Broken Sword 2: Remastered (2010)

I loved it back then and still love it. Those who came across the first game, eagerly got this second story when it came out. And boy was it good. Humor, riddles, jokes, thrilolers, fun ... point&click at its best - the likes of Monkey Island, Days of the Tentacle or Indiana Jones. Years later this second part of Broken Sword appears strangely familiar, if you compare it to Sonys Uncharted series. What came after the second part was two abomenations: the unfruitful and horrid attempts to move the series to 3D. (Even Monkey Island did not manage this - bad images of zombie like horrible characters still haunt those who accidently experienced the failed experiments and send chills to their bones). It was up to the fan base to fix this! Don't miss to also check out the Community project "Broken Sword 2.5 - Return of the Templars" that you can find for free online, if you love part 1 and 2. The community was so successful with its fan release that the original producer returned with another 2D attempt, that is also quite nice, yet not as successful: "Broken Sword 5 - the Serpent's Curse"

These games are great!!!... intelligent, great story.. good characters... not just an insulting pixel hunt... Buy them all as GOG gets them!!!!

Nico isn't a very consistent character, through the game all her voice acting sounds forced and pretentious. She's supposed to be a french journalist but frequently uses more exotic english words than George. For instance she has no problem finding the words for "railway sleeper", but in the same scene is completely puzzled by the word "lbs" printed on a scale, I don't buy it. They should have just let George be the only playable character instead. Anyway, all in all a decent adventure with a few dumb and far fetched puzzles. The animated portraits aren't very good with their poor range of badly portrayed emotions (and why does George look more like Justin Bieber than himself?). A pretty negative sounding review this, but the rest of the game is well made, and it's worth a play-through if you liked the first game.

The story, the jokes are working, just like in it's predecessor, but the logic of some game elements feel forced (why can't I use the coal to hit the marker why do I need the cat's ball?) . Shadow of the Templar's gameplay felt more fluid - I rarely had to use hints. Here I feel some mechanics are not in place - when I know what is the solution of a puzzle still I cannot reach it, because the game want me to do too many extra steps (E.g. In the case of Conchita, even though I agreed with her that we have common enemies I have to go back and forth between places and talk to her again and again to get that detonator from her. It really just felt that the creators wanted to elongate the game more with these extra steps.) And that is a pity, because these silly little things pull me out of the game's world which I totally adore and I'd like to stay in it. Because the detective work is still very exciting.

I liked the first Broken Sword and Broken Sword II is a great sequel. What sets this apart from other adventures is its maturity (not so much through violence but through a mature use of language and the way it deals with sex and violence). The artstyle is also very pretty and fits the atmosphere. The game stays fresh and challenging and always gives you logical puzzles and no nonsense solutions. If you liked the first one, you will like this one as well.