Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror

Overview

Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror is the sequel to the classic adventure game Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars. It was developed by adventure game developers Revolution Software and continued to tell the tale of George and Nico's adventures. The point and click adventure was first released for PC on October the 31st and was later ported to Sony's PlayStation console and also found an home on Palm OS. The games style and general feel didn't change a great deal from the original, though that wasn't a bad thing after the success of The Shadow of the Templars. The game was directed by Charles Cecil and also featured a classical score by Barrington Pheloung. The Smoking Mirror also included a specially made song by Ben Sakar called ''Happiness is an inside Job",' which was played with the end credits. Many of the familiar characters voice actors returned from Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars, most notable was Rolf Saxon who was the voice of the games main character George Stobbart. Interestingly though, the voice of Nicole Collard (George's co-adventurer and love interest) was voiced by a brand new female voice actor.

Story

The Smoking Mirror opens with George and Nico visiting a Professor's house, George as been away from France because of the death of his grandfather. George and Nico's relationship has hit hard times since George left to go back home. Now at the professor's house, not all is as it seems and Nico gets kidnapped, leaving George in a burning house and a venomous spider crawling towards George. After finally sorting out the spider, and escaping the burning house, George must go on a journey to both find Nico and the truth. It's an adventure that (like the original) takes George around the world from the Caribbean to Quaramonte and even to Zombie Island. He meets many strange and wonderful characters along the way, including some familiar faces from The Shadow of the Templars.

Locations

Like the original, The Smoking Mirror takes George and Nico around the world to many wonderfully captured artistic locations including:

Paris

George visits Paris for the second time, its as beautiful as he remembers and meets up with his old friend and flame Nicole Collard. He also requires the help of other familiar faces who George doesn't particularly get on with, such as Andre Lobineau. He visits a number of locations around Paris, including Montfaucon Square and Nico's Apartment which were familiar to fans of the original. His time in Paris also leads him to travel further around France to Marseille in search for both Nico and the truth.

Marseille

George visits the less attractive part of the famous French City, to the docks to be precise. He is lead there after visiting an art gallery and finds out where he must head next. At the docks, he finds a captive Nico and has a run in with Pablo, a tall violent individual. But thankfully, George and Nico escape.

Quaramonte

George and Nico visit a small village in the country of Quaramonte where they meet all kinds of odd folk, including two old friends in Duane and Pearl Henderson. Nico is forced to keep the attentions of the less-than-intelligent General of the Police Station-cum-tourist office while George helps the Hendersons and ends up breaking someone out of jail. All this law breaking and attention grabbing leads George and Nico to be hunted down while on a boat travelling down a river. The Boat is ripped apart by an explosion.

Jungle

After barely escaping with his life, George is swept onto a shore of a strange Jungle. It's here that George finds shelter in an old priest's tree house. The priest is tending to a very sick Nico. She has been bitten by a poisonous snake and George is tasked with retrieving the cure from a shaman at a nearby village. The shaman tells George that he must find some stones that will aid in averting a global disaster.

Caribbean

George is soon led to negotiating the future of an old Captain's Museum. In Captain Ketch's Museum he meets a young girl called Emily Ketch who is a descendant of the once great Captain. But she is hinted at actually being a ghost. He goes here in search of some Ancient Mayan Stones.

Zombie Island

George continues his search for the Mayan Stones, he is eventually lead to Zombie Island. It's here that George stumbles onto a movie set and amusingly ends up being part of the film itself.

London

Nico visits London, England and makes her way to the British Museum which then leads the French Reporter to an Underground Subway Station. Interestingly, it's in the Underground Train Station that a number of special appearance are made. It is possible to see the ghost of Khan (one of the main characters from The Shadow of the Templars) and there is also a brief scene from Beneath a Steel Sky (one of Revolution Software's earlier games).

Pyramids

Both George and Nico eventually reach the Pyramids, where are said to be the home of the Imprisoned God Tezcatlipoca. It's here where the games final moments take place. The two adventurers try to entrap the monster but face a tough time as the drug ring do their best to stop them in their tracks.

Reception

Though to many Broken Sword fans, The Smoking Mirror wasn't as good as the original. It still found a fond place in the adventure genre. Though reviews were less impressive as expected, it still offered the Broken Sword experience and humour that made the original such a widely played hit. Many of the fans put the game's less then impressive scores down to the lack of forward thinking and not as impressive story on offer compared to the original. But most fans will still tell you its one of the best Broken Sword games, offering a style of point-and-click which was all the rage in the 90s on PC and some ported consoles. It is also worth mentioning that The Smoking Mirror was the last Broken Sword game to date which was in 2D, as the series entered the 3D realm in Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon. This is still heavily debated over, with many feeling the franchise's charm was lost when things went into 3D. Despite all this, compared to many other adventure point-and-click games out there, The Smoking Mirror saw solid success and much like its prequel, is still played today by its fans.

Remastered Edition

Broken Sword II - The Smoking Mirror: Remastered was released on 16th December 2010 for iOS devices. It was later released in early 2011 on Mac and PC. Some of the Remastered edition's features include: a digital comic by Dave Gibbons, enhanced graphics, fully animated facial expressions, and high quality music. Other new features include Dropbox enabled cross-platform saving and achievements.