Circle of Blood

"Fascinating graphic adventure involving the story of the Templars"

Broken Sword 1 begins with George Stobbart, the character you play in the game, sipping coffee outside of a cafe in Paris. A moment later, a strange looking clown appears with an accordion, and after looking at George, walks into the cafe. A moment later, there is a huge explosion. The cafe has blown up! Naturally, George is more than a little puzzled at the events that have just happened, and so it is your job to help him investigate. Many adventure games go for the cartoon approach: big characters, big badly drawn (but nice looking) objects, and so on.

Broken Sword 1 goes for a different approach. To actually see an adventure game with realistic graphics is quite a surprise. From the start of the game, where you can see the wreckage of the cafe, it's easy to tell that graphics are a major part of this game. Everything is drawn so well. The animation is also very good too. The character's movements and expressions look realistic and well drawn. The backgrounds and foregrounds look like they have had a lot of work done on them, and all of the graphics really give the game a nice atmosphere.

One of the main parts of any adventure game is sound. Sound is a very important part of an adventure game, because it brings that sense of realism to a game. The speech in this game is done very well, and there is a lot of it! There's so much to read in this game, but luckily, every single line that the characters say is professionally spoken by real-life actors. It's definitely more relaxing to listen to the actors, than to read the literally thousands of sentences that are in this game. The sound effects too, are a major part of any game. There are apparently over 260 sound effects in this game, which is not hard to believe, as everything that you do in this game is usually accompanied by a sound effect. There are apparently over 2 hours of music in this game, and the sound effects suit the game very well.

Broken Sword 1 starts shortly after a clown blows up a cafe. From here, you have to solve various puzzles as you work your way around the world. But is the game any good when all you have to do is just solve puzzles and go to different places? Yes, it's amazing! For a start, the difficulty level seems just about right, with the exception of a few puzzles being just a bit easy, and a few being way too hard. There are over 60 characters to talk to in this game, each with their own story to tell. Broken Sword 1 is also designed for people who are new to adventures, using a simple user interface. If you move the mouse cursor over an object, it will change to an image of cogs if you can operate it, an image of a hand if you can pick it up, or an image of a magnifying glass if you can look at it.

Despite the extremely simple and well thought of interface, the game is also designed for advanced adventure game players, as some of the puzzles are extremely difficult. Talking to characters is easy, and a lot less stressful than in some games. When you talk to a character, you have the option of asking them about an object you have in your inventory, or by talking to them about a clue that you have found. The plot is very well thought of, and runs along smoothly, keeping you caught up in the mystery of the Templars right up until the end of the game.

There are over seventy detailed locations to explore ranging from Ireland to Marib, from Paris to Spain, and each has its own clues to find, puzzles to solve and characters to talk to. There are over sixty characters to interact with, which is done showing them an object from your inventory, or by talking to them about a clue that you have found in the game. There are over fifty useable items, eighteen amazing animation sequences, 260 sound effects and over two hours of original music.

There are two CDs to this massive game, and over fifty hours of gameplay, so this is clearly a massive game. Overall, a brilliant, and very well made adventure game! You can tell right from the start that a huge amount of effort was put into this game. Most of the puzzles are very well thought of. There are many different characters to talk to in the game, each with their own things to say. The game features an extremely simple user interface designed for beginners, but there is also enough puzzles to solve to keep even an advance adventure game player happy. Overall, a fascinating adventure game.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/03/00, Updated 01/22/04