“Paris in the fall. The last months of the year, and the end of the millennium. The city holds many memories for me – of cafes, of music, of love… and of death.”
Isn’t that just a brilliant way of introducing a game? It sucks you straight in and sticks in your mind forever more. In the case of Broken Sword: The Director’s Cut, the start of the game may be a little slower than the original Broken Sword but the quality is still overflowing in this tremendous remake of an older classic.
It’s an interesting concept to have a Director’s Cut to a game, effectively doubling the market for the re-release. The newcomers to the game getting to try out an improved version while old hands at the game can experience new content. In the case of Broken Sword, it really works well despite the slower start to events. The story focuses on George Stobbart, an American tourist in Paris, who accidentally becomes embroiled in a conspiracy full of murder and the Knights Templar, oh, and mimes and clowns. Along the way he meets up with Nicole Collard, a French photo journalist, who is also caught up in it thanks to her inquisitive nature. Players aren’t just restricted to Paris with the game eventually spanning from Syria to, erm, an Irish pub. The pub does provide one of the most consistently entertaining sections of the game though. Broken Sword isn’t all about seriousness and conspiracies, it’s also frequently very funny and tells a fantastic story.
As mentioned previously, the start of the game is slightly different than in the original Broken Sword with the player initially taking control of Nicole rather than George. It’s a scene which makes little sense to novices to the game but it all makes sense in the end. It’s slower paced than the starting scene of the original Broken Sword with less impact, but still decent enough. Fortunately the other additional scenes added to this Director’s Cut are more appropriately placed and make for some interesting extra scenes for fans. They add an extra layer to the storyline and make Nicole a much stronger character than previously.
Most of the action takes place through conversing with various people within each scene and exploring the surroundings, acquiring all sorts of items which can be used to solve puzzles. The items range from the obviously useful (a safe key) to the obscure but eventually useful (a clown’s red nose), much the same can be said of the puzzles which range from simple to awkward. In the case of the Director’s Cut edition some additional puzzles are offered, which although not as physical as the Wii version, tie in nicely with the rest of the game. My personal favourite amongst the new puzzles are the codeword sections where a note is encrypted and players have to figure out which symbol matches each letter to make sense of the note. Other puzzles comprise of tasks such as block puzzles and jigsaws. None are overly taxing compared to the lateral thinking required for the point and click based puzzles, but they extend longevity well and offer a new challenge to those who have played the original incarnation.
Having recently completed Broken Sword: The Director’s Cut on the Wii I can safely say that the conversion from Wii to iPhone has gone extremely smoothly. Graphically the iPhone adaptation is actually better suited as the small screen ensures that the graphics consistently look smooth and cartoon like which is exactly what’s required of the Broken Sword world. Much like the Wii version, drawings provided by Dave Gibbons of Watchmen fame are supplied throughout and look great. There is full voice acting throughout and the touch controls work perfectly, I’d even go so far as to say the controls work better through the iPhone touch method than the Wii remote which I found occasionally irritating and unwieldy.
Revolution Software provided the best point and click adventure for the iPhone, Beneath a Steel Sky, a few months ago and they’ve truly usurped themselves with this. Broken Sword: The Director’s Cut is only £3.99 and will last the average player a good 10 hours, which makes it a ridiculously good bargain. When you consider the likes of the DS version will cost you at least twice this amount, this really is too good to miss. Now, how long have we got to wait for the equally fantastic Broken Sword 2 then Revolution? Please let it be soon!
VideogameUK verdict: 9/10
