CLASSIC GAMING
Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars
Developer:  Revolution Software
Publisher:  Virgin Interactive/Sony Computer Entertainment
Genre:  Point-and-click Adventure
Year:  1996
System:  PC/Playstation/Gameboy Advance


Whenever we hear the word "adventure", most of us will be thinking of a fantastical one.  The kind involving damsels in distress guarded by demon lords, or battles between the stars themselves that light up space with phaser shots.  The more down-to-earth kind of adventure, people forget, can be just as exciting as these.  And what's more, it can also be more realistic and achieveable, as one young American found out in this game.

Story - Our story begins in the beautiful city of Paris in the Autumn, where a young blond American traveller, George Stobbart, is having a good vacation with a cup of coffee at a Parisian cafe.  Enjoying the scene of a patron smiling to the waitress, he is met by a slightly nasty looking clown with an accordion, who wanders into the cafe, only to leave his accordion and steal the patron's suitcase.  A few minutes later, the cafe explodes in a furious whirl of autumn leaves and glass shards, George himself underneath an umbrella that saved him from worse damage.  Feeling he should take the matter into his own hands, he decides to go on the trail for this terrorist clown, only to find that the adventure is much more dangerous than he suspected.


The story of Broken Sword takes place throughout Europe, with George ever hunting down the reason of the attack on the cafe, which becomes a lot more than a simple act of terrorism and thievery, escalating into the revival of a mysterious old cult of people, aided only by his inventory of items and the French gossip magazine writer and photographer, Nicole Collard, who also gets caught up in the investigation behind the cafe explosion.  A twisting tale of treachery, humorous incidents and downright awe-inspiring discoveries.

Gameplay - Broken Sword plays out its story through a series of puzzles and encounters that the player must undertake in order to progress further.  You have a cursor which will change to various icons to indicate what you can do.  A mouth means talking to someone, gears means something you can use, and a hand can mean picking up an item.
The puzzles range from finding the right tool lying around somewhere to open a door, to talking to people in the correct manner in order to create a distraction.  Very few times in the game will you be left with nothing to do and the puzzles are not always so obvious, yet they are never unrealistic.  As this game is taking place in the real world as we know it, despite the game being incredibly linear like all adventure games of its kind, it always has a realistic, logical and sometimes inventive answer to a puzzle, as long as you think right.


Another unusual yet realistic element of the game, is that while you are hunting down the mystery, there are times when you may actually die in the game, something that has never really happened before in adventure games.  Therefore it can take all your cunning and survival instincts to reach the end.

Graphics - The graphics are the most beautiful looking in the history of adventure games up to the release of Broken Sword.  With charming soft colours reminiscent of European animation, the world always looks quite real enough so you can easily get into the feel of the game, in the same way you can get into a Tintin book for its obvious cartoon aspect but an aspect that isn't really cartoon at all, and rather realistic simplistic-looking style.
The 2D aspect only emphasises the artwork of the scenery throughout it, from Paris to Ireland, the characters are well-animated (albeit static at times when they're talking), the cutscenes are just as detailed as the game itself with greater emphasis on detail of the characters.  Never will the graphics  look ugly and even though the colours blending may make finding items a little tricky, it only gives you a bit of a better challenge for your brain.


Music/Sound - The music of the game is nothing too grand, taking on the feel of a small studio orchestra that has a range of moods for various situations, from the ones of calm, uneasy peace to the thrilling strings of a dangerous predicament.  It's the minimum audial feel for you to get into the game even more, feeling the atmosphere and easily understanding your situation.  Sound effects are quite good in the game, never overplayed or recycled even, showing a good sense of realism once again.
Voice acting is also a good quality of the game.  From Stobbart's calm possibly New England accent to the accents of the Irish, French, Spanish and so forth, each one sounds just as real as the last voice, as if they did get the natives of that country to read a script.  It's not superb, we're not talking Gerard Depardieu here, but it is good, and that's better than what you can ask from most games with voice acting in them.


Broken Sword is one of the ultimate timeless adventure games.  Even though many people can go read The Da Vinci Code or something, it doesn't beat actually BEING in the adventure of it.  This game is rather like a prototype Da Vinci Code, except a lot better and you're actually controlling the main character.  This game is a lot more worth using money on than the book or the film.  Because it's the realistic adventure, it's never too out of the boundaries of imagination, that while some of the greatest adventures sound the most implausible, they are never the most unrealistic.

Final's Final Rating - 9/10