Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon (PS2)

Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon

Platform: Playstion Two
Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: THQ
Price: Varied

The Sleeping Dragon:

AN ANCIENT CONSPIRACY...A BROKEN CODE...AN UNSOLVED MURDER...THE ULTIMATE ADVENTURE!

I believe this is the third Broken Sword game in the series that has lived up to it's expectations of adventure, puzzles, unravelling the story and finding the clues to the secrets of The Sleeping Dragon. This Broken Sword has improved in its graphics and change the way you control George and Nico, its more suspensing, more challenging and there's things you can do differently than on the first two like moving boxes, creeping around, crouching and runnning...these are just some of the things I enjoyed most about the third installment.

I like the idea when you go to speak to someone you can actually see the mouth icon plain and clear at the bottom corner of the screen, when interacting you have a wheel scroll of items, objects and subjects to talk about displayed on the other side of the screen. I love the fact you can even jump across gaps, hug a wall or cliff face, mount and dismount railings on balconies, step onto ladder, open doors, listen through door or window and look through a window, all by using the action button.

I find this one more challenging because of it's more mysterious story telling and the suspense of uncover the clues, the upgrade and improve graphics also makes this one more of a pleasure to play through. I think the way they've tried to keep a balance between the last story (The Smoking Mirror) and beginning this one and still keeping/doing what George and Nico does best was truely layed onto their next journey quite nicely. At the start of each one something drastic is about to happen and George and Nico has to act fast before it does, still exploring through towns and asking all they need to know questions to the locals.

When I first saw screenshots of The Sleeping Dragon in a magazine before its release date it wasn't quite sure how improved or different it was going to be, but really all they've done is improved the graphics and gameplay and also sent them both on another ancient journey. George and Nico hasn't really change at bit, they still talk and sound the same except for the slight improvement of making them both look more realistic in an animatic kind of way...still keeping it not so cartoony, but not quite as real.

Again...I love travelling with George and one of my most favourite parts of the game is in Glastonbury, you get to talk to a guy outside of a pub and across the road is a fortune teller who ask's for a pair of pants in exchange of telling you whats going to happen next. There was a big guy with a mustache walking up and down the village, I had to help him to find he's daughter, that was kind of an intrigueing part of the scene. Whilst on this part a rather spokey encounter behind the pub also occured, when I first played it and reached this part I didn't know if I had to escape something or someone.

Once again you stumble across the Paris town of Montfaucon, but its not exactly how you remember it. Everything in this area has change, from building work going on to a funny woman guarding an outside toilet which she describes as a "Pisswa" This part was quite amusing, especially when you're directly standing above it looking down, I don't think the woman takes to kindly to this and tells you to get down. You travel to places such as Prague, Theatre, Eygpt etc...

The Prague mission was very intrigueing to play through and the concept exciting, you had to creep around alot and try not getting caught by the guards. George and Nico cleverly work together to get through the guards and into the building by using distracting tactics, I really loved this part of the game. The Eygpt level reminded me a bit of a close up version a commandos mission, you had to creep around to one brick wall to another in order to slip by the guards...it brought a little something different to a Broken Sword game.

The story to the game was more inspiring and intrigueing with the mysterious murder and trying to find the clues to unlock an ancient conspiracy. There was plenty of action sequences in this one that I really enjoyed, especially the theatre mission, you come across a very familar character who you will have to take out. There's a couple of evil characters in this one I like, those evil characters seem more devious, dark and willing to do anything to unravel the secrets of the sleeping dragon before anyone else does.

Some of the puzzles were quite trying and a certain one took me a little longer to work out, it was the crystal puzzle with the ray's of light that I found tricky to work out at first. Then there was another one involving crossing pieces to the other side of the water, you have to do it a certain way because of the different pieces and their meanings for them. There were one or two sequences in the game where you had to act quick incase of dieing or the death of someone your trying to save or protect.

The Sleeping Dragon brought a different kind of dark adventure to the click and move games, a kind of Broken Sword series far different from what has already been seen. Not just the improved graphics that makes this Broken Sword different from the rest, its story, concept and indepth mind of puzzling makes this also a true classic of a game. This one represented the next generation of gaming adventure, this one brought a bit of a different unique flavour and layout to the Broken Sword series and what has to be one of the most exciting adventures of its kind.

ThankYou For Taking The Time Readind My Review!

*JasonJRogers*