While the previous game didn't actually follow the show's storyline, I felt like its visual and gameplay styles were much better. Instead of the pulled back, almost isometric view of the first game, The Burning Earth feels like just another third-person action/adventure game and gets drowned out in the white noise that is that genre. Granted, all the environments and characters look good and follow their TV series counterparts' styles pretty well, but the previous style was just more appealing to me.
The game's audio is pretty much what you would expect from a licensed game. Most of the lines in the cut scenes hark from the show, and could very well be the same sound bites and not re-recordings. While this is always good for a licensed game, it never really gives a person familiar with the show the feeling of getting anything extra. The music, much like the voices, is also lifted from the show and conveys a sufficiently Asian feel to the whole package.
I have to say, the most annoying aspect of this game is how it handles lip synching. I know it's a minor detail, but with the number of cut scenes that occur in The Burning Earth, it builds up quickly. Instead of even attempting to match the vocals with the characters' lip movements, they simply don't move. Sure some of the feeling of the statement is conveyed via body movement, but that typically feels stiff. Actually, if the game didn't attempt to do any lip synching, I don't think I would have found it annoying and just chocked it up to style. Instead, there are a few points in each conversation where at least one character moves his/her mouth. The first time this happened, I couldn't help but think the game was messed up and the characters were supposed to lip synch all the time. Instead, now it just comes off poorly.
