Broken Sword 4: The Angel of Death (2006)

Nice game. Good story. Many puzzles to solve.

Sometimes buggy and need to restart PC

First, you need to get used to the terrible interface (BS3 was far better), the old 3D graphics (2D ages better), and the poor humor of Georges in the first quarter of the game (very out of character). BS4 gets better and better as the story unfolds, and it is for sure a great adventure game

On the paper, BS4 should be better than BS3 since it does away with keyboard controls only and QTE, stealth sections might be still present nut are less annoying and there's much less boxes moving. But the truth is, this is the worst game of the series for me. The problem is, for each thing BS4 does better than its predecessor, it does something worse. The first problem is the plot. It's not very "brokensword-esque", especially at the beginning and Anna Maria isn't as interesting Character as Nico who appears fairly late in the game. There are also some very stupid things in the story like gaining entrance to the wafer factory. [SPOILERS AHEAD!] You talk with two nuns as a tourist and you find out they're waiting for a health inspector. It's your way in! So what would be sensible thing to do? Disguise yourself with some appropriate clothes and a bit of characterization? Not for George Stobbart! He just speaks to thee same two nuns, just with something vaguely resembling German accent. And this somehow works like a charm! Or the centrifuge that turns a heavy, sturdy safe into small pieces, conveniently doesn't destroy its contents. The second stupidity. At some point you need to defuse a time bomb planted in Anna Maria's apartment. The question is: why they even did it? They knew where George and Nico were and they had no reason to think they get back alive to use the apartment at the moment of planting. They also had no idea where is AM or when if ever she gets back to her place. And there was nothing in the apartment that needed to be destroyed, no information, no incriminating evidence, nothing. So if they didn't make a trap for George and Nico and couldn't be sure when Anna Maria gets back, why they used time bomb which would explode on a determined time regardless of presence of the intended target? Why not to just booby trap the doors, laptop or freaking bed so the trap could stay there as long as it'd be necessary for the target to get there? What they really wanted to achieve here, blow up empty flat? This has all the telltale signs of a puzzle developers thought would be fun but couldn't really fit it into the story. [SPOILERS END!] What's more, the puzzle is badly designed. As soon as you enter the apartment, time starts running. You need to complete hacking puzzle first to obtain instructions, which takes some time. Then you need to read them. And it's not something short and straightforward - it's really a good chunk of text. The problem is, the time doesn't stop while you're reading. So you can either read all the instructions carefully to know what to do and run out of time - BANG, try again, or skim the instructions and make a mistake during defusing - BANG, try again. It's definitely not my idea of a well designed puzzle. One more situation when the story is subservient to puzzles is Turkish prison. George gets some innocuous looking items to help him escape. And all of them find their use along the way. The problem is, the uses are so situational that the person who gave them to George would have to be darn psychic to know these particular items will necessary. The other puzzles are mostly fine, like having to use clues from the manuscript to open way in Topkapi underground. And I generally liked more logic based puzzles than in the precious games where item based puzzles reigned. The thing is I'm for the life of me unable to fathom why the correct answer is correct. I don't know if it's bad/unclear clue's fault or I just understand it wrong. Anyways, puzzles are overall good. Btw, overabundance of moving crates from BS3 is replaced here by overabundance of hacking puzzles. They're fine, but used too often. The locations are a bit disappointing. Apart maybe salami factory and Topkapi, no location is really memorable, which is a shame because Broken Sword games always done this globetrotting adventure in exotic locations right. And honestly, I prefer BS3 graphics than BS4. It might be more angular, but it has more character. All in all, a bit of disappointment.

Just 3 minutes of playtime because the game is a unstable mess and won't start up. And I don't care enough to even try and fix this game. I recall a time a long time ago where I got the game to actually work and I beat it. It's not good, feels really rushed, once again the characters are ok, mostly George, Nico, and Flap and that's about it because they're returning characters. The rest of the cast are ok at best. The controls are worse than the third game and the writing does not save this game like in the 3rd game. Everything about this game is just bad and it's about as noncanon in my head as 2.5