I have a great pile of games as yet unplayed, and this was one of them.
I had played the first Broken Sword game (Shadow of the Templars; Circle
of Blood in the US), and my opinion of that one was pretty lukewarm. I thought
there was far too much conversation and not as many puzzles as I would like, but
parts of it were truly outstanding. However, I know these Broken Sword games
are many people’s all-time favorites, and I wanted to try to understand why. Here’s
what I thought of Broken Sword II.

The Plot: You return as
George Stobbart from Circle of Blood and go to meet up with Nico in Paris
after a six-month separation only to find her in the midst of being kidnaped.
In your attempt to rescue her, you get into a bind involving a giant spider. After
you save yourself, you must locate and save Nico. You find out that Nico has a
Mayan artifact that she was on her way to show to Professor Oubier when she ran
into trouble at his home. George and Nico must escape the immediate danger and
track down the origin of the mysterious artifact. They learn that they must obtain
two more artifacts to go with the one they already have, in order to stop the
rebirth of the Mayan demon-god who was trapped in a pyramid by the three artifacts.
Their quest leads them to a Central American jungle, the Caribbean, Marseilles,
and the British Museum.

I am no historian and have not researched the background
at all, but the story gives the appearance of being well-founded in actual history
and mythology. Some of the elements in this game have turned up in many other
games as well, particularly the Mayan parts. That seems to be a favorite theme
for game designers. The designers of the game seemed to have taken bare-bone historical
facts and written a credible, magical story around them, much as the authors of
Black Dahlia did with that well-known story. The only holes in this plot
involve the characters’ ability to travel across the world instantly and without
ever having to worry about money, but I guess you just have to suspend your disbelief.
Also, while I don’t want to give anything away, the ending video sequence was
a disappointment.

However, on the whole, the story is extremely strong and
well thought-out, so I give it an A+.

The Graphics: This is
a cartoon-style game. It has easily the most well-drawn and detailed backgrounds
of any game I have ever played. (The same can be said of Broken Sword I.)
The artist(s) really took a lot of time and care in drawing the scenes, and it
pays off in the beauty of the game. The backgrounds rival Michael Hague’s illustrations
for The Wind in the Willows, a book I’m sure many of you enjoyed as a child,
and are in the same style. The cut scenes are very high-quality, too. There is
no jerkiness and no pixelation, even in the fast-action parts.

The movement
of the characters on the screen during gameplay is sometimes kind of goofy, though.
It is obvious that there are only set paths they can take, so when you go to look
at something or talk to someone on the other side of the screen, the character
will take a long, circuitous, rectangular path instead of the straight-line path.
This is a very minor flaw present in most games of this type, but it is disconcerting
nevertheless.

I grade the graphics A+. They are truly superior.

Gameplay/Puzzles:
The gameplay is very tedious. It involves a lot of pixel-hunting and way
too much conversation that doesn’t move the story or game along. If you get
stuck, you just go talk to everyone again, at length, ad nauseam, try every item
on everything else, and then go talk to everyone again. Sometimes the thing
that makes no sense at all is the one that works. It seemed to me, though, that
this game had less conversation than Broken Sword I, which is a small blessing.
I had forgotten how much I disliked that aspect. Most of the puzzles, besides
the conversing ones, are inventory-based, and there are a couple of “traditional”
puzzles in the end game that require manipulating objects on the screen.

One
thing I did like, however, was that the viewpoint in the second half of the game
switched between George and Nico. I know this is nothing new–witness the Maniac
Mansion games and Gabriel Knight II–but I really like switching styles
and perspectives in a game. I do wish game designers would try to incorporate
a little more of this, especially involving woman characters.

One final
technical note: your CD drive must be lettered D: or E: to install the game. I
found that out by looking at the FAQ on the Virgin
web site, which, by the way, offered no patch or update to fix this. My CD drive
is G:, and I spent quite a long time wondering what was wrong with the CD before
checking the Virgin site. My DVD drive is D:, so I just used that. While it is
a small matter to reletter your CD drive, it would be a pain in the hindquarters
to change it back and forth every time you switched between playing the game and
using all of your other already-installed-using-a-different-letter CD software.

Gameplay
gets a D.

Music, Sound Effects, Voice Acting: The music is nothing
special–it serves pretty well to set the mood but is not memorable. There is
not a lot in the way of sound effects. This is mostly a conversation game with
some inventory puzzles. The voice acting is largely passable, but the voice actor
for George Stobbart is particularly annoying in his insipidness, and some of the
minor characters got on my nerves in a big way. Pearl and Duane, the American
tourists in Syria from Circle of Blood, reappear at one point in this game.
They were big-time irritating the first time around and no less so in this game.

I
was also never convinced of any kind of attraction between George and Nico, who
are supposed to be an item, and I wondered what a cosmopolitan, sophisticated
Frenchwoman such as Nico would be doing with a lout like George in the first place.
He always refers to Nico as “my girlfriend” and she just calls him “Zhorzhe.”
Maybe it is a one-sided attraction on his part. Maybe in Broken Sword III,
he will be a stalker whose mission in the game is to have Nico be his alone
… forever! The voice acting gets a C- from me because of the annoyance
factor with the minor characters in the game and because the two major characters
were never quite persuasive. I will not comment on the music and sound effects
because I never really noticed them.

Final Grade: I give this game a
B-. I would recommend it for the good story line and the beautiful graphics,
but if you want a game that has more adventuring, look for another.