Now, early 2007, it has been brought out for the PC market in a special edition, rather trickily going up against other recent titles like Neverwinter Nights 2, Dark Messiah and even Oblivion in the highly competitive, highly advanced PC role playing genre.

For those who perhaps missed it the first time round (shame on you), a quick summary is in order. In Jade Empire you play a man or woman with no past, the top student of an aged martial arts master, raised from birth in a small secluded town to be ready for your mysterious destiny.

The world you take part in is a mix of several Asian cultures, although primarily that of ancient China, all put together masterfully to create a rich immersive world, if a somewhat linear one. Through a combination of martial and spiritual skills, as well as a cadre of good companions, the player can defeat tyrants and save an empire, while exploring many parts of both the real and the spiritual world in the process.

There is also a clever morality system involved, basically revolving around the way of the closed fist and that of the open palm which roughly correspond to evil and good, yet with the opportunity for substantial grey areas in your character's behaviour.

All the original good of this console game is continued on into its PC variant, including its strong and engaging story, well developed visual and background theme, and general polish and shine. On top of that, the game seems not to suffer from the bugginess of many modern games and is a relatively clean port, apart from a rather annoying copy protection scheme. But apart from all this, how does a game primarily and controversially designed for consoles stand up on the gaming platform of kings?

In terms of graphics it's a mixed bag. On the one hand Jade Empire has truly well designed settings and locales to play through, evoking every bit as much an Asian feel as they did a few years ago. The models are well designed and animated as well, and as is traditional with Bioware's art direction feel just right in the roles they play.

A common problem with last-generation console ports is that the graphics can lose a lot of their impact when viewed at the higher resolutions that are standard today. When an image that looks great at a distance on a common PAL 576i screen is suddenly thrown right in front of you at 1280x1024, all the little cracks and shortcuts taken in the graphic design become visible. However Jade Empire doesn't suffer this problem and while things look a little… rinsed, though the game is still very beautiful.

Unfortunately time has marched on, and for a role playing PC game released today Jade Empire just doesn't stand up. When comparing it, for example, against another Bioware title, Neverwinter Nights 2, Jade Empire looks positively dated. Archaic even.

Two other main criticisms could be levelled at the game. First is the control interface, a common problem in many console ports. PC gamers use a mouse and keyboard, obviously, not a controller, and are used to a certain freedom of movement and control. For example when moving the natural use of PC peripherals is to point with the mouse and move forward with a key press. On a console, however, people move with, say, a stick on their controllers, and as such a lot of vertical movement is not required.

But, and this is important, when a game is ported to PC the vertical movement should be added. Otherwise you get Jade Empire's control system, which while usable, feels clunky and primitive. On the upside, this is compensated somewhat by the smoothness afforded by good design and dated software on the multi core goodness of a modern gaming machine.

A second and final criticism is the lack of extra content. This is, after all, a Special Edition version of the game, and going by another title of similar attributes in recent times, Fable, you might expect something akin to Fable: Lost Chapters.

In that latter title the amount of extra content added was almost staggering, and was probably tantamount to an extra quarter of the original game. It wasn't just a few extra areas either, but included modifications throughout the story, ranging from minor tweaks to massive upgrades of existing towns and quests.

In contrast, the special edition of Jade Empire has… what? New graphics, as you would expect. A few more fighting styles, a new difficulty setting and a tweaked interface... special indeed. Nevertheless, it's better than nothing.

So in conclusion, as a port Jade Empire SE scores half marks. It avoids the slowdown or bugginess usually encountered by such efforts, and looks good and crisp on a modern PC, if a little dated. However its graphical upscaling is, while appreciated, something to be expected instead of touted as a feature.

It lacks a significant increase in content that would make it worth while to purchase over the console version, or even as a viable alternative to other current offerings.