Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars – The Director’s Cut Preview

In the grand spectrum of point-and-click adventure games, Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars is one of the all-time greats. It was a brilliant game in 1996, and it still holds up well today – thanks largely to its excellent plot, memorable characters and well thought-out puzzles. And now it’s back, coming to the Wii and DS as part of what increasingly looks to be a revival of the genre – perhaps thanks to the success of the Sam & Max games. Either way, this is good news all round.

This is in fact the third time that the original Broken Sword has been ported to a mainstream console. The first PC to PlayStation port came out in ’96, then there was a 2002 Game Boy Advance version that somehow crammed the whole adventure onto a tiny cartridge. Getting the game onto GBA meant sacrificing all the audio dialogue, one of the things that greatly contributed to its sense of charm; this time around that won’t be a problem because there’s more than enough room for everything – and a few new things to boot.

For a start this Director’s Cut gets a whole selection of new animated portraits that pop up when characters are in conversation, courtesy of comic artist Dave “I drew Watchmen” Gibbons. These large images aren’t lip-synched to speech, but they certainly look nice and help to make long dialogues slightly more involving. Revolution has also thrown in a hint system to help the logically-challenged, and a diary that will help you to keep up to speed with the game’s sprawling plot. Best of all, it’s tweaked the existing puzzles and added a whole new section of gameplay that actually twists around what’s already there. In other words, it’s not just a bolted-on chapter, but an expansion that runs in tandem with the existing story that so many of us already know and love.

Of course, not everyone will be familiar with the tale – so here’s a quick summary: Shadow of the Templars is the story of George Stobbart, a young American whose Parisian vacation is rudely interrupted by a bomb blast. George is eyeing up the waitress at a café when a mysterious clown shows up. The clown steals a briefcase from one of the bistro’s patrons and then drops his accordion before doing a runner. Seconds later the café goes kaboom. George survives and decides to solve the mystery, eventually becoming involved in a labyrinthine conspiracy involving the Knights Templar. He also gets to team up with a hot Parisian journalist named Nico.

There’s no way I’m going to spoil any of the plot’s many twists and turns, but take it from me that Shadow of the Templars spins a seriously good yarn – one that carries you right across Europe. It’s a lot darker than your average point-and-click, but it also carries a lot of humour too. George and Nico are well-drawn characters, and once you start on their story it’s almost certain that you’ll want to know what happens to them. Last time around it was George who was the constant focus of the player’s attention, but this Director’s Cut sees the player taking control of Nico too. Indeed, it’s with her that our story now starts, on the day before the bombing.

Again, I don’t want to say too much about the story, but suffice to say that Nico ends up witnessing a murder that is directly related to everything that follows. What I will say is that so far the new gameplay seems to fit alongside the old seamlessly. The majority of puzzles are still very much your classic genre fare: pick up anything that isn’t nailed down, look at your objects and show them to other characters or use them on the environment. Unlike a lot of the old LucasArts games you tend to only have seven or eight objects in your inventory at any given time, so you’ve usually got a good idea of what you should be using – the greater problem is how you use it. The difficulty of puzzles is well pitched in that they’re no cakewalk, but not ludicrously hard either. If you remember the original game you’ll know that there were a few situations that were really hard to figure out, but these have been smoothed over while retaining the old flavour. This means that the notorious goat puzzle should still be present, but this time it won’t cause you to lose your hair.

Along with the standard object-use conundrums there are now a few logic-based challenges. Examples of stuff I’ve seen so far include a block-shifting puzzle (thankfully not as frustrating as I expected it to be) and a great little teaser involving a message written in cipher. Here you’re presented with a page of meaningless symbols, and the game then allows you guess what letter each icon represents; as you link letters and symbols the message automatically alters itself, so when you start seeing complete words, you know you’re on the right track. It’s a neat challenge, since it seems extremely intimidating at first and yet becomes highly satisfying as things pull together. In my opinion, this is exactly how a good puzzle should be.

In any case, if you get stuck there’s always the hint system. Clues are offered in stages, progressing from vague hints to a complete solution, so there’s always room for a player to do some thinking for themselves. On the flip-side this feature is also fairly useful on the rare occasions when Broken Sword falls victim to the classic problem of the missing item: you know you’re supposed to pick up something but you can’t find it – often because it’s small or very well-hidden. While there’s no penalty for using hints, the game does track how many times you ask for help – adding a subtle incentive to persevere when befuddled.

Controls, as you might expect, are a simple matter of pointing the Wii remote and hitting A. The controller vibrates lightly when you pass over an object of interest, but other than that it’s the same simple system the genre has used for years. No pointless waggling, no silly mini-games, just clever puzzles, memorable characters and a damn good story. It really is funny, too. Early in the game Nico finds herself inspecting the corpse of a man known for having affairs. It’s a grim scene, but she can’t help but comment that “Pierre Carchon was stiff for the last time”. It’s even funnier in her sexy French accent.

In short, it’s nice to have Broken Sword back. I loved it the first time around, so coming back to Templars is like putting on an old pair of trainers – albeit a pair of trainers that are bigger than they used to be. We’ll be running a full review of the game next week, so check back then to catch the full skivvy on this happiest of returns.

Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars: Director’s Cut is out on Wii and DS on March 20.