Broken Sword 3 (2003/Xbox)

 

This game is the third instalment of the Broken Sword series with returning stars George and Nico, ready to yet again save the world from danger. This title introduces a unique style of gameplay and some good looking graphic, while keeping in line with original broken sword’s point and click style of play, well almost.

 

Graphics 8/10

 

The Broken Swords graphics are excellent, to say the least. Every character has there own little quick, for example a Colonel that George meets well in Glastonbury in marching up and down in classic I’m in charge style. Although there are problems with the animation, opening door for example, no matter what sort of handle they have all doors have the same animation. 

To make up for this there are gorgeous cinematic introduction provides a breathtaking landscape for the story yet to unfold, and the frequent cut scenes certainly raise the bar for any seen in adventures to this date. Of special importance is the increased attention to detail in the character’s faces; there are important emotional moments late in the game when George’s facial expressions are extraordinarily life-like, which are able to tell the story without words. It’s quite a feat that adventures can now convey pain and regret without the use of dialogue.

I regret I can’t really say more about the graphics, though they really the important part of this game.

 

Sound 7/10

 

The theme of “cinematic quality” continues into another aspect: the soundtrack is quite wonderful, one of very few that has made me notice it for the right reason is that it provides enhanced intensity at the right moments and subtle emotional undercurrent at others.

Broken Sword 3 implements a new lip-sync technology, which I’m glad to say works. There's no denying that the lip-syncing matches up very well with the actual spoken words, but many times when you're talking with someone the camera will be so far away that you can't even make out if the mouths are moving or not

And now dialogue .Every bit of dialogue and I mean every bit of dialogue is voiced over and every character in this game has a great voice actor. Rolf Saxton returns as George, but the original Nico didn't come back. No worries, however, as the new voice actress does a great job portraying her and great French accent to help along the way. The villains all sound dramatic and evil and any accent is pulled off perfectly, especially Petra.

 

Game play 7/10

 

The system that is used revolutionise the point and click genre, well it almost does. I reckon it would take a sequel to prefect the system, though there’s nothing really wrong with it now. There about a fifteen minute learning curve and pretty good tutorial in the games manual. The way the control system works is by giving you an opinion for almost everything in the game, which make thing a little to obvious for my liking. Moving your character is easy enough, you just push the joystick and away you go. This is hindered though by the annoying ever changing camera. Though cinematic at times, it will change more than often change right are a critical moment. Because of the camera angle’s you may occasionally you may find your self stuck on something if you don’t explore the area fully, I know got stuck for a good couples hours looking for a door, which I then found by mistake. Though I will admit this isn’t the first time this has happened to me, on Discworld 1 I had the same trouble finding a door.

The games puzzles are quite lacking in comparison to other point and clicks. Certain time you’re just required to look in your inventory or some times your inventory becomes an after thought. Certain problems are solved by pushing crates around. Which really makes no sense, because near the end where the big bad guy is about to destroy the world, George is faced with having to push crates around to get over a wall. Is it just me or is it strange that you really would spend like ten minutes moving crates around to climb a wall? Any way luckily moving crates are not the only thing to do in this game, though that does take up a lot it. No, there move brain simulating challenge to be had from this game. From what I’ve seen in this game, I found that most of Nico’s puzzles are more about thinking and George’s are more about finding out how many crates he can move.

Loading Screens

 

Story 7/10

 

The story begins with both Nico and George in two different places. Nico starts in Paris, still a reporter, though her sparkling career has disappeared. While George is in the Congo on an assignment, of course neither of these every day assignments last long.  Both are interrupted by two separate murders, both done by the same group of villains. They eventually join up and there adventures take them all over the world, to places like Congo, Paris, Glastonbury, Prague, and even Montfaucon Square, the site of the café bombing where the original Broken Sword opened up.

I won’t go in to much detail about the rest of the plot, but needless to say that it is filled with twists, jokes and an unfortunately large amount of crate pushing.

 

Replay 3/10

 

None! Not even the most harden gamers or the biggest fans of the series will want to play through this game again, at least not straight away. Like a lot of point and clicks it suffers from a very linear nature. This sort of game is slowly being replaced by the so called free style of game, much like Shenmue.

 

Overall 7/10

 

This game attempt to bring back the feel of the old point and click games, and in some ways it works, well in others fails. The game successful brings you a decent adventure as well as some good jokes, but is brought down by its total lack of replay value and insane amount of crate puzzles. I recommend this for a two night rent and no more.