregame customization options that let you redistribute health, chi, and focus attribute points, as well as opt for a different pair of fighting styles to start the game with, we found ourselves engaged in a conversation with another student at the Two Rivers school. Since our character was the top student at the school (this is true no matter which character you choose to play as), this other student was hoping for an opportunity to spar with us. In the absence of a tutorial (the final game will have one, but it hasn't been implemented yet), the brief sparring session that followed the conversation gave us a chance to familiarize ourselves with the game's controls, and it also let us try out the rock-paper-scissors combat system. The combat has a little more depth to it than rock-paper-scissors, of course, but no matter which of Jade Empire's 30-plus fighting styles you choose (you can have four mapped to the directional pad simultaneously, thus allowing you to switch between them on the fly), you'll find that strong attacks are unblockable. However, they do take a while to charge up. Blocks work against faster light attacks, and light attacks are very effective against characters that are in the process of charging up strong attacks. As you progress through the game, you'll learn that different fighting styles are more effective against certain enemies, consequently making combat much more tactical. Although in the early stages that we played through, this was a rare occurrence.