Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror

Broken sword 2 is an excellent point and click game but it is not as good as the original game, the main problem with this game is that it is not long enough. The thing i thought was great about it was that you could control another character, i would recommend playing the original before playing this.

I would give this game 7/10

George Stobbart returns in Broken Sword 2, after beating all the bad guys in Broken Sword 1. George`s girlfriend Nico receives an old stone by mail, and the couple travel to professor Ovier`s house. However, George is knocked unconscious and Nico is hit by an arrow containing poison. When George wakes up, he is trapped in the burning house, a poisonous spider is heading his way, and Nico is gone.(!) After escaping the house, George sets out to find his girlfriend, but as in BS1, he accidently enters a dangerous world of mystery and death. BS1 had a proud and excellent story about the Knight Templars, now it is about drug traffic and 3 secret stones. The story in BS2 is not as got or gripping as in the first game, but is nevertheless interesting. The graphics are sharper and clearer than in BS1, so it is now easier to spot where you are going to execute the famous puzzles of the series. The locations are beautifully drawn and very detailed, and the music follows in the steps of the game`s older brother. Check out BS1 first, then if you like that, come back to BS2 for more. Good game! 9/10

While BS2 is a pretty good adventure game on its own merits, in comparison with the classic original it suffers badly. The puzzles are less well balanced, either being absurdly easy or frustratingly obscure. It is much more linear (you don't get any sense of exploring a city, as you did with Paris in the BS1), and the story is much weaker. My heart sank at the moment when I heard that George's quest was to "recover the 3 magic stones and bring them together at some-place-or-other"... hardly a classic plot. On the other hand, it looks good, and this time round you get to play Nico!

The Smoking Mirror continues the exciting adventures of George and Nico this time pitting them against the Aztec Death-God Tezcatlipoca. Broken Sword has almost a movie-quality to it, being notably more linear than its predecessor, but the story is still quite interesting none the less.

The game unfortunately is not very challenging and the puzzles are incredibly simple for an adventure game. The game over-all seems to suffer from a lack of polish (which is an unfortunate trait seen throughout the series). Though the opening still manages to capture the dark essence of the first game, the latter half is a miss mash of elements that don't deliver quite evenly.

Broken Sword 2 also has a very unbalanced graphic output, but over-all a better soundtrack than its predecessor as well as classically lovable characters. Not the best, but neither the worst game in the series.