i first experienced broken sword on a ps1 demo when i was only 8 years old.. that was 11 years ago, and still to this day i go back and play it maybe twice, three times a year!. It is a 2d adventure game that plays so smooth its like watching a real life drama unfold before your very eyes, and you are the main character, George Stobbart, two b's and one t!. This game takes you on a journey across the globe from France to Spain to Scotland and even to my home Ireland!, you must solve puzzles and try figure out who nearly killed you that faithful day in Paris. It is out on ps1 (although hard to find), pc and gba. I love this game so much I have it on all 3 formats. Broken Sword will suck you in from the moment you hear George's voice after the infamous café explosion. If you have not yet played this game well then get it!, you don't know what you are missing!
9 Reviews
An enticing story...
TheHande30 November 2006
Broken Sword is one of the true classics of the adventure game genre. It combines a dark story with a light-hearted cartoon look to provide an extremely satisfying combination. Broken Sword can be summed up as cross between Monkey Island and Gabriel Knight, using historical events as a back-setting for a mystery driven adventure but colouring it with lighthearted humour.
The first adventure in the series is undoubtedly the best. The mysterious plot keeps you in its grip and the many goofy characters you encounter make the game an unforgettable experience. The puzzles are very simple in a way that they can be figured out without incredible leaps of logic.
Although there is some inconsistency in the quality of certain cut-scenes and thought the soundtrack is not as high quality as those of the later instalments, The Shadow of the Templars has a timeless quality that makes it enjoyable every time you play it.
The first adventure in the series is undoubtedly the best. The mysterious plot keeps you in its grip and the many goofy characters you encounter make the game an unforgettable experience. The puzzles are very simple in a way that they can be figured out without incredible leaps of logic.
Although there is some inconsistency in the quality of certain cut-scenes and thought the soundtrack is not as high quality as those of the later instalments, The Shadow of the Templars has a timeless quality that makes it enjoyable every time you play it.
Broken Sword:The Shadow of the Templars
Mr-Blonde22 March 2001
This brill game is one of the best i have ever played and if any one out there has not played this game i suggest you go out there and buy it.I rate this game 10 out of 10 ~ the game also has a cool sequel.The reason why i think this is such a good game is because it has every thing you want ~action,adventure,romance and a brilliant story.Is there anyone out there who agrees with me?
Foucault's Pendulum meets Indiana Jones, with a touch of Monkey Island
niz26 January 2000
Broken Sword is a standard inventory-based adventure game, as exemplified by LucasArts who produced the classic Monkey Island series. The user controls George Stobbart, an American tourist accidentally entangled in a plot to take over the world (sounds terrible, doesn't it?). George is moved around by clicking on the spot where you want him to walk to. In addition, many of the beatifully drawn locations scroll horizontally, so George can walk beyond the display visible at any one time. As you move the cursor over the screen, it will change its appearance depending on the object it points to. This allows things to be 'picked up', 'used', or 'examined'. And that's it! The controls are as simple as that. At the top of the screen is your inventory (in iconised form) at the bottom there is space for a set of conversation topics, which you can use to interrogate the 40 or so NPCs.
The plot may sound hackneyed and juvenile (a cross between Foucault's Pendulum and Indiana Jones) but the fact that it is grounded in some kind of historical reality certainly gives it an edge over the usual dull sword-and-sorcery setting or cliched sci-fi environment. Much of the plot exposition actually comes during dialogue as opposed to the cut-scenes, which are generally used as a linking device as George Stobbart jumps from one part of the world to another (the settings include Paris, Ireland, Spain, Syria and Scotland). The game effectively recreates the feeling of doubt over the nature of the NPCS: are they in on the Templar conspiracy, or just innocent bystanders? Unfortunately, the resolution to all this is simplistic and rushed, leaving many unanswered questions.
Compared with other adventure games, Broken Sword verges on being easy. Personally, I think this is a great thing: adventure games are much too hard! Monkey Island 2, for example, was ruined by its excessive difficulty. If a game wants you to appreciate its story, it should let the game flow, not obstruct you with artificial barriers that leave you kicking the machine in frustration and quitting the game in disgust. Broken Sword deftly avoids that trap: I was able to solve most of the puzzles without any outside assistance, and only peeked at the walkthru about 6 times, which is pretty good for a game of this size (incidentally, it should take about 30 hours to complete). There are a few awkward moments requiring you to scan the screen pixel-by-pixel, and other times where randomly using inventory items suddenly brings unexpected success, but generally the puzzles are logical and well thought out.
Presentation is first-rate: everything about Broken Sword is beautiful to look at, listen to, and use. The installation is a doddle, changing options is a breeze. The stunning backdrops are like watercolours, the animation is smooth and cartoon-quality, and the background music is very atmospheric.
So far, so LucasArts, right? What makes Broken Sword different is the conversation system. A set of topics will appear at the bottom of the screen when George starts chatting: you simply select a topic, George will ask about it, and the NPC will respond. You don't select the exact phrase George will utter, just the general topic. Often, you can ask about the same topic many times, for a more detailed interrogation, going deeper and deeper until they reach breaking point and spill the beans (hopefully). This works surprisingly well, allowing pretty good character development in even the most minor characters, and also giving George a well-developed personality (even if it is a bit too similar to Guybrush Threepwood). At times, the relentless attempts at humour in the conversations can be wearying (this is, after all, supposed to be a 'serious' adventure, not a comedy), and dodgy accents abound, but the dialogue is one of the highlights of the game for me.
Broken Sword is certainly the best game of its type I have played (although I haven't played many). It ranks alongside Monkey Island 1 in terms of gameplay, and naturally it looks and sounds much better. There can't be a more glowing recommendation than that. The difficulty level is pitched just about right, the user interface is clean and simple, and its cheap! Broken Sword comes on 2 CD's (you are required to do about 6 disk-swaps), and has a small but informative instruction pamphlet that gives some background detail and a short walkthru for the early puzzles. As well as the PC, it is also available for the Mac and Playstation. In short: brilliant stuff.
The plot may sound hackneyed and juvenile (a cross between Foucault's Pendulum and Indiana Jones) but the fact that it is grounded in some kind of historical reality certainly gives it an edge over the usual dull sword-and-sorcery setting or cliched sci-fi environment. Much of the plot exposition actually comes during dialogue as opposed to the cut-scenes, which are generally used as a linking device as George Stobbart jumps from one part of the world to another (the settings include Paris, Ireland, Spain, Syria and Scotland). The game effectively recreates the feeling of doubt over the nature of the NPCS: are they in on the Templar conspiracy, or just innocent bystanders? Unfortunately, the resolution to all this is simplistic and rushed, leaving many unanswered questions.
Compared with other adventure games, Broken Sword verges on being easy. Personally, I think this is a great thing: adventure games are much too hard! Monkey Island 2, for example, was ruined by its excessive difficulty. If a game wants you to appreciate its story, it should let the game flow, not obstruct you with artificial barriers that leave you kicking the machine in frustration and quitting the game in disgust. Broken Sword deftly avoids that trap: I was able to solve most of the puzzles without any outside assistance, and only peeked at the walkthru about 6 times, which is pretty good for a game of this size (incidentally, it should take about 30 hours to complete). There are a few awkward moments requiring you to scan the screen pixel-by-pixel, and other times where randomly using inventory items suddenly brings unexpected success, but generally the puzzles are logical and well thought out.
Presentation is first-rate: everything about Broken Sword is beautiful to look at, listen to, and use. The installation is a doddle, changing options is a breeze. The stunning backdrops are like watercolours, the animation is smooth and cartoon-quality, and the background music is very atmospheric.
So far, so LucasArts, right? What makes Broken Sword different is the conversation system. A set of topics will appear at the bottom of the screen when George starts chatting: you simply select a topic, George will ask about it, and the NPC will respond. You don't select the exact phrase George will utter, just the general topic. Often, you can ask about the same topic many times, for a more detailed interrogation, going deeper and deeper until they reach breaking point and spill the beans (hopefully). This works surprisingly well, allowing pretty good character development in even the most minor characters, and also giving George a well-developed personality (even if it is a bit too similar to Guybrush Threepwood). At times, the relentless attempts at humour in the conversations can be wearying (this is, after all, supposed to be a 'serious' adventure, not a comedy), and dodgy accents abound, but the dialogue is one of the highlights of the game for me.
Broken Sword is certainly the best game of its type I have played (although I haven't played many). It ranks alongside Monkey Island 1 in terms of gameplay, and naturally it looks and sounds much better. There can't be a more glowing recommendation than that. The difficulty level is pitched just about right, the user interface is clean and simple, and its cheap! Broken Sword comes on 2 CD's (you are required to do about 6 disk-swaps), and has a small but informative instruction pamphlet that gives some background detail and a short walkthru for the early puzzles. As well as the PC, it is also available for the Mac and Playstation. In short: brilliant stuff.
Best adventure game I ever played!
aad_baldie3 January 2002
This Adventure game is about an american on vacation in Paris. Sitting on the pavement outside a cafe he is drinking coffee when suddenly a clown walks in and blows the cafe away. The game isn't too hard to play but also not too easy. The story features many unique plots and there are a lot of jokes too. The atmosphere is almost perfect!
Probably my ALL TIME-FAVOURITE Adventure Game. It´s time for the picturization !
ukl2324 July 2002
Warning: Spoilers
minor SPOILERS
When I played Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars [aka Circle of Blood (US title) ] for the very first time I didn´t know much about the storyline. Most of the great adventure games I´ve played through the years always had hilarious stories, you couldn´t take seriously (Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island). Broken Sword is different. Sure it is funny, but not because of non-stop slapstick situations and genre parodies. It is the wonderful, honed dialogue which bristles with word joke which makes you smirk and smile.
I think the main-reason why I love this game is that the story could work very well as a motion picture.
It starts in Autumn, 1999 with a big bang. A killer, disguised as a clown, assasinates a man after stealing his suitcase by detonating a massive bomb in a Parisian cafe. George Stobbart, an american student who´s enjoying his Europe vacation almost gets killed as well, because he´s sitting in front of the cafe. He survives, but his life shouldn´t be the same again. Never again.
After an encounter with the French police he get´s to know Nico Collard, an attractive and clever French photo journalist. From that moment onwards George Stobbart gets more and more involved in the thrilling plot/conspiracy, and there´s no way out ...
If you like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or films such as "The Ninth Gate" and you enjoy playing computer games you HAVE TO give "Broken Sword 1" a try. It has been released back in 1996 but it´s still a great game with decent (realistic) cartoon graphics and a beautiful soundtrack by the composer Barrington Pheloung ("Nostradamus", "Inspector Morse").
I hoped that someday there´ll be a movie following the storyline of "Broken Sword" but it never happened. If you consider that Hollywood put such crap as "Double Dragon", "Street Fighter", "Super Mario Bros." and "Dungeons & Dragons" (let alone dozens of awful action-adventure flicks) on film, it´s all the more annyoing that the potential of the game´s story remains undiscovered or rather overlooked.
10 out of 10
When I played Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars [aka Circle of Blood (US title) ] for the very first time I didn´t know much about the storyline. Most of the great adventure games I´ve played through the years always had hilarious stories, you couldn´t take seriously (Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island). Broken Sword is different. Sure it is funny, but not because of non-stop slapstick situations and genre parodies. It is the wonderful, honed dialogue which bristles with word joke which makes you smirk and smile.
I think the main-reason why I love this game is that the story could work very well as a motion picture.
It starts in Autumn, 1999 with a big bang. A killer, disguised as a clown, assasinates a man after stealing his suitcase by detonating a massive bomb in a Parisian cafe. George Stobbart, an american student who´s enjoying his Europe vacation almost gets killed as well, because he´s sitting in front of the cafe. He survives, but his life shouldn´t be the same again. Never again.
After an encounter with the French police he get´s to know Nico Collard, an attractive and clever French photo journalist. From that moment onwards George Stobbart gets more and more involved in the thrilling plot/conspiracy, and there´s no way out ...
If you like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or films such as "The Ninth Gate" and you enjoy playing computer games you HAVE TO give "Broken Sword 1" a try. It has been released back in 1996 but it´s still a great game with decent (realistic) cartoon graphics and a beautiful soundtrack by the composer Barrington Pheloung ("Nostradamus", "Inspector Morse").
I hoped that someday there´ll be a movie following the storyline of "Broken Sword" but it never happened. If you consider that Hollywood put such crap as "Double Dragon", "Street Fighter", "Super Mario Bros." and "Dungeons & Dragons" (let alone dozens of awful action-adventure flicks) on film, it´s all the more annyoing that the potential of the game´s story remains undiscovered or rather overlooked.
10 out of 10
Best point and click game ever
A_winters_wolf13 May 2020
This has to be one of if not the best point and click adventure game of all time. I first played when I was a child at the age of 11 on the PlayStation and loved the characters and story. The puzzles of course was challenging for an 11 year old but I managed to get though it and was very pleased with myself when I completed it. Even for a game as old as it is now it still holds up to be one of the all time greats if point and click games. Anyone who never got to play this it's worth giving it ago. Maybe it won't have the same effect without the nostalgia but you can pick the directors cut up for next to nothing now and can even download it for a smartphone or tablet. The directors cut isn't as good as the original but is still a good game.
An excellent adventure with a gripping story
action-617 April 2000
Broken Sword is a bit old now, but I think that this is the best cartoon-point-and-click adventure around. On both Playstation and PC. You play George Stobbart, who is an American tourist on vacation in Paris. He is sitting outside a cafe, when it is suddenly blown up by a man who appears to be a terrorist. One man dies in the explosion. George talks to the police, but they don`t believe him when he tells them that the killer was a clown(!). George decides to investigate on his own, and he tries to track down the killer, who is disguised as a clown. Poor George is about to enter a sinister world of mystery and death. The graphics are cartoonish and the scenery looks stunning. The mysterious music creates a perfect atmosphere. The story is excellent and gripping, and it is based on things that have really happened. The game has excellent and logical puzzles. All of these things make Broken Sword preferable to all other similar games out there. Broken Sword is a massive adventure, and is THE adventure to choose, wheather you`ve a Playstation or a PC. Brilliant game!
9,5/10
9,5/10
Superb Adventure Game
bs3dc29 January 2007
Warning: Spoilers
George Stobbart, an average Californian tourist is on vacation in Europe when his his world is blown apart (literally) as he café he is sitting outside of is destroyed by a man in a clown suit. Together with Parisian journalist Nicole "Nico" Collard he must track down the killer in an international adventure that spans Paris, Ireland, Scotland, Syria and Spain on his quest.
The graphics are beautifully drawn and point to the fact that 3D is unnecessary in adventure games and can be downright annoying due to the fact the reliability and length of the game often suffer badly. The backgrounds are far better than the character animation, though the good story more than compensates for this.
The interface is simple to use and the puzzles are far more logical than in many an adventure game. Indeed Shadow of the Templars is relatively easy to solve and I managed to complete it without any help from walkthroughs, which is more than I can say for some of the obscure challenges in some of its contemporaries, where you end up resorting to combining every item in the inventory in frustration. It works mainly because the game takes a good while to reach its worthwhile conclusion (is there anything more annoying in games when they take months to finish, then the ending is a complete washout?).
The voice acting is variable, with Rolf Saxon and Rachel Atkins both perfect as George and Nico respectively, while some of the accents of the other characters is a little dodgy to say the least. There is some good support though from British character actors and overall it is of a higher quality than you will find in many adventure games. This is aided by a strong script that balances humour and seriousness well to round out the characters. There is even some educational value to Shadow of the Templars in the dialogue.
The music is well written by Barrington Pheloung, best known (in the UK at least) for his scoring of the Inspector Morse TV series. In my opinion though the music is not varied enough, though the atmospheric music in the Ireland section being a notable exception. The music is certainly improved upon in the second George Stobbart adventure.
Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars these days sounds cliché thanks to a certain Dan Brown book that has spawned about a thousand books with similar titles and plots that should be well ignored compared to this.
A true benchmark of the genre.
The graphics are beautifully drawn and point to the fact that 3D is unnecessary in adventure games and can be downright annoying due to the fact the reliability and length of the game often suffer badly. The backgrounds are far better than the character animation, though the good story more than compensates for this.
The interface is simple to use and the puzzles are far more logical than in many an adventure game. Indeed Shadow of the Templars is relatively easy to solve and I managed to complete it without any help from walkthroughs, which is more than I can say for some of the obscure challenges in some of its contemporaries, where you end up resorting to combining every item in the inventory in frustration. It works mainly because the game takes a good while to reach its worthwhile conclusion (is there anything more annoying in games when they take months to finish, then the ending is a complete washout?).
The voice acting is variable, with Rolf Saxon and Rachel Atkins both perfect as George and Nico respectively, while some of the accents of the other characters is a little dodgy to say the least. There is some good support though from British character actors and overall it is of a higher quality than you will find in many adventure games. This is aided by a strong script that balances humour and seriousness well to round out the characters. There is even some educational value to Shadow of the Templars in the dialogue.
The music is well written by Barrington Pheloung, best known (in the UK at least) for his scoring of the Inspector Morse TV series. In my opinion though the music is not varied enough, though the atmospheric music in the Ireland section being a notable exception. The music is certainly improved upon in the second George Stobbart adventure.
Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars these days sounds cliché thanks to a certain Dan Brown book that has spawned about a thousand books with similar titles and plots that should be well ignored compared to this.
A true benchmark of the genre.
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