Another great installment in this long running adventure game series.
The Broken Sword series follows treasure hunter/adventurer/lawyer George Stobbard. This time out, George is having serious financial difficulties. He has resorted to running a bail bond shop. While working at the shop one evening, a woman comes in seeking assistance in locating and translating a map that is suppose to lead to a huge treasure. But George’s life is never so straight-forward, so it is no surprise that someone is after the young lady. On the run and in search of treasure, George and his compatriots search several locations that will lead them to the secrets of the Lost Ark of the Covenant.
Game play is your standard adventure game fare. You search locations for items that will help with solving puzzles that advance the game. One huge difference is that this is one of the first games I have played where each puzzle makes sense. There are no obtuse puzzling uses for something in your inventory. The all work in a way that seems sane and normal. It adds to the immersion of the game, because you don’t start scratching your head wondering what obtuse way did the designer want me to use this device. The mechanics of the game are revamped from the last go around. A complaint that was voiced by several, including myself was the action sequences where you have to complete a set of actions in a certain amount of time. Some of these sequences were far too fast in deciding your fate in the last game. This incarnation gives you plenty of time, to a fault on some occasions. You never seem too rushed, but you still can run out of time. You just have a lot more of it.
The look of the game has gone through a complete make over. The engine runs in full 3-D and it shows. Character models show a lot more detail and emotion. Facial animations are well done. There were several times that George inferred information in the game to the player via facial and body animations that really stood out. Background graphics are good, but never stand out too much, because the action is confined to small locations. There are details there, but not as much as you would expect, considering the upgrade of the graphics engine. The engine was also pretty stable. There were no real crashes and no evidence of serious clipping. One thing that the game has a lot of is strong female characters. The two female characters that you use in the game are Nico Collard, your faithful adventuring friend and Anna Maria, the strange female that got you involved with the game’s main quest. Both are strong independent female characters, which is a rarity in gaming today. They are not overly drawn, but possess intelligence and strength that they are not afraid to use. I was a bit upset with the way that Nico was used as an object of desire in one puzzle, because I have always found her to be stronger than George when it comes to a character. It is something worth noting, because it is a good thing to see in games in general.
Sound is very important in a game like this, because so much info is delivered to you in dialog in an adventure game. All the voices are top notch save one. Nico Collard has a different voice actor performing her role and she is horrible. There is no way to gloss over her performance, especially when compared to the outstanding voice work by all the other voice actors. No explanation was ever given as to why they switched voice actresses, but they dropped the ball with this decision. The background music is good and helps build up dramatic moments, but it is a bit too quiet at other times. It needed a bit better flow. Sound effects were good, when needed, but you do not run into a lot of big time sound effects in games like this. But when the occasional explosion is made it sounds good.
While the game is good, the new graphics engine will cause problems for those systems that are less current. When I installed this on a laptop at work with an Athlon TL-56 X2 processor, Radeon x1150 Video card with 256MB of memory and 2GB of RAM, it ran slow. Almost slideshow like until I turned down the details. On a good sized system it ran well, but if you have a bottom end system, you will have to crank the detail way down. Also, there is one story twist that will kind of send people into a bit of confusion. It worked well with the story, but it was definitely not something most were expecting, and there are some that may take offense to it.
In the end, Broken Sword: Secrets of the Ark gives the player a solid adventure game that gives you a smart, well written story that is delivered, most of the time, with top notch voice work. All the puzzles work well and it will be a rare time when you get truly stuck with any of them. It is another great effort in the series that will fulfill the appetite of gamers everywhere.