Rating: 7/10 - An acceptable modern conspiracy adventure game
Platform: PC
(My Broken Sword series reviews: The Shadow of the Templars (Circle of Blood), The Smoking Mirror, The Sleeping Dragon)
Fresh off enjoying the very good Beneath a Steel Sky, I tracked down a copy of Revolution Software's next game: Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars. Shadow is a good game, but unfortunately it's a bit of step backward from Steel Sky.
Graphically the game looks great. It's higher resolution, with great looking hand-drawn cell-style animation. The audio is good, although the default balance overemphasizes the music, occasionally leading to the music drowning out the dialog. Fortunately a quick trip to the audio menu can fix this.
The plot begins reasonably well. Our hero, the American George Stobbart, is vacationing in Paris, enjoying a drink on the sidewalk of a cafe. An older man heads into the cafe. A bit later, a clown heads in. The clown comes running out moments later and the cafe explodes! George finds himself entangled in an international conspiracy.
Unfortunately plot problems crop up pretty early. It's the modern era, and a cafe has been bombed in the middle of the city. The police take their sweet time arriving, and an ambulance never does. When the police arrive, it's limited to two officers. It's hard to take the universe of Shadow seriously.
Now, the police encourage George to head on with his vacation and try to forget the incident. Good advice. George has no connection to the victim, and his only connection to the cafe is a cup of coffee. But George decides his best plan is to personally chase after clown, collect up and accidentally taint evidence, and quickly resort to fraud and theft to continue his investigation.
If you can get past that, the game rolls along pretty well. The main international conspiracy with dash of supernatural plot is cliche, but good enough. The end location seemed a bit shabby for a climatic showdown, but the ending was pretty satisfying. The puzzles are largely logical, although there are few odd exceptions. One frustrating point is that you are occasionally given a tight time limit to accomplish a task; saving often is recommended.
The controls are straightforward: it's a standard point-and-click adventure game. Unfortunately there is no option to make George run, so you'll spend a fair amount of time waiting for George to amble across a room.
It's not a brilliant game, but it's pretty good. Recommended for adventure gamers looking to get a fix. You can get the first two games for about $14, which is a reasonable price for fans of adventure games.
(My Broken Sword series reviews: The Shadow of the Templars (Circle of Blood), The Smoking Mirror, The Sleeping Dragon)
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