Review By

Brad Gallaway

Like Erin, I also spent time with some PC adventure titles during my youth, most notably Space Quest and the infamous Leisure Suit Larry series. 1998's Grim Fandango was a more recent one, and I enjoyed that just as much as the old-schoolers, if not more. So, it comes as no real surprise that I thought Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon was a great disc to spend time with. It meets all the genre's quasi-requirements like snappy dialogue and a light tone, presenting a genuinely enjoyable adventure. It may knock twitch gamers unconscious with its lack of combat and relatively slow pace, but this is a kind of game that I don't want to see disappear into the annals of history, mouse or no mouse.

There are certain things you have to expect from a game that fits so comfortably into its niche, both good and bad, and The Sleeping Dragon is no exception. Looking at the bad, some of the puzzles are intuitive and quickly solved, but more than a few are obscure and difficult. I do give credit to Revolution for avoiding most point-and-clickers' tendency towards totally outlandish solutions, but several of them had me saying, "I never would have figured that out!" I think part of the issue is that sometimes it's not entirely clear what you're trying to do, and without a goal it's tough to problem-solve. I guess your brain just has to work a certain way, and mine evidently doesn't. Having an FAQ on hand will go a long way towards eliminating frustration, though it would have been nice to have a few in-game hints (perhaps disguised as dialogue from your partner) for the adventure-game impaired like me.

However, I accept the humiliation from the brain-twisters because I enjoy the rest of what the genre (and The Sleeping Dragon) offers so much. The writing is super-snappy, and a dialogue-aholic like me ate up every conversation. I'm confident that just about anyone will get more than a few chuckles out of the one-liners and sexually charged banter between George and Nico. They're both very enjoyable characters, and have a natural energy to their personalities, even reminding me a little bit of one of my favorite television shows, Moonlighting.

I also appreciated the use of the real-world locales. It's not very often that games are set in the present day, unless you count all those military-themed shooters based in Baghdad or some other war-torn third world country. There's nothing wrong with combat zones or the usual imaginary kingdoms, but playing a game in places I could personally identify with was a great, strangely fascinating treat.

Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon runs a little rough technically and has a few minor hiccups here and there, but if you don't mind those and can get past ungodly loadtimes regularly exceeding thirty seconds (bring a book) you'll find it to be a great ride well worth the time and effort spent. For those who like their games a bit on the cerebral, talky side, it's great addition to help round out the Xbox's lopsided library. Do yourself a favor and give it a shot.

Review By

Andrew Fletcher

The word "shoddy" sprang to mind disconcertingly quickly. Despite all Revolution's excited build-up talk of lifelike facial expressions, accurate lip-synching, top draw dramatic performances and Hollywood-style cinematography, what often emerges in Broken Sword's third instalment is a rather less impressive spectacle.

Witness, for example, the characters fudge their lines into one another as the disc whirrs and whines, always struggling to keep up and rarely allowing for any realistic or dramatic pauses in the conversations. Meanwhile, pauses of a different nature are plentiful and very long indeed: they're called loading breaks. To be fair, Broken Sword games have always been notable for their novelistic traits, and perhaps the sizeable load times could be seen as an extension of its predecessors' deliberately unhurried, considered "reading" pace. The reality is, however, that when a player must actually look away from the screen in order to sustain the illusion of a game world (and do so often), questions have to be raised about just how effectively this unique medium of interactive fiction is being used.

The narrative—the backbone of a good adventure game—seems a little more contrived than we have come to expect from the series. With an increased reliance on cut-scenes and a slightly reduced difficulty level, The Sleeping Dragon simply leads the player through the various segments to the conclusion. Sounds obvious? That's exactly my point; a good mystery story will conceal and carefully unravel its own hidden intricacies—as was demonstrated by the first game's use of a cryptic scroll, whose significance was carefully unfurled and made relevant to the plot over time. Of course, most stories are made up as they go along, but that fact just seems a little too noticeable here.

Even the script is often relatively corny and lacking in wit: "That was close," says George. "You can say that again," retorts Nico. And if that sounds like a lazy and pointless exchange, consider that Nico began speaking her line before George had even finished saying "was." Now consider that all of this took place after an escape section that was rendered almost farcical by streaming times. Combine these elements and, remembering that this is supposed to be a dramatic escape scene, I defy any red-blooded gamer to grant The Sleeping Dragon a reprieve.

At one point, Nico spent an entire cut-scene with her head at a right angle to her body, constantly flitting between one direction and the other. At first I found this rather amusing, then off-putting. And then, after this bug combined with another that saw Nico totally obscured behind the body of a police officer whilst she was speaking, I just felt saddened. Saddened that a series that had once showcased the pinnacle of 2D game artistry was now struggling to keep up with the big boys of the 3D era. For such a renowned series, The Sleeping Dragon's execution is nigh on catastrophic.

But, and I can't deny this any longer, I did thoroughly enjoy The Sleeping Dragon. I couldn't help it. It was like watching some trashy melodrama from the 40's: I knew the acting was laboured, the characters were clichéd, the story-contrived, and yet I just couldn't look away.

The locations, although sparsely populated and full of locked doors, are enlivened by a clean, warm art style that renders them seductive and enticing adventure settings. The widely criticised block-pushing puzzles were, in my opinion, a very welcome injection of player interaction. When you're sitting through minutes and minutes of conversational dialogue, it's hard to shake off the feeling that this really needn't have been a videogame, so the Tomb Raider-esque block puzzles, though rudimentary, help to reclaim a much-needed sense of physical involvement and spatial exploration.

True to its heritage, however, The Sleeping Dragon's strongest facet is its unique disregard for gaming conventions. Like Silicon Knight's Eternal Darkness, it approaches the adventure game as an expansion of a literary aesthetic, and is blessed with some delightfully wordy and novelistic touches. And like most good novels, the drama and intrigue naturally crescendo during the latter third of the story, which is where The Sleeping Dragon's dramatic weight begins to gloss over its various seams and inconsistencies. This is helped in no small part by some classy real-time cinematography (when the slick camera movements frame the action beautifully—if not always practically) and plenty of dramatic sweeps from the suitably orchestral score. As such moments it feels as if The Sleeping Dragon is finally weaving the fluid, mightily entertaining yarn that it initially promised.

What saves The Sleeping Dragon is the sheer level of personality it exudes, and since this may not hit home with those not yet familiar with the series, it is arguable that Revolution's latest instalment has not fulfilled it's remit to broaden the appeal of this aging genre. Newcomers ought not be put off entirely, however; the game retains that rare quality of enabling its quirks and annoyances to grow on the player, and even become central to the experience. So for gamers who simply could not forgive Resident Evil's door-opening loading pauses, or Tomb Raider's instant deaths, or Metal Gear Solid's Codec conversations, caution is advised. On the other hand, those who like their games old-fashioned, slow-paced, full of love/hate idiosyncrasies and preferably with the words Broken Sword in the title ought to consider themselves suitably qualified to fully appreciate The Sleeping Dragon: the necessarily shaky first step in point'n'click's evolution into a truly next-gen genre.

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