You thought you left it for good; that somewhere in your childhood, you lost your sense of wonder for computer games and viewed them, now, as nothing but teknik. That you analyzed the smoke and measured the curve of the mirror instead of losing yourself in the illusion it created.
For computer savvy people, it is hard not to. You see a character following you, you think “path finding”. You see bullet holes you think “multi-texturing”. You see a man falling down the stairs you think “Newtonian physics”.
Playing through Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon, you might see something else. A story unfolds; one that you will be hard pressed not to care about and one you want to follow to the end.
The Sleeping Dragon is an adventure game of a kind you haven’t quite seen before. At its heart, it gives you a feeling of wanting to turn off the light, drink something hot from a big mug, and just play like you did when you were 13 and the SCUMM engine ruled and Indiana Jones was 55 pixels tall and talked by moving his jaw just one. And then suddenly, back in The Sleeping Dragon, the guard comes closer and the spy-beat kicks in and you crouch down and think Metal Gear Solid until he turns the other way and you combine the hook with the rope and hear the familiar puzzle solved theme.
Because The Sleeping Dragon is something other than an adventure game … at least how you use to think about adventure games before you played this. In essence you do solve puzzles and these puzzles do progress the story onwards. These elements you know. But The Sleeping Dragon is also a film, it’s a character study (that works), it’s a sneaking game and it’s a platformer – albeit a rather simple one.
Having being submerged in icy cold water, one realizes that this new installment in the Broken Sword series isn’t the second coming of Christ.
It’s just a game that works. The creators stepped back from each genre they knew and mixed it all up in a fresh concoction.
You control two characters: George, a relaxed Californian and Nico, a sassy French journalist. They’ve met before, in Broken Sword I and II… Games you do not need to have played to enjoy this one. They’ve had their share of chances to kiss and missed all of them except one. But you want them to get together; you yearn for a love they cannot see but is ever so plain to you. And that is where magic is found. An impressive facial animation system portrays emotions, a hint of a smile, a touch, a wink and you cannot help but smile with them. They work great together and in between moments of absolute tension they exchange flirtatious banter, and joke about each other getting older and gaining weight. They feel like adult people and that’s what they cater to.
As the previous games, the plot revolves around Templar Knights, secret codes, hidden doors, mystic energies swirling around forces of the occult.
It’s a pixel Umberto Eco novel with a dry, self-observing humour. The panel swings open and George remarks: “I could write a book on secret doors, I really could”. Nico commandeers goons around dressed up as castle master and thinks to herself: “Going blond has really released my mean streak”. And all the while, as you shift around between controlling George and controlling Nico, you unravel more of the mystery and learn to care for some of the side characters you’ve encountered. You care so much about them that when you have to leave them, the music kicks in and the screen fades to black; it affects you. Not in some deep, meaningful Buddhist way, but it affects you like a sappy entertaining popcorn movie on a good Sunday would.
On top of that is an interface that looks console slick. Icons are big and action keys designed primarily for controllers, you sit with both of your hands engaged as the game unfolds. Occasionally a sudden change in camera angle causes you to blunder straight into a wall, or an animated hand doesn’t align perfectly with the wall it is touching, but that aside and the rare lengthy rejection of something you cannot do, the game never gets in your way and the illusion rarely breaks.
Voice acting is rarely heard better than this and the quality of the scenery is lush and cartoon shaded somewhere in between real world locations and Saturday morning cartoon backdrops. You drive Trabants, computer screens show Word and MSN Messenger and prices are quoted in Euros. It feels real, until of course, you realize that you are trying to stop a cult which has deciphered an ancient manuscript and King Arthur might be waking any time now. And then, in the dark, dialogue alludes to George groping Nico’s rear end by mistake and you laugh out loud and realize no game has made you do that for a long time. Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon is a good game.
It’s a game so good, you could buy it for your girlfriend and it would get her into gaming. It’s absolutely clean family entertainment that works for everybody, with characters that are never put down or sexed up. Sporadically a puzzle-mind is truly needed and attention must be paid to the sometimes lengthy exposition so it wouldn’t work for an 8 year old, but he would love to sit on daddy’s lap and watch.
All puzzles in the game are logical and work well within the world. While the blame for the decline of the adventure game genre can be found most readily in their lack of adaptation in a predominantly 3D market, it is no secret that obscure puzzles and extreme difficulties made many a modern gamer shun the genre. In The Sleeping Dragon all these things have changed. The game cannot be considered long (about 12-14 hours) and it cannot be considered difficult or illogical. No coffee-pot/chewing gum combination is going to propel you forward. If you want to open a door, you need the key or something heavy to bash it with. If you want get a guard to leave an area, make a racket and he will investigate. For die-hard fans all these things will be considered disappointments. For everybody else, meaning the mainstay of the gaming market today, it will hopefully attract the attention it warrants. You ought to buy this game and Revolution Studios ought to get the bank-statements they deserve for baking this delicious cake.
So ultimately, you will find that the smoke and mirrors still work, that magic can still be found. Good story, good characters, good graphics, a bit of action, a lot of thinking and you will be that kid playing his computer again. It looks awesome, it sounds excellent, it’s told with a smile and portrayed with a heart. It’s the best game to come out in a long, long time and while it’s decidedly epic in scope it’s refreshingly intimate up close.
This game has an Official Website.
Cool review, I wish I was still into gaming, but ye olde Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (or whatever that wrist pain is) prevents.
Anyway, found some screenshots for xbox
http://www.gamershell.com/hellzone_XBox_Broken_Sword_3.shtml