One more time George Stobbart and Nico Collard must travel the world, wrestling danger and piecing together the clues that will unravel the secrets of the Sleeping Dragon.
They are drawn into a terrifying conspiracy to harness on an ancient power. Brought together by fate, coincidence and the intri...
One more time George Stobbart and Nico Collard must travel the world, wrestling danger and piecing together the clues that will unravel the secrets of the Sleeping Dragon.
They are drawn into a terrifying conspiracy to harness on an ancient power. Brought together by fate, coincidence and the intriguing mystery, they will fight sinister forces, uncover an ancient conspiracy, and discover a fiendish source of pure evil.
Lured into the steamy jungles of the Congo, eerie castles in Prague, the chick back-streets of Paris and the historic English village of Glastonbury, the duo must unravel the mystery involving the 'Voynich Manuscript' which holed the secrets of the ultimate evil power, The Sleeping Dragon and save the mankind.
From the creators of Lure of the Temptress and Beneath a Steel Sky goes the Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon, the third installment in the Broken Sword series.
You can check the sample of the guide on our forum
This is full "talkie" version of the game. You can turn the subtitles on if you prefer subtitled version.
Play as both George Stobbart and Nicole Collard
A sophisticated story based upon real myths
Challenging puzzles mixed in with very believable detective work
Broken Sword 3 is a well made game, but it is can be completed far too quickly. There are not many characters in the game by comparison to the first two Broken Swords and this harms the game. It feels too empty and brief at times.
However, the proud tradition of mystery and suspense continues in this addition to the series. The more proactive, keyboard controls are hard to get used to at first, but they make the chore of moving around a little more challenging. The puzzles are intuitive and require some thought to solve. The little that does happen in the game is enjoyable and worth remembering.
When I first heard about this game I had my worries - the turn of the millennium weren't a good time for adventure game, the new 3D graphics seem to ruin many good series (Simon 3D is an excellent example) fortunately the third Broken Sword game manage to escape that fate.
The first thing that got me worry was the total absent of mouse interface, the whole game is controlled with a keyboard. Surprisely after getting use to it it's became rather good and not at all clumsy.
Like many 3D quests there is a small action and stealth element which mostly don't harm the game. The really annoying thing is the addition of boxes arrangement mini-games.
The plot is similar to the other games, a conspiracy threaten the world and George and Nico need to sort it out. The plot stretch in a slow and believable form and like in the previous games the dialog is full of humor. I myself thought we could do with more parts playing Nico, but that criticism apply to all the games in the series.
The graphics is just fines, sometimes there are glitches here and there but in all it didn't damage the enjoyment from the game.
A grand, exciting and surprisingly beautiful adventure
I must confess that The Sleeping Dragon was my first Broken Sword game, but regardless I was immediately drawn into the story, the intricate conspiracies and last, but not least, the lovable characters.
As lawyer-turned-adventurer George Stobbart and journalist Nico Collard, you must stop a grand plot that could endanger the entire world. Of course, you only slowly realize the grand scheme of things, but overall the progression of the story is good enough, although with the game often leaving one of the protagonists at a cliffhanger to return to the other sometimes makes it hard to keep track of what happens when.
Regardless, you almost always just need to fix "the next" puzzle in order to see what happens now.
And, yeah, the puzzles... Well, as a puzzle game this almost boils down to "Sokoban 3D". You push a hilarious amount of boxes (and stones) around in this game. Trouble in a plane? Push boxes! Need to trespass into an enemy base? Pile boxes!
In the end, this tends to break the immersion of the game, and you could have wished for Revolution to have downplayed the box puzzles a little bit...
As for other puzzles, they range from logic to damn-near-illogical. While most puzzles are probably on par with most point-and-click adventure games, some of them are utterly strange. Like melting facepaint in a nigh-invisible stage lamp or using a silver coin as a screwdriver.
Furthermore, the "take everything" concept makes it even harder to figure out what item you need to use when, and often caused me to simply try all of my items on a certain object (which was very annoying since you cannot skip the 'I cannot use that here'-comments)
BUT
The one huge selling point that The Sleeping Dragon has is its characters. The 3D rendering of George and Nico is surprisingly well-done - especially Nico, who sports some of the most advanced facial expressions I've seen in games in a long time.
When I first played this game, I really grew to love the characters, as they are filled to the brink with personality and charm, and the way they work together, commenting and joking with each other is simply spectacular. That kept me going, because I needed to know what would happen to them.
In comparison, most of the secondary characters are stereotypes with VERY stereotypical voices, ranging from acceptable to downright annoying (God, I can't stand that goth chick!)
All in all, if you love adventure games, you'd probably feel right at home here. Just be ready for at least a few fairly difficult puzzles - and lots and lots of boxes!
I picked this game up out of the barging bin back when I had a Radeon 9800. Touting "Game of the Year" and other acclaims, for $9.99 I figured I couldn't go wrong. I didn't.
I can't say enough good about this game. The mere act of writing a review is an insult because no review could ever capture this game. Nonetheless, perhaps it will persuade you to experience the game, which is the only real way of understanding.
This is one of the best games ever made period and was way ahead of it's time. The graphics are great, the voice acting and animation are top-notch, the strong is engaging, and the controls are fluid. I usually play alot of FPS, but this game reminded me of the power of Adventure games to immerse in an environment and captivate with story. Since this game, I have continued to search out Adventure games (Sam and Max, Monkey Island), but all pale in comparison to this game.
But before praising this game to much, first a word of defense. A lot of people complain about the controls because they don't use a mouse in the traditional point-and-click adventure sense. I didn't have a problem with them. As a diehard PC gamer, I usually demand my mouse to be taken advantage of, but I didn't even miss the mouse when I played this game. Once you realize the controls are relative to the camera, they feel natural and are intuitive. Furthermore, the games doesn't require precise control. The game is very forgiving in terms of piloting the characters. It will not let you fall off ledges or jump off into abysses. This game is not a platformer. The controls connect you to the character, placing you in their shoes, but they don't punish you for it. The game is not about being agile fingers, or careful keystrokes.
The beauty of the game is story, atmosphere, and characters. All aspects of the game add to one of these. The graphics are extremely well done, especially for the time. As what you might call a graphics afficiando ( I'm screaming for developers do use directx 11), the fact this game not only doesn't bother me, but profoundly pleases me, is saying something. Sure it doesn't have bump mapping or HDR, but somehow the lack of these extreme details adds to the games art style and actually enhances the graphics rather than detracts from them. It takes you back to a time when graphics weren't about being 100% realistic, but rather being beautiful in spite. The characters are beautifully modeled, and the environments are varied and intriguing.
This graphical development of the characters coupled with voice acting translates right into story development. The voice acting and animation are superb and way ahead of their time. They immerse you in the game, and serve as one of the smooth mechanisms with which the game seamlessly delivers it's story.
The story is powerful. It does not feel like a series of puzzles strewn together with excuses. It is purposerful, well-developed, and based on real myths. This gives it an added level of believability further conencting you to the story. Reading the background information in the "Extras" section of the menu further helps connect you to the plot without spoiling it. Though, you might read it after at least getting through the introduction of the game.
Do yourself a favor buy this game. It's 5.99. You could go to Subway and get a five dollar foot long. That will last 30 minutes. Or you get this game that will last days and hours. Come for the graphics. Come for the characters. Come for the story. Come for the heart.
Comparing this to to its predecessors is harsh but necessary, the previous Broken Sword games were, in my opinion, the greatest adventure games ever made (by far). As was so often the case though the step over to 3D didn't quite work out as I had once hoped and not always for the obvious reasons - sure the graphics lacked charm and shoving around boxes isn't my idea of a stellar adventure game puzzle, but there were more fundamental issues than these.
First of all the writing. This game is not well written, the charisma and humour of the previous two games is gone, most of the jokes are naff, almost non are funny. I don't need my adventure games to be a laugh a minute but the wit of the first two Broken Sword games really stood out, it was a more measured approach to adventure games, I always prefered the likes of Gabriel Knights or Broken Sword to the likes of Day of the Tentacle or The Dig because they didn't seem to be trying to be funny all the time. The humour in BS 1&2 was sparodic, clever... fun. But not here, I laughed once or twice but only because I enjoy the word 'pissouir'.
But this isn't the main problem with the writing. The big issue here is the story. The entire game hinges on nonsense. There are gaping plot holes. Why did the 'professional' killer need to frame Nico - why was that necessary? Why did the 'proffesional' arrive at the scene of the crime in a conspicuous E-Type Jag? Why did she discard her disguise about 3 yards away from the house leaving an obvious DNA trace? It is all very clumsily handled by the writers. But worse than this is general lack of quality in the writing throughout in game conversations, it just isn't as smart as BS 1&2, it isn't as deep as those games, you can't talk to all the characters about every item in your inventory for example and so it all feels comparitively thin.
It isn't bad but a badly written adventure game, with a poor plot, and very simple puzzles is never going to live up what had come before.
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