Jade Empire: Special Edition Previews

A trio of new previews for BioWare's upcoming PC version of Jade Empire surfaced on the 'net earlier today. The first is at GameSpot:
The extra content in the PC version will include a new weapon (a new type of sword) and a new playable character, Monk Zeng (who was available only in the Xbox limited-edition version of the game). It'll also offer two new fighting styles: the sumo-wrestling-inspired iron palm, which uses heavy palm strikes, and the swift viper style, which lets your character deliver rapid sequences of punches that somehow poison your foes. Viper style is a sinister fighting style that your character will learn only if he or she follows the "closed fist" fighting philosophy, the game's equivalent of "evil" and counterpart to the "good" philosophy of "open palm." And in keeping with Jade Empire's themes of mysticism and supernatural summoning, the PC version of the game will also include a new high-level power--transforming briefly into the squat, ugly, but extremely powerful "rhino demon" form. This new form will join the other shapes into which your character can change from the Xbox version, which all remain intact.

The second is at IGN PC:
A new high difficulty mode has been added for that extra bit of challenge. Clarke said that this level was designed so that players would basically have to use harmonic combos in order to survive in the game. He's hoping it will create a more tactical feel to the battle that makes players really think about how they're approaching a battle like quickly deciding which of the enemies can be killed with a combo quickly in order to gain the bonus left behind.

And the third is at GameSpy:
Based on what we've seen, not much is being done to the core game. Instead, the PC version will have the sorts of requisite tweaks and improvements that one would expect from this kind of port. The beta version that we looked at earlier this week looked far better than what we remember from the Xbox version. The game supports resolutions up to 1600 x 1200, and more than 300 in-game textures have been completely redrawn. Jade Empire was always a nice looking game, but the improved visuals here look pretty impressive.