EmP's Broken Sword: Director's Cut review

This is my least favorite thing for a game company to do: release an updated version of a game and make it worse in the process. What a goddamn travesty. It happened with Siberia DS in an even more aggravating way, but this still makes the cut as a terrible, terrible, tragedy.

Playing through Director's Cut (for a second time to pen my second review -- that was harsh enough) was disappointing. I'd hoped that the trip back to PC taking over a year would mean a lot of things have been fixed, but, frankly, despite the time taken, the game doesn't feel finished. The audio is off, scenes end prematurely and the game talks down to you, assuming you'll get stuck at every step and waiting for you with a hint book and a cup of marshmallow-filled hot chocolate.

You best still be getting the PSX version of this one, Zipp. I never forget a randomly-issued command!

I thought The Director's Cut was wonderful. The transition between old and new was jarring, but the new interface, hints systems, and additional content were all delightful in my eyes.

Growing apart, man.

I really did not like a lot of it. I can understand the need for a hint system, but making all the hot-spots visable and scaling back what you can use to about half was moronic. That they nuked a lot of what George says and does is an odd way for a Director's Cut to go, and, in doing so, the entire balance is thrown off. Every time that balance tries to make a comeback due to what's probably the tightest writing in an adventure game, the stupid comsmetic issues like dialouge read in different volumes of a cut scene fizzing out slap you in the face instead.

It's nothing more than Broken Sword on easy setting with extra content held back for the real setting.

A couple of things in the last paragraph.

One that made a blossoming relationship, once subtle and human, instead forceful instead...

I’ve not been invited back to compile...

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I always thought that director's cuts were supposed to be "the way the director envisioned the game". If that is what the director wanted then they seemed to have done a bad job of it or did they? You don't suppose thet original design was supposed to be that way and the only way they could get that done was to insert things and thus botch up the game?

Heh. Nice review. I was wondering how you'd compare this one to the old. I mean, I already knew you weren't as happy with it, but I was wondering how exactly you were going to put that into words, especially after already having reviewed this game effectively twice. To that end, I think you did it well here, and though I've never played a Broken Sword before, I know now what to expect from this one and not to let it deceive me.

Also, I didn't know you'd written a top-ten list however many years ago. Hahaha. That's kind of neat, and also a bit amusing, considering your thoughts on them.

You did a considerably good job on your proofing. I didn't find that much wrong here.

EDIT: Curses, CD: I caught those! hahaha. =P I'm going to leave the instead/instead edit in because I think he should take out the first one, not the second, though.

Thanks for those catches, the pair of you.

I can kind of see what they wanted to do with this cut: I think they felt a lot of what they cut was 'fluff' that took away from the main thrust of the story, which was the Templar mystery. I can appreciate the effort, but I can also reserve the right to point and make sour faces when they screw it all up majestically.

..oh, good. I thought "lounging" was some sort of perfectly ordinary American activity I didn't know about :p

Good review. So same old, I guess - the game makers mistake simplicity and straightforward explanations for good overview and involving story-telling. To the point where they actually have to change some of the scenes and the build-up..

I mean, that's something I still remember - the parts in the game where you actually could die if you did something stupid. The hotel scene, the Baphomet idols, the hospital..

Yikes, sounds like they messed this version up rather badly. I hear you on the dissonance between the way George's original chapter's play out and how Nicole's new ones apparently do - the latter reminding me a lot more of Broken Sword 3 than of the original - and cutting George's dialogue is murder. That's what made the whole game awesome, especially since for all his smugness he's frequently outwitted by, well, everybody else.

Don't hate me EmP... I'm playing the Iphone version. Which is the director's cut. I do really like it thus far, anyway. I'm planning on reviewing it from the perspective of someone who never played the original.

Then I'll hunt down the PSX version.

I will admit that the handholding is already annoying. Why have such beautifully drawn environments if you are going to take away my ability to slowly explore them? It's like the game is trying to speed me along... "Okay, gamer, we've got a schedule to keep here. There's 150 rooms in this game and I want you to spend no more than a minute on each room. Click on everything blue, go go go go!"

Like already there are some items I would have overlooked had not the game put a big neon sign on them saying LOOK DOWN HERE YOU PRICK! And that's a shame becuase about the only gameplay in an adventure game is going back to look over an environment in which you may have forgotten something. As it is, it reminds me a little bit more of one of those children's Winnie-the-Pooh interactive CDroms.

Except it's got templars.

Trust you to side with Lewis. If he was still around, he'd gloating like crazy right now.

If you jump from this to the PSX version, you'll notice a lot of changes. The PSX version has some crazy load times, so be wary of that, but it eliminates all the handholding, isn;t afraid to kill you if you do something really stupid and adds hours and hours of dialouge the DC version cut for no reason other than because.

Still really sore, even now, how bad this re-release was handled.