Let’s Play – Jade Empire – Complete

If you’ve kept an eye on The Mental Attic’s YouTube channel, you’ve probably noticed the three on-going Let’s Play (or more accurately LawfulGeek Plays) series: Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, Tales of Zestiria and of course, Jade Empire.

I first picked up Jade Empire with the intention of playing it during my Twitch broadcasts on the old channel and review it afterwards, but after just one night in which I forgot to turn on the mic while playing (happens more often than I’d care to admit), I abandoned it. When I decided to push harder on the YouTube content, as part of the LawfulGeek rebrand for Twitch and the revamp of the YouTube channel, I decided to continue this playthrough. A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the game was going and did a minor review of some of my pet peeves with the game. I have a lot more now, to be honest, since the game has a ton of storytelling and simple writing flaws. In fact, the last episodes reminded me of what I said about dialogues in my Emotional Impact novel writing guide, because the conversations are so wooden, so unnatural that they felt disingenuous. There wasn’t even a tiny bit of emotional impact in their delivery. But I’ll save the rest of my commentary for an upcoming article on the subject.

The Let’s Play series is now complete as of yesterday and on Monday we’ll kick off a new series. I have THREE candidates to take over that timeslot, and I hope you can help me decide:

• Pyschonauts: Despite my feelings on Double Fine and their current practices, I do love Psychonauts, man. And it’s a game I decided early on I would go after to do a Let’s Play. It’s a fantastically weird and quirky world and cast, and it’s a joy to play through.
• Darksiders: Joey Mad’s baby, the mash-up of The Legend of Zelda, Portal and God of War. Play as the Horseman of War in the aftermath of the Apocalypse! In this playthrough I am a faithful follower in the IKEAn Gospel, using the Sacred Furniture to bring Demons and Angels to their knees! The Power of Furniture Compels You!
• Nancy Drew: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek: Yeah, this is an odd one compared to the other two. It’s a First Person Point & Click adventure game starring the very famous Nancy Drew, amateur detective. I picked this title up along with many other Drew games in the last Steam Sale, and I’ve chosen it for a Let’s Play for a single reason: They played it on Game Grumps and abandoned it. Even if it’s tremendously silly, I feel the need to do it and tell them “this is how it’s done!” Also, I like adventure games A LOT!

Hope you can help me decide, and in the meantime, why not enjoy some nice Jade Empire, so like me you can get annoyed with me at the offensively bland female characters and the bland combat system!