Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon Updated Impressions

On a recent expedition to THQ's booth at ECTS, we discovered a single PlayStation 2 console containing the latest build of Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon. In truth, the version on display wasn't terribly different from the one we saw in London last month, but work on the game is obviously progressing, and there were one or two additional features that were evident.

The level on display was from near the beginning of the game, when Nico visits her friend's apartment in Paris, only to discover that he's been murdered. Upon entering the apartment, the first thing we noticed were a number of placeholder blue sparkles on objects of interest that weren't apparent in previous versions of the game. Upon closer inspection, it became obvious that the reason these objects hadn't been highlighted before is that they're not essential for progressing through the game but rather serve simply to add authenticity to Nico's investigation. Since the last time we saw the game, Nico's voice-over has been implemented, and so each time you examine an object she tells you a little something about it. What we could hear of the voice acting in the game over the noise of the ECTS show floor was extremely good, although Revolution's impressive lip-synching that we've seen demonstrated in certain scenes in the past is clearly still on the developers' to-do list at this time.

After a brief encounter with an armed female character who fled the apartment in a new, brief cutscene, we were able to leave the apartment ourselves and climb down the fire escape to the streets below. The streets were quite deserted, and appear to act as something of a hub from which other locations can be accessed, such as Nico's own apartment--our next port of call. Unsurprisingly, there wasn't an awful lot for us to do back at Nico's place, but we were able to make a telephone call to one of Nico's friends, and, having recently encountered the mysterious gun-brandishing female, quiz him about who she might be by clicking on a picture of her face when we were invited to steer the direction of the conversation.

Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon is currently scheduled for release in November. For more information, check out our previous coverage of the game.