Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon

[Vaipon]

I loved Broken Sword 1 and 2 and will probably get this, depending on the story content. What's it all about this time? What is the "quest"? Anyone care to fill us in?

[InsideOutBoy]

The game seems to me like it?s been hurried out in the pre-Christmas rush and has suffered because of it. It?s a real shame, because the gameplay is pure gold.

The Xbox version has some terrible loading times. Having to wait 30+ seconds to load up a single room is really off-putting. It?s riddled with bugs, some small and some serious. Losing your save because the game crashes is never pleasant.

Eventually I was so pissed off with all the bugs in the console version I swapped it for the PC version. That seems a lot more stable and the whopping 2GB slice it needs of my hard disk got rid of all those annoying loading times.

Unfortunately the controls are completely console-orientated. Controlling your character with a keyboard is arduous and even painful. The user-interface worked brilliantly on the Xbox ? I was very impressed, but on the PC it?s hard work if you don?t have a controller.

As a massive point and click fan, it?s good to have the genre back. It plays as nicely as the previous games (although there?s a bit too much talking and not enough puzzle solving). You just can?t help but wish THQ had kept the game back till it was gleaming.

Also, The cover probably has to go down in the bad boxart gallery. It?s horrible and completely unrepresentative of the game's style.

[2097]

The cover is horrible, its completely the opposite style to the game and realyl doesnt stand out of the shop shelf..

Ive got the PS2 verison, the controls work brilliantly with the dual shock, Ive not found a single bug, crash or lock up

In terms of loading times... i dont think its because the game is rushed (they spent three years making it) but more because revolution are more used to and learnt all their stuff making 2D PC games. In Cold Blood and The Road To EL Dorado the companies other 3D titles suffered even worse than BS3 in this respect, it gets better with each game they do..

[scottcr]

posted in wrong thread...

After Edge's *glowing* review, I decided to get this for my PC...

I was a big fan of the original Broken Sword, actually, played it on the GBA-SP and thought it was great fun, great story and entrhalling. So, I was looking forward to this...

So far, I'm at Glastonbury... and.. my impressions aren't quite the same as Edge's.

The story is yet to drag me in, however, it hasn't really taken off yet. However, there's a few things that have really annoyed me about the game so far:

1) pseudo-platform sections. In order to get from A-B in some areas you need to negotiate ledges, jump platforms, hang from walls etc. Now, as puzzles these are very basic... and when all you want to do is go from one end of a cave to the other, having to press these buttons at the right time is very tedious. It's not as though there's skill involved or a puzzle to solve.. it seems as though it's an unneccessary addition that makes moving around some areas quite irritating.

2) slidy-block puzzles. Now, in Zelda and Ico I can take the slidey block puzzles. They're usually quite clever and, as a result of the interface, pretty quick to get through. However... In this, so far at least, it has been the most obvious and rudimentary block siding puzzles I've seen for a long time. Large pressure pad on floor, large crate at other side of room... hmmmm... Need to get up to hole in wall but can't reach... large slidy object nearby... hhmmmmm.... again.. an unnecessary addition to the adventure genre, where it should really be about item combination and logical application of items.

3) un-skippable speech and animation.. Argh. this always drives me mad... why oh why oh why did revolution decide to make every doorway in the game interactive? All that happens is that when you try a door that you can't interact with, you get an animation and speech explaining that the door is locked. It can't be skipped and it's very irritating. Also, if you accidently do the same thing twice, for example, talk to someone by accident or examine an object by accident, then you are forced to listen to the same speech segment/watch the same animation. In the software guys flat, if you accidently listen to the answer machine again, believe me, it's rather infruiating.

4) the interface.. what's wrong with the mouse to move around? It's not an arcade game, it's a graphical adventure. All this does is prolong the time it takes to move around and make it more likely that you will waste time looking at the wrong doors or negotiating some trivial object.

5) superflous speech. Many speech topics are useless and offer no progression in the game, but you are forced to listen to the speech. This makes conversation tedious. I've found myself playing FFTA on the GBA while speeches are going on in the background, listening out for anything important.

6) uninteresting and stereotypical characters. Some of the characters in the original broken sword had a real charm about them, perhaps, at least on the GBA, it was because they didn't have speech, however, in this game the characters are stereotypical and rather bland. I don't mind a decent conversation if it's interesting, but, these ones are pretty dull.

I *want* to like this game, I really do.. especially after how much I enjoyed the first game and how much I enjoy the genre. I will persevere and see it through, however, these niggles mentioned above are enough to make me question the 9/10 score. After an exciting start to the game, it has quickly gone down hill. I hope it picks up significantly, if not, then 9/10 is really not an accurate rating and I'll be left to wonder as to why Edge awarded this score at all.

All credit to revolution for attempting to regenerate the genre, however, in my opinion they have made fundamental errors. Perhaps the game, at least the interface, works better on the consoles, however, I am a tad disappointed so far.

More impressions as I get further in the game... I suppose it's not fair to review a game until it's complete, however, those points above have been annoying me a lot.

[Brats]

I never really enjoyed the other 2 Broken Sword games as much as I thought I would, so I have some trepidation about this one .

Compared to the Lucas Arts games, I found Broken Sword more reliant on running your mouse over every pixel on the screen to find some tiny object. Most of the puzzles were fairly obvious too. I never really took to George Stobbart either (Give me Guybrush or Dr Fred any day!).

So my question is, will this change my mind? It's great to see the genre back (one of my favourites) but will a non-fan of the originals be converted?

[Gr0ver]

Most people interested in BS3 should probably be aware that Edge's review is absolutely insane.

I love Edge, and I love the BS series, but I have no idea what the **** they're on, giving it 9.

I'm really enjoying BS3, I'm in Prague at the moment, but even I, as a gushing fanboy, wouldn't rate it as any more than a 7. And that's being generous.

By Edge's usual standards, it's a 5/6.

So to answer Brats' question, steer well clear if you didn't like the originals. It's not even as good as 2.

But if you were a fan, this is great fun. More of the same - but in no way could it be regarded as a coherant progression over the previous titles. In fact, if anything, it could be argued that it's more restrictive. And as scott implies, the story/script just isn't on a par with the first two.

So to summerise. I love it. But I'm a fan.

If you're not, you probably won't.

[wazy15]

Well, I have had the game for 2 days now and here are my 2 cents:

First of all, I faintly remember playing broken sword 2 and highly enjoying it, and considering the great praise the 3rd instalment has got, I thought I would take the plunge. The graphics are well rendered and environments well though out. It's the usual puzzle solver, but so far it has been more blocks and negotiating jumps then solving tricky scenarios. The characters are witty and story well thought out, but there are some gaping flaws. Firstly, the dialouge isn't skippable as mentioned by some other formuties. Also, loading times are appaling. It is amazing how the developers have failed to use the XBOX's hard drive to their advantage. Apart from these niggles, the game has been highly enjoyable but problems like load times have put me off, if they had fixed them up it would certainly be worth the 9, however more of an 8 in my book, maybe a 7 if the game doesnt pick up.

Regards,

Waz

P.S I will post more when I dwell further!

[Adam]

I loved it, finished it yesterday. I have to agree with gr0ver though, if you didn't like Broken Sword 1 and 2 then you most likely won't like 3 either.

[wazy15]

Indeed a fantastic game. The more I play it, the better it gets. The puzzles might seem difficult, but the solutions are always in your face. In the end you will kick yourself for not seeing it. I love this game

[Graeme Adams]

Ugh. I was really enjoying this game but now I'm at a point where, as far as I can see, it's impossible to progress any further because of a mistake I made in one of those bloody crate puzzles. What really hurts is I'm only minutes away from finishing the game!

I'm in Glastonbury, the second part, and I was really just messing about with the crates. Setting my intention to reach the side of the building wall (it looked like I could grab onto the ledge), I moved the highest up crate to such a place that it now can't be moved back. I've since realised you need to reach the gap in the brick wall perpendicular to the building. Not possible with my current crate arrangement...

To progress, I need to reset the arrangement of the crates (which I don't think is possible), use someone else's save from the same part or thereabouts - anyone? Or I could spend another 15 hours reaching this bit again.

I'd like to add that this is a fantastic game, I've thoroughly enjoyed it pretty much constantly until this "glitch". Frustrating, but what I was trying was pretty stupid on reflection!

[Gr0ver]

I'm in Susarro's mansion in Prague with Nico, and I've just lost all desire to play it anymore. . Dunno if it's me or the game. It's just got really arbitrary and reductive. And the story isn't even that compelling. From gushing fanboy to depressed bastard in 2 pages. I think that's a record...

[Adam]

I'm in Susarro's mansion in Prague with Nico, and I've just lost all desire to play it anymore. . Dunno if it's me or the game. It's just got really arbitrary and reductive. And the story isn't even that compelling. From gushing fanboy to depressed bastard in 2 pages. I think that's a record...

Mate, just force yourself to finish it. It gets alot better torwards the end 8)

[Graeme Adams]

I especially loved it when I reached

Montfaucon. Oh the memories!

[jrisgod]

Who's idea was it to add stealth sections to the game? ft:

[InsideOutBoy]

Unfortunately I gave up on this game last night.

I personally bought a PC joypad just so I could play this game without walking into walls every 3 seconds (thanks to the horrid default keyboard controls) but it didn?t save the gameplay.

I was almost enjoying it until yesterday. Without ruining the plot, there?s a point in the game where you?re simply walking along and a cutscene begins. At the end of it, your character is abruptly killed and then the exact same cutscene starts playing over again.

There must be some sort kind of quick-time event in it, I assumed. After watching the long, inescapable (and fatal) cutscene several more times I realized there was a brief moment where you got control back over your character. During this moment you?re supposed to hide from the killer, although you wouldn?t know it.

Having figured out where to hide, I waited and waited for the killer to walk away. But they just hung around on the spot. Waiting became boring and eventually and I came back out just so a new cutscene could begin. For some magical reason hiding had now made my killers gun jam, allowing me to escape.

Escaping involves running up a long tunnel away your attacker - Crash Bandicoot style. Except Crash Bandicoot did it a lot better a long time ago. Eventually you dive into an elevator and the doors close just in time to save you ? then the game suddenly crashes and kicks you back out to the Windows XP desktop.

Unfinished and buggy, Broken Sword 3 is one for only huge lovers of the series in my opinion.