Review Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars / The Director’s Cut Developer: Revolution Software Publisher: UbiSoft Genre: Mystery Release Date: March 20, 2009 Platform: (version reviewed) Review by Ray Ivey June 23, 2009		Buy this game at Trade for this game at:

1996’s Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars was one of the games that made me fall in love with the adventure game genre. Its rich storyline, amusing and interesting characters, lovely music and beautiful hand-drawn animation and backgrounds created a memorable gaming experience.

The game tells the story of George Stobbart, an American attorney vacationing in Paris. After nearly dying in a café bombing, he becomes drawn into a tangled web of intrigue, conspiracy and murder. The Knights Templar and their times figure into the story in a way that is sure to please history buffs.

Happily, the game has now found its way onto my favorite hand-held adventure portable, the Nintendo DS.

To be precise, it’s called Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars / The Director’s Cut and the last part is more than just a marketing ploy. In addition to being modified for the DS, it also ships with some terrific new content.

First, let’s look at the port. It’s largely the original game you remember. The same art, animations, dialog, story, and puzzles.

The main action takes place on the touch (lower) screen, and the stylus stands in very nicely for the mouse. The interface is quite similar to the PC version. Dragging your stylus along the touch screen reveals interactive hotspots with intuitive icons (gear for action, lips for talking, magnifying glass for closer look, etc.).

The top part of the screen is used for depicting talking heads during conversations, and some nice backgrounds.

So what’s new? Actually, that’s a nice surprise. An entirely new opening chapter, featuring series regular Nico the plucky reporter, has been added to the game. It’s not just a short prelude, either; it’s got some substance. It fits in well with the rest of the story and includes some fun puzzle solving.

The music and animations sound and look great just as they always did.

Other changes have been made to the original part of the game. For one thing, all of the times the main character can die have been removed. This change will please those who don’t enjoy anything that smacks of “action” sequences in adventures, but I actually missed them a little bit. They weren’t particularly difficult in the original, and they added some nice dramatic tension.

Also there are several new puzzles in the game which add a bit of adventure “crunch.”

The new version of the game only has two real drawbacks. First, there’s no voice work at all, and that’s disappointing, as the series is known for excellent work in this area. Second, as good as the game looks, you can’t really get the full effect of the beautiful visuals in the game the way you could on a nice big computer screen.

Still, it’s awfully fun to rediscover such a classic game. Pick it up and I think you will soon be drawn into its rich plot, fun characters and puzzles, and great art and sound.

I always look forward to any project that Charles Cecil and his team at Revolution Software are working on. I’d love to see a new game from Revolution built for the DS. A new Broken Sword, perhaps? Or how about a sequel to the underappreciated In Cold Blood? Or, even better: a sequel to Beneath a Steel Sky?

Final Grade: A (find out more about our grading system)

If you liked this game, then Play: Beneath a Steel Sky (it’s freeware!) or In Cold Blood Watch: The Da Vinci Code Read: The Sign and the Seal by Graham Hancock

This review is copyright Ray Ivey and Just Adventure and may not be republished elsewhere without the express written consent of the author. Republication of said review must also contain a link back to Just Adventure.