Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon

"A worthy adventure good enough for the "Broken Sword" name"

A few month's back, Charles Cecil, the creator of the Broken Sword series, ''shook'' the gaming industry by boldly saying that ''point and click is dead''. While the slew of point and click adventures released onto the PC by The Adventure Company(the same company publishing this game) seems to say otherwise, it's undoubtedly true when it comes to consoles. The last point and click game I remember on a console was Broken Sword 2, released in 1999 for the PSOne. Mr. Cecil had a lot to live up to when Broken Sword 3 finally came out. Well, here it is. Has Revolution created a point and click-free adventure game that is both fun and easy to navigate, as well as a worthy sequel? Thankfully, yes, they have.

The new system that Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon uses is free-roaming and mostly uses the four main buttons on the Xbox controller. When you, say, get near a ledge that you need to jump up onto, a picture will appear on the lower-right corner on the ''action map'', 4 images that correspond with the four main buttons on the controller. If a ''jump'' icon appears, say, over the red button, you simply need to press the red button on the controller to make either George or Nico jump up and grab the ledge. You can then press a different button to make them pull themselves up. It's simple, quick, easy and pain-free, plus there are over 20 actions.

While people were a little skeptical about the new game engine, no one was worried about the story and Revolutions ability to tell it. Both of the previous Broken Sword titles have had great stories that are funny, suspenseful, intriguing and dramatic at the same time and thankfully the chain hasn't been broken. The story in Broken Sword 3 is definitely the game's high point, bringing back a few old faces and introducing a few new ones. George and Nico have been away from each other for a few years since the end of Broken Sword 2 and have almost forgotten about each other. That is, until they both end up working on the same case. The death of an underground hacker in Paris and the death of an inventor in the Congo unseemingly bring them both together in a race to save the world once again. The story never shies away from humor and throws in a bunch of jokes to keep things from becoming TOO serious at some points. While many games in the past have suffered from horrible dialogue, Broken Sword 3 has an extremely well-written script. No one can deny that Revolution is a great storyteller, and with the release of BS3, they've shown us that they still got it.

Just as everyone was sure there would be a great story, everyone was sure there would be great music as well. Once again, Revolution pulled through and gave us a great soundtrack with songs that do a wonderful job of adding to much of the suspense found in the game. The sound effects are also top-notch, with no complaints coming from me.

While the graphics are nice and detailed, they're no where near as good as some of the games released on Xbox. Some people may miss the hand-drawn graphics of the first two Broken Swords, myself included. Broken Sword 1 and 2's Disney-quality cut scenes and overall cartoony graphics were pretty original, but with the switch to 3-D, they couldn't be implemented. The cut scenes in BS3 always use the in-game graphics, which isn't necessarily a bad thing since the character models are all very nice.

Broken Sword 3 implements a new lip-sync technology that Charles Cecil slightly bragged about previously when talking about Broken Sword 3. There's no denying that the lip-syncing matches up very well with the actual spoken words, but many times when you're talking with someone the camera will be so far away that you can't even make out if the mouths are moving or not(Syberia, anyone?).

While we're talking about lip-syncing, I might as well mention the superb voice acting found everywhere in this game. Every teeny tiny bit of dialogue is voiced over, and every character in this game has a great voice actor. Rolf Saxton returns as George, but the original Nico didn't come back. No worries, however, as the new voice actress does a great job portraying her. The villains all sound dramatic and evil and any accent is pulled off perfectly.

I was expecting some pretty good puzzles, but what I got was a bunch of crates. Yes, crates. There are many, many crate puzzles in this game, which is damn near inexcusable from a company like Revolution. They did say before the game was released that the move from 3-D would allow them to implement new things, but they never said it would be something like a bunch of crate puzzles. Every one of the puzzles was easy except for one near the end, and even then it really wasn't that much of a challenge. Hopefully, their next game will have a little more originality in this department.

Concerning longevity, the game took me about 10 hours to complete. Granted, I did take my time, so it might take someone as little as 7 or 8 hours if they tried to do things quickly. After you finish the game, you can unlock a concept art gallery. However, you don't really have any incentive to play the game again, so it probably would be possible to complete this game on a rental.

One final note: The Xbox version of this game has some truly horrific loading times. There's even one point where it loads between rooms in which you're trying to solve a puzzle! If you like adventure games but hate load times, I'd still give this game a try for it's story alone, but don't say I didn't at least warn you.

Even with the few problems it has, Broken Sword 3 is a great addition to an adventure game fan's library and one of the few good adventures found on a console. If you have an Xbox and like a good adventure, be sure to pick this one up.

Overall, I'd say that:

- The new free-roaming engine works just fine.

- The story is wonderful with great dialogue.

- The music and sound effects are stirring and help add to the suspense.

- The voice acting is as good as ever.

- Broken Sword 3's graphics may not be as good as some of the games released for Xbox, but they suffice.

- The puzzles are one of the few areas where Broken Sword 3 doesn't exactly shine. Crates = Bad.

- The game is between below-average and average length for an adventure.

- Long loading times suck. Boo!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/20/04