Sometimes it pays to go back to your roots, like when a rock band fires its horn section, hires a garage to record their next album and in the process creates one of the best albums in years. Revolution Software have chosen to do the video game equivalent by removing all the block pushing and QTEs that ruined the last two installments of the Broken Sword series, instead returning to their point and click roots with Broken Sword 5 – The Serpents Curse.
In this latest installment, George Stobbart is now working as a claims investigator for an insurance company, returning to Paris to oversee the opening of a new art exhibition being held in a small gallery in Montmartre. The main attraction is La Maledicció: a curious painting with heavy religious overtones that was painted by a member of a secretive Christian cult known as the Gnostics.
By pure coincidence, Nico is also there covering the event for the local newspaper. Also in attendance are a priest who claims the painting is evil along with the exhibitions curator Hector Laine and the gallery’s owner Henri. Disaster then strikes the small gathering as the painting is stolen in an armed raid, which costs Henri his life as he attempts to intervene.
Stobbart and Nico must then solve the mystery of who stole the painting and, more importantly, why the painting was stolen. They are hindered again by the Parisian Police who prove to be less than helpful, handing the investigation to another crackpot investigator along with everyone’s favourite bumbling constable, Sgt. Mou.
As George and Nico begin to unravel the mystery, it becomes apparent that there is a lot more to this robbery than a simple theft and that La Maledicció is far more than just a painting.
What follows is another classic slice of Broken Sword with all the intrigue, mystery and humour that made the original games so compelling to begin with. I don’t want to give too much away because I don’t want to spoil it.
The game’s puzzles by and large follow the conventions that you would expect from a point and click game from the mid 90s, you either need to talk to someone to get them to do what you want or use x with y to solve for z. The game’s logic is usually easy to follow but on the rare occasion you do find yourself lost, Broken Sword 5’s robust hint system ensures that you are never stuck for too long.
The games presentation for the best part is exceptional, with absolutely beautiful hand drawn backgrounds and strong performances from the games cast, in particular Rolf Saxon reprising his role as George, who’s familiar tones help lapsed fans, like myself, feel instantly at home and pull you straight back into the wonderful world of Broken Sword.
The only true complaint I have with the game’s presentation is that I wish they had decided to use hand drawn sprites instead of 3D models for the characters. Despite maintaining the style of the original point and click games and being very well animated, they sit just on the wrong side of uncanny valley for me and often times look slightly out of place, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but they just don’t quite look right to me.
The best scene that showcased this feeling of unease was a particularly weird one in which Stobbart tricks Henri’s grieving widow into giving him the key to his safe by pretending to be her deceased partner and dancing with her. It just looked a little awkward to me as well as being a bit of stretch to think that she would think George was Henri, regardless of how out of it she was.
My only other reservation about the Broken Sword 5 Episode 1 is that it ends just as the story is beginning to pick up pace. There’s a major revelation and then a very weird and unnecessary bit of dialogue between George and Nico, which might as well say “tune in next time for the shocking conclusion DUN DUNDUUUUUN! Then it’s over, leaving you with far more questions than answers and thinking “oh, is that it then?”
As such, I would still recommend waiting for the rest of the game to be released before taking the plunge, because despite being a relatively enjoyable experience, the first half only eludes to the kind of grand conspiracies that the series is famous for. Instead focusing on more mundane matters like insurance fraud and racketeering and apart from a few rumblings from the priest and the episodes conclusion there is very little to suggest that there is any greater motivation behind the robbery than greed. As such it feels like it is merely setting things up for a much more impactful and entertaining second half.
If you’re a fan of the series, especially if you have fond memories of 1&2, I would recommend this game as it retains much of the charm, wit and feel of those classic point and click adventures. As long as Episode 2 follows up on the promises made by the first, now that all the dominoes have been put in place so to speak, then Revolution will have succeeded in creating the best entry in the series since The Smoking Mirror all those many years ago..
