You know what ole' Jack Burton always says at a time like this...

After years of sieging dungeons and collecting elder scrolls, PC roleplayers have a chance to try their blades in an Eastern setting inspired by Chinese myths and legends. Unfortunately, even the quickest FPS ace will be torn down under the painfully complex combat system, unless they’re one of those guys that beat the crap out of me every time I played Mortal Kombat in the arcade.

Jade Empire: Special Edition is a port of the original Xbox game, upgraded with graphics worthy of a high-end gaming PC.

Bioware, which made the original Knights of the Old Republic game, infused much of the same character-driven story play into this game. Your character can follow different paths on the way, acquire a reputation based on your actions, or even fall in love with an NPC follower!

The Light Side vs. Dark Side conflict has been replaced with two philosophical teachings, the Way of the Open Fist and the Way of the Closed Fist. The former is the belief that the strong must protect the weak; the latter is that the gods help those who help themselves.

Neither is inherently evil, according to the characters in the game world, although it becomes evident early on that being an asshole is the quickest way down the Way of the Closed Fist.

Regardless of your actions, your followers stay with you until the end. You have the chance for a couple of different followers following the Closed Fist path that would be otherwise unavailable by following the straight and narrow goody-two-shoes path.

The story line follows the clichéd roleplaying hook of a main character destined for greatness but with a background shrouded in mystery. Your followers have equally mysterious backgrounds, which eventually figure into the larger story.

The story even includes a twist near the end that I almost didn’t see coming, although in retrospect answered many of the seeming inconsistencies in the story.

If you really want to enjoy the story, just turn the difficulty to “easy” and enjoy.

If you have a death wish, set it to anything else and let your hands cramp after a few hours.

At the heart of the real-time combat is a simple “rock-paper-scissors” system – block beats basic attack, power attack beats block, basic attack beats power attack. Your different styles include variations of weapons, fists, magic, or transformation into mythical beasts. Some attacks are useless against certain opponents, and the magical attacks are better for attacking from a distance than weapon- or fist-based attacks.

Attacks can also be modified by channeling chi, to improve damage, or focus, to slow down the combat bullet-time style. And “harmonic combinations” are theoretically possibly by attacking with two different styles in quick succession (I never got one).

In the end, though, when you get swamped by enemies from all sides, trying anything “fancy” seems like a waste. Out of the dozen or so styles learned by the end, I focused all my points in three different styles and stuck to those depending on what type of opponents I faced.

You can choose one follower at a time to accompany you, which is mostly only useful for adding background to the locations you visit. In combat, they do little more than distract some of your enemies.

Overall, the game is enjoyable, and worthy of at least two plays through to see both paths, but the combat might put off those used to a turn-based combat system, or even the more basic first-person based combat system in Oblivion and the like.