With an intriguing story and foundation in true historical lore, Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon keeps the sagging gen
Your adventure starts with you a watching a prologue to the story. A strange man is hovering over a computer typing frantically, mumbling about how he has figured “it” out and that we are all in danger. We never really find out what he is going on about, because he is killed by a strange woman with black hair and a French accent. From here, we join the first of our two main protagonists in the story, George Stobbart. George has hired a pilot to fly him to a remote part of the Congo to interview an eccentric scientist. The scientist has uncovered a strange power that could destroy the world if it fell into the wrong hands. Said scientist ends up dead and George decides that he needs to find out why this man was killed and what the great power was that he had discovered. At this point, we join our second protagonist, Nico Collard, that looks awfully familiar to the young lady we saw in the prologue. She is here to interview the young man that was killed in the beginning. After finding the man dead, she has to find out who is framing her and why, all the while trying to avoid the police. The two stories constantly intertwine and you will play through the story as both characters on a rollercoaster of a ride to the finish.
The story is helped along by some stylish and cinematic graphics. There is a lot of spit and polish with this game in the visual department. The characters are full of life and give you the emotional feedback through gestures and facial animations. Character animations in general help with selling the game. Nico and George look like real people. George is aloof at best and Nico doesn’t have to worry about an extra large bosom flying out at a moment’s notice. It is subtle, but a nice change that more games should look at adopting. The whole look of the game has the feel of a seat of the pants action-adventure movie. As the camera pans around based on your location, you never get lost and you are never hindered with a bad view. The surrounding areas are full of detail and are splashed with lots of color. The color actually helps with bringing the sparsely populate world to life. Scenery is never dull or repetitive and will never get old on the eyes.
While the game plays out as an adventure game, it does have some action elements in it. The action sequences are rather simple and never really take you out of the games. Normally they are as simple as sneaking though a sequence of buildings without being witnessed by anyone or dodging bullet fire from an enemy. None will really hold an action challenged gamer behind and if you die, you get sent back to the beginning of the challenge instead of your last save.
The game was designed with a console player in mind, but the controls adapt nicely on the PC with all the controls being mapped nicely onto the keyboard in a logical format. Most ports tend to have hashed out control schemes or they are not even fully mapped out to the computer. The game takes everything from saving and loading to selecting your inventory and makes it very accessible. As a matter of fact, you will probably never use your mouse as the game is so keyboard driven.
The voice work in the game is nothing short of fantastic. George and Nico have voice work that is polished and full of emotion. You never get the sense that they are doing it just for the paycheck. Their heart and soul breathe life into the main characters and allow us, the players, to attach with their character. The rest of the cast is sharp and fills out the story quite nicely. Ambient sounds are good, but you never really notice them to make a difference in your gaming experience. Music is dramatic and delivers the goods during serious moments, but outside these scenes, it is almost non-existent. It may have been there, but it is not noticeable to make a lengthy column about. Even though this is the third installment in the Broken Sword series, new players will not be left out in the cold. The game has a recap feature on the menu that allows players to catch up on the last two installments. Also, the designers have always stated that the reason they do not designate a number to any of the Broken Sword games is so new players never feel obligated to play the previous games. They use the same characters, but the stories are independent from one another for the most part.
Broken Sword has packaged a great little adventure game that will keep you in suspense till the very end of the game. It ties together sharp graphics, great voice work and a tightly wound story to give the player an experience they will be happy to play.