Circle of Blood
Description official descriptions
George Stobbart is an American tourist spending his autumn vacation in Paris. He barely escapes a bombing of a café and decides to investigate the clues left behind by the killer. This eventually leads him to a mystery dating back to the legend of the Knights Templar.
Circle of Blood is the first part in the Broken Sword series. It is a third-person puzzle-solving point-and-click adventure game with 2D cartoon-like graphics. The player moves the character around using the mouse, examines the environment, talks to other people and collects items stored in an inventory. These items need to be used or combined with other items to solve puzzles. George gets help from Nicole Collard, a French journalist. The story is divided into eleven chapters and takes place in locations such as Paris, Ireland, Syria, and others.
Spellings
- Сломанный Меч: Тень Тамплиеров - Russian spelling
- 断剑:圣殿骑士的阴影 - Simplified Chinese spelling
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Credits (DOS version)
115 People (112 developers, 3 thanks) · View all
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Reviews
Critics
Average score: 84% (based on 74 ratings)
Players
Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 337 ratings with 13 reviews)
The great game that might have been.
The Good
Voice actors do a good job with variety of accents, and the rest of the sound and music is also well done. The "An American Tale"-style graphic animation is a delightful respite from the legions of Myst-alikes that shared shelf space with this one when released. Although not up to Sierra/LucasArts standards, the plot and script are entertaining enough that you'll probably want to play this through to the end.
Looking back at it from the post-Da Vinci Code era, the first installment in this adventure series seems especially prescient. The whole Templers conspiracy plot, along with the quasi-romantic link between an American man and a French female, lays the template for the Code phenomenon—so much so that a part of me strongly suspects Dan Brown of plagiarizing this game!
The Bad
There is WAY too much pixel-hunting -- you might know what to do but still fail to do it because you have to put your mouse pointer in just the right (extremely small) place.
Some puzzles are not very logical. It's also possible to visit a location and get "stuck" there due to some of the disc-swapping that occurs when you travel abroad.
Finally, some attempts at humor fall flat on an American audience, and some actually render the game inappropriate for a young person. Sexual innuendo and anti-religious sentiments reflect this game's European origins.
The Bottom Line
A pleasant diversion that coulda-shoulda-woulda been a classic.
Windows · by PCGamer77 (3157) · 2007
One of the last true adventures of the 90s
The Good
When i played the Broken Sword demo (Circle of Blood in america) i felt that this game had something in special... Some time passed and i made of my own a copy of that game, joining George Stobbart in his adventures was a great pleasure, really great animations with an adult-cartoon feel, great atmospheric music and tons of ironic humor by our 'american hero' Stobbart.
We will travel to a lot of locations (something i always liked in a game) and meet some charismatic characters, some of them will help you and some of them are just waiting for the moment to bring you down, very neat in overall.
The Bad
I really felt annoyed by the bloody disc swapping system, when you had to travel from a location to another one that 'insert disc' screen showed up, maybe having divided the game in two parts (CD1 and CD2) would have been more comfortable.
There is a little inconvenient i found, maybe there is too much content in the dialogues and that can become boring in some situations.
The Bottom Line
If you like games like Gabriel Knight or other mystery/investigation games you should try Broken Sword, a masterpiece.
Windows · by Depth Lord (932) · 2004
The Good
This game sports one of the best stories I've ever encountered in a point and click adventure along with very nice graphics, better than average voice acting and a tremendously marvelous soundtrack!
The Puzzles range from very easy to quite hard but for the most part they are all logical!!! note to developers work more on logical and story and less on how badly you can frustrate someone with nonsensical puzzles, aka bury the fish by the palm tree in the desert to get the door to the temple open, I really should quit giving them ideas ;)
If you haven't played it then go out and buy it at any cost!!!! I've played this game three times since it's release and never get tired of the thrill it brings me!
The Bad
What's not to like?
The Bottom Line
An absolute wonderful romp around the world and a mystery that will draw you in so deep you'll be dreaming about it!
Windows · by Sylven (4) · 2002
Trivia
1001 Video Games
Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Animation
The game's animations and artwork were done by former animators and artists from Bluth Studios, makers of The Secret of NIMH, An American Tale, The Land Before Time, and the Dragon's Lair and Space Ace interactive arcade laser games.
Engine
The Game Boy Advance version does not use the Virtual Theatre game engine.
Extras
Some versions of the game came with the Knights Templar book Savage Warrior written by Steve Jackson.
Installation
The DOS/Windows installation program instead of showing a progress bar during the copying phase runs a Breakout variant. The paddle is controlled with the mouse.
Music
The game contains over two hours of original music from Britain’s composer Barrington Pheloung, also known for his TV theme music on Central Independent Television’s renowned Inspector Morse detective series starring John Thaw and Kevin Whately.
Awards
- EGM
- 1999 Buyer's Guide - Best Voice Work (Runner-up)
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Related Sites +
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Broken Sword 1 Hints
Helpful hints for solving Circle of Blood, the North American release of Broken Sword1 -
Circle of Blood - FAQs & Guides
Multiple walkthroughs and faq files (in various languages) on GameFaqs.com -
ScummVM
Get "Broken Sword I", as well as many other adventure games, to run on modern systems by using ScummVM, a legal and free program. -
Walkthrough for Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars
Full solution for Circle of Blood/Shadow of the Templars posted on Revolution's web site.
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Ummagumma.
Game Boy Advance added by Kartanym. Windows Mobile added by Sciere. Palm OS added by Kabushi. Macintosh added by Scaryfun. PlayStation added by Grant McLellan. DOS added by MAT.
Additional contributors: Trixter, robotriot, Shane k, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Apogee IV, anneso, Kohler 86, Alaka, Ghost Pirate, CaesarZX, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.
Game added November 30, 1999. Last modified September 19, 2024.