Broken Sword: The Director’s Cut, an enjoyable point-and-click adventure game, has been released by Revolution Software and is available from the app store. With an interesting storyline and a great control scheme reminiscent of the well-received Beneath A Steel Sky, Broken Sword is certainly worth a look if you enjoy a more cerebral gaming experience.
Broken Sword Pros:
- Plenty of head-scratching puzzles to solve, items to collect and reuse, and people with whom you can interact
- Terrific presentation resembling an animated movie
- Stunning graphics
- Amazingly clear voice-overs
- Perfect control mechanism
Broken Sword Cons:
- No way to speed up gameplay
- Mot much replay value
As journalist Nico Collard, you find yourself investigating the murder of Pierre Carchon, a wealthy Frenchman. With the help of American George Stobbart, this intriguing tale will see you travelling the globe, unlocking mysteries, and discovering the backstory that led to our inciting incident. There are plenty of head-scratching puzzles to solve, items to collect and reuse, and people with whom you can interact. It’s a bit like a choose-your-own-adventure book, as you must make choices regarding what questions to ask of people and how to respond. The presentation is terrific, at times resembling an animated movie experience that makes you forget that you’re playing a game.
Graphically, Broken Sword is quite stunning, featuring beautifully-drawn scenes that are a far cry from the pixilated presentation of Beneath A Steel Sky. Each scene features plenty of objects for you to examine, pick up, or interact with in various ways. Searching for that single clue that propels the story forward can be tedious at times, but it also helps to lengthen the experience and more closely approximates an investigative experience. The voice acting is terrific, with clear audio and subtitles to boot. The control scheme is the biggest stumbling block that must be overcome to create an immersive experience, and Broken Sword gets it right. Dragging your finger around the screen reveals hollow blue dots on any object that can be acted upon, from doors to bodies to items that will soon find themselves in your knapsack. Releasing your finger on a dot will bring up icons for any actions that can be performed upon the dotted item. Tapping the icon initiates the action. For instance, tapping an eye will cause Nico to look at and comment on the item. Tapping a pointing hand will cause her to enter or exit a room. Tapping an area that does not contain a dot will cause the character to move to the tapped area, which will often reveal more of the room, including doors to other areas or objects that were previously unseen.
Collected items are kept in your knapsack, accessible through an icon in the lower left corner of the screen. These items can be used with objects in the immediate environment or even combined with other inventory items to create new items. Using an item is as easy as holding your finger on an item until it appears in the gaming area, then dragging your finger until the item shows a golden glow around it, indicating that it is useable with the environmental object. There is an included hint system, gently nudging you in the right direction if you get stuck. This, as well as a help section, is available by tapping on the question mark in the upper right corner. A wrench in the upper left corner gives access to several options, such as save/resume game, audio and language choices, Twitter integration, and Nico’s diary, an important tool for reminding yourself of what she has discovered and what is known about the case. Our only complaint is that there is no way to speed up gameplay, such as the pace that Nico walks, which can slow down what is at times a very fast-moving storyline.
Replay value is somewhat limited, as knowing the completed story makes the second playthrough less intriguing and somewhat pointless. It is, however, a lot of fun on the first play. Broken Sword has done a wonderful job building on the positive aspects of Beneath A Steel Sky while coupling them with a great story to create tension and drama. Fans of this genre will be thrilled with this adventure. Currently on sale for $4.99 and regularly priced at $6.99, Broken Sword is a 5-Dimple whirlwind of storytelling success.
