Review by: Shawn Quigley
Published: October 14, 1997

Only every once in a while does a title that truly wraps a player into a story without all the graphical glitz and glamor arrive on the gaming scene. Last year, Circle of Blood came close to giving gamers a true adventure that combined a good graphics engine with a relatively deep storyline. This year in response to the first title, Circle of Blood, Virgin Interactive is releasing a sequel under the name Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror. Broken Sword builds on the main character base from the original, but takes the adventure to new levels of sophistication.

Broken Sword is game that takes players around the world. Before solving the adventure, players will have taken the two primary characters through Paris, London, the Caribbean, and to the deep and dark jungles of Central America. When the game begins in Central America, George stumbles across Nico, who is being kidnapped by a strange man. As the story unfolds, Nico and George find themselves wrapped up in the middle of a drug lord’s plan to unleash an evil Mayan deity on mankind. It is up to you to solve the puzzles by locating the ancient artifacts that will save the world.

In Broken Sword you take on the role of both George Stobbart and Nico, while in the previous version you where limited to the role of George. For instance, when Nico has been kidnapped, you play the role of George trying to rescue her. On the other hand, when Nico is freed and George is captured, you become Nico trying to rescue George.

Controlling the characters in the game is basically the same as before. Everything is controlled by using your mouse. The adventure unfolds over several scenarios that require you to solve puzzles in order to move on. Most puzzles require you to figure out how to use an object in your current surroundings, whether it is something lying around or a branch on a tree. What this causes the gamer to do is to always evaluate everything around himself — not only everything that is in the current scenery, but also everything in his inventory. You use items that you pick up throughout the game to help solve puzzles or get you out of sticky situations. Inventory and focus quickly become very important parts of solving the mystery surrounding the player. During the game, you will pick up items discover the answers to puzzles that you must use to save mankind.

Most of the puzzles in the game require some logic to solve them, and require players to use their wits in figuring them out. Only a few of the puzzles include a time constraint and rarely is the player in danger of dying. There are some puzzles that require you to make the correct moves to continue on in the game and, if you miss what you were supposed to do, then you could very well stop your progress.

Because Broken Sword is a pure adventure and mystery game, it does not offer any type of multiplayer options. This is not a problem, because Broken Sword really succeeds as being a single-player game of solving puzzles. This is one title that is truly meant for individuals to use their minds to figure things out.

Broken Sword promises gamers an immersive adventure that takes place in several dynamic environments. Developed by Revolution, the company that brought us Circle of Blood, Broken Sword continues on the path of offering gamers a beautiful world to play in. With the variety of characters that players interact with and the many different locations, Broken Sword brings mystery and intrigue to gamers’ desktops.