Broken Sword 4: The Angel of Death (2006)

Don't get me wrong, Angel of dead is a good game. As other said, it is a solid entry in the broken sword series. The puzzles are way better than they were in the third installment, as well as the controls (this game is PC only). However, this game reads CHEAP all over it. I'm sorry to say that, and I still like the game, but compared to the production values of earlier episodes, this is a huge step back. To be honest, it looks somewhat worse then Broken Sword 3. I would nit mind it from a smaller company, or from a series, which came right out of nowhere, but this is BROKEN SWORD! This should be epic, every possible way, but it isn't. There are less places to visit, a shorter gameplay, less characters to meet or see, and a very anticlimatic ending. The game has been written by the developers of the first two games, and in the end it hints, that it might be jut the first part of a series of adventures (a' la telltale games). But is isn't. It's just a "good" adventure, and a surprisingly "meh" end to the series.

I recently played through all the Broken Sword games again, in order so I could prepare myself for the fifth installment of the series. In order to do this, I forced myself to finish this crap pile. In doing so, I wasted about 15 hours of my life. Bland, lifeless level design with too many browns, tans and blacks filling the color palette on most maps - gone are the vibrant colors and beautifully drawn landscapes from the earlier games (even Sleeping Dragon's design was pretty good). Voice acting that sounded like the actors were bored (except for Rolf Saxon's George Stobbart, of course). Not to mention Nico, a MAJOR character, was given a role that seemed mostly like a glorified cameo. I could go on, but GOG has a character limit. I'll just say that there is absolutely no reason to play this game before playing the Serpent's Curse and you should avoid at all costs.

The Broken Sword series is one of my favorite series of mystery games. From witty dialogue to outside the box puzzles, these games always seemed to scratch my itch for good, challenging entertainment. Unfortunately, this game didn't rise to the level of the previous entries. It's still a pretty good game. I like the new method of control, was a fan of the switch to 3D, and thought it was a fairly good story. The dialogue and voice acting were also still top of the line. What I didn't like was some of the repetiveness of the puzzles, especially the computer hacking puzzles. I thought some more back story was needed about what happened to George and Nico after the events of Broken Sword 3. The ending was also very flat and lacked a true sense of finality. At the time, there was talk that this would be the final game in the series, but I certainly hope a part 5 will be created for a true final chapter. For fans of this series, I would recommend one playthrough for the sake of completion. After that, I suspect you might not play it again.

It's been a while since I played the Broken Swords 1-3. I don't remember them well, but I'm sure I enjoyed them more than this one. I haven't really met an adventure game where the 3d worked, and this is no exception. There's no control over the camera, and oftentimes you wish there was. It also often pans while your character is moving, frustrating attempts to click on things on the go. Once my character got stuck and couldn't move anymore, losing me an hour worth of progress. Many of the puzzles make little sense, and there's a handful where I didn't even bother to study the clues, as they were faster and easier to solve by trial and error than actually trying to understand them. One puzzle (escape from being tied to a chair) struck me as being simply absurd. I suppose the story is allright but nothing special and suffers from the Templars and their supposed holy treasure having been done to death already (perhaps they weren't so much back when the game was released). The end of the game is also as abrupt as it is unsatisfying.

It's no wonder they finished the series back in the days on this one. I started my adventure with BS2, finished it thrice or even four times during my life, enjoyed it every time almost the same as when I was playing for the first time. Then years later it was BS1 finally remastered to its deserved quality. I kept myself away from these 3D-thingy as I perceived them as betrayal of a great concept (which returned with BS5) so I played BS5 episode 1 last year, but episode 2 was late to show so out of the boredom I gave it a go and went for BS3 which, once you learned the new keyboard-only controls, eventually came out very good. Despite blurry textures and coarse scenery It was more like watching slightly interactive movie. Finishing BS3 on a high I went instantly for BS4 and the tragedy began. I'm currently about 20% in but here's couple of annoyances so far... - Moving back and forth between two locations is required to get to next level. - Silly and unintuitive puzzles (Bugs eating clock, anyone? Random mp3 player appearance? ) - CAMERA MOVEMENT - this one is the worst. When your character moves the camera follows and switches constantly from one camera to another. if you try to click on something during that movement, you're doomed. - Controls - while BS1,BS2,BS5 utilises only mouse, BS3 only keyboard BS4 utilises both (badly though) You move with cursor keys but the "run" key is "left control" which is out of reach when one of your hand is on said cursor keys and the other is operating mouse. - Controls take two - There are several items you must use right-click and then select non-default action. 95% of items don't have that, but if you forget about that 5% you'll be stuck for hours. I'll finish it out of sentiment for the whole series, but I'm not willing to spend long hours dwelling over some messed up puzzle, so I have walkthrough at hand. Sadly - very handy.