Reader reviews for Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror page 5

No, it’s not as good as the first. But it’s still a great game. Some puzzles are not very well designed (why give me a silly item like panties that has one use at the first of the game, but doesn’t do anything other than amuse some people by showing it? I expected it to be like the hand zapper from the first. A lot of build up for a good payoff), but some of them are genius. The voice acting is great, the graphics are beautiful, and the adventure keeps your interest the entire time. I thought a lot of the dialogue was really funny, with more hits than misses.

As with many adventures, it ends abruptly, and basically gives you the equivalent of a “You won!” screen. But I enjoyed playing it, and I would recommend it to people who liked the first one.

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Time Played: 10-20 hours

A somewhat dissapointing sequel to one of the most classical and epic adventuregames.
The graphics are slightly improved compared to the 1st game and the character shifting is a nice addition to the gameplay.

The story however is much weaker, the characters uninspiring and the puzzles often uninvolving or simply unrelated to the main story.

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Time Played: Under 1 hour

I enjoyed this more than Broken Sword 1—and I realise I’ll probably be in the minority on that point, cos every other review I’ve read about this game prefers the original.

It feels exactly the same. the same gaming engine, same quality and style of graphics & cutscenes, same voice acting, same style of story and same tone to the writing. Just a new adventure for George and Nico.

I can’t quite remember if you ever get to play as Nico in BS1, but in BS2 you play her half the time and George the other half. And I thought this was a big improvement to the whole undertaking. I found that it kept the pace moving along nicely.

The adventure was structured a little differently. This time it was a bit more linear. So instead of having so many places to go and explore at once, more often it was like having a small scene that you complete and then move onto the next one. I preferred this pacing.

What this game did extremely well was getting puzzle difficulty just right! I had to try a few things at times and exercise my brain, but it was never so hard that i got frustrated and had to consult a walk-thru. also the puzzles themselves were logical enough and never too bizarre or obscure, which is a trap i feel many adventure games fall into.

Although BS2 used the same past-tense grammatical style and had the same voice-actors as BS1 (both of which i found extremely annoying in BS1) for some reason they didn’t bother me this time around. Maybe I just got used to it or maybe my experience of this game was coloured by the fact that the game i played just before it (Dead Reefs) was so horrible, that I greatly enjoyed returning to a familiar environment and interface.

The inventory system works well and i like the little animated method employed when your mouse drops down to reveal the inventory bar. music was fine without being a standout. the story was made of commonly used adventure constructs—not very original, but still a light-hearted and fun experience.

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Time Played: 10-20 hours