Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon review

Adventure games seem to be undergoing a bit of a revival lately. Just when it seemed that 3D gaming had killed them off once and for all, they bounced back, reinventing themselves for a new generation of gamers. Of course, they don’t enjoy the same popularity as they did once and they’ve had a bit of a shake up in the way they work.

If you remember the adventure gaming heyday, you are almost sure to have played the Broken Sword games. Along with the Sierra Quest titles and the fabulous LucasArts adventure games, Broken Sword was one of the premier franchises. They always presented themselves like a sort of interactive cartoon and Sleeping Dragon is no exception.

Broken Sword features two protagonists, George and Nico, pitted against an evil organisation, led by a suitably evil and mysterious villain who plots the very destruction of the world. Nico is a journalist and George a patent lawyer. Who’d have thought it would be left to a French journalist and a patent lawyer from Idaho to save the world? It’s not exactly the most glamorous profession in the world, although it is a sign that Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon won’t be about action.

Broken Sword follows a similar control system to most new adventure games. You move around the environment, and your character’s head will turn to look at areas or objects of interest. To highlight them, they also get a little sparkle on them. At the bottom of the screen is a context sensitive list of options corresponding to each button on the controller. You simply bush the option you want to manipulate items. You can also pull up an inventory and use your objects on one another or on your environment. It’s a very slick and easy interface.

The solutions to the puzzles are pretty easy for the most part, and also mostly make sense. I didn’t find myself floundering at all. There are several sets of puzzles that are not typical of this kind of adventure game though and they are a little overused. They are jumping and climbing, moving boxes and sneaking.

There are also some action sequences where you either have to move quickly or where you have to quickly push buttons in response to prompts on the screen. These are a little like the sequences in Shenmue. For the most part these are not too frustrating, because if you die you are brought right back to just before you died, without having to load. But just occasionally these sequences can give you rage-inducing frustration.

In fact the must frustrating thing about the game is the load times. Sleeping Dragon on the Xbox has some of the worst load times I’ve yet experienced on any console. In moving between areas, you often have to endure a loading screen that flashes little scenes from your exploits in the game to date. These little pictures are in no way entertaining and don’t go anywhere towards making up for the inexcusable load times. This whole issue tends to force you to try and do as much as you can in the current area before looking for solutions elsewhere, just to avoid having to wait while it loads
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This is all made more annoying by the way that sometimes during certain sequences you cannot save. So you have to watch a cut scene and then perform an action sequence. If you die, you have to wait for it to load and watch the entire cut scene again (there is no way to skip these). One instance of this actually had me leave the game for a week in frustration before I could bring myself to go back to it. But I’m glad I did, because it really is a good adventure despite these problems.

The puzzles offer just the right degree of difficulty and you feel really proud of yourself for figuring them out. The presentation is top-notch, with superb graphics throughout. The game is colourful and bold, belying its sometimes-dark subject matter. The fully 3D environments allow some bold cinematic camera moves that wouldn’t have been possible if the developers had opted for 3D characters in a painted environment.

Cinematic is of course the best way to describe Sleeping Dragon, as the whole look of the game is that of a high quality animated movie. The sound too is exceptional, with excellent voice acting throughout. The dialogue can be both funny and moving and every character, including the supporting cast, is well fleshed out. Sometimes the ambient sound effects can overpower the dialogue, but this isn’t a major issue.

So if you’re patient and want to help bring a bygone genre back into the public eye, I would highly recommend playing Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon. It’s a fine adventure game, with absolutely fabulous presentation, despite the one or two frustrations it offers up. However I can’t help but wonder if there will be a whole new generation of younger gamers that will look at it, wonder what all the fuss is about, and go back to playing FIFA.