Circle of Blood

aka: BS1, Baphomets Fluch, Broken Sword: Il Segreto dei Templari, Broken Sword: La leyenda de los Templarios, Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars, Les Chevaliers de Baphomet, Slomannyj Mech: Ten' Tamplierov
Moby ID: 499
Windows Specs
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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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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 83% (based on 71 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 334 ratings with 13 reviews)

I didnt want the story to end. Its like Indiana Jones in cartoon.

The Good
I thought the graphics were REALLY well done. Its all cartoon animated , no pixelated images at all.

The story really got me in. Its not a serious game , but the plot is interesting all the same.

The controls were fairly easy , you really have no trouble with them at all.

The game mixes humour in just enough to make it uplifting , but not too much as to wreck the serious aspects of the game. (Im not sure if you know what i mean by that)

The game is a long and challenging one, you travel all around europe in your searches.In fact , one of the longest (and most enjoyable) i have played.

The Bad
The LAME ending. It spoiled it totally.

The cd changing was slightly annoying.

Thats about it.



The Bottom Line
You dont want to see it end.

Windows · by Shayne Bates (12) · 2001

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 (3158) · 2007

An extremely well-executed adventure for the Game Boy Advance.

The Good
I was surprised when I first heard that an adventure series, previously released for the PC and Playstation, was going to be ported to the Game Boy Advance. Having never had the opportunity to play this game, and being quite a fan of adventure games, I sought out this game for the Game Boy Advance. Suffice to say, this game is one of my most pleasant buys I've made so far for the little handheld console.

The game itself starts out in Paris, where George Stobbart is quietly enjoying his vacation. In the beginning, the peaceful life takes a turn for the worse when the restaurant where Stobbart is relaxing is suddenly blown up, and a single man dies in the incident. For various reasons, George feels that he has to solve the mystery. Little does he know that this little adventure will soon turn out to be a world-wide quest of epic proportions...

I am very surprised how well an adventure game works for the GBA. Broken Sword originally used a point-and-click system, but the developers chose to implent a different system for the GBA release. It reminds me pretty much of playing style found in Grim Fandango... The player controls George movement with the D-Pad, essentially making George the 'cursor' in the game. Whenever the player comes near a usable object, a small icon pops near the object in question, usually signifying what one can do with the object(ie. a pointing hand shows that George can walk towards a new room, whilst magnifying glass signifies that George can take a closer look at the object). The player interacts with objects using the A Button, whilst he can use the B Button to look at an object. The L-Pad brings up the inventory, in which the player can use an object or merge two objects together. The R-Pad brings up a nifty feature that will reveal all the hotspots within a room. Whilst this option makes the game less difficult, it also prevent the game from turning into a 'find-the-hotspot/pixel' game.

The graphics have been extremely well ported from the PC/PS versions to the GBA version. Every room is displayed with crisp detail, and characters only become somewhat pixelated when they come very close to the screen. All icons found in the game define very well what they're represent.

The sound effects and music are well represented. The music ranges from average to very good. The sound effects are somewhat average, they don't really stand out. Naturally, the GBA version does not have any speech, unlike its PC and PS version.

And of course, now I come to one of the (if not, the) most important part of an adventure game : the story. Suffice to say, Broken Sword delivers. Actually, Broken Sword delivers EXTREMELY well. The mystery starts out good, with a mysterious clown blowing up a restaurant. Once the smoke clears, you can start digging up several clues, and meet a fascinating French reporter who can aid in solving the murder. However, once the player starts digging further into the mystery, and searching for the identity of the murderer, everything gets turned upside down. Once you think that you have figured someone/something out, a new clue is revealed that invalidates your theories, and your mind immediately start to absorb all the information, and new questions arise... the story will surely hold you from the explosive start to the surprising ending.

Of course, an adventure game can't be an adventure game without its puzzles. Just like the story, Broken Sword delivers with its puzzles. They are often laid out in a logical fashion, but won't pose too much of a problem for the average adventurer. The difficulty is just right. You might be stuck for a long time in a certain scene, and just when you're about to get frustrated, you suddenly notice that one clue that you missed, and immediatley solve the puzzle and move on. Then, you might get stuck again, but once more before getting frustrated, the puzzle is solved. One puzzle I sincerely enjoyed was the mystery that a certain manuscript contains. I studied it whenever I could, and it's just so fulfilling to travel to a different location and suddenly recognize something from the manuscript that will help you solve the problem.

The Bad
Unfortunatley, Broken Sword has one thing that has plaqued many a game before : Bugs. There is a bug that will leave the player stuck in a situation from where he can't continue. If you have saved past this point, you'll have to completely restart the game... Apparently, if you travel to Spain before visiting Syria, you will encounter this bug. Luckily, I had been warned of this bug beforehand and didn't walk into the death-trap myself. This happens pretty far in the game and it could be annoying to start all over. Also, on a few rare occasions, George managed to get stuck in a location, and he couldn't move at all... saving often is recommended.

I've heard from several reviews that Broken Sword is pretty hilarious on the PC and PS version. Although several sarcastic comments from George made me smile from time to time, I didn't find anything that truly made me laugh out loud(a feat not too hard to accomplish). Mayhaps most of the jokes were cut from the GBA version, or the delivery of the voice actors manage to bring out a joke, but I didn't find anything outstanding..

Also, the game is somewhat short... I managed to complete the game in about three days. Of course, I also played this game as often as I could.

The Bottom Line
In the end, playing Broken Sword feels like reading a good book. The mystery manages to keep itself mysterious throughout the story, every character manage to possess a characteristic of its own, and plot twists often come at the right moment. Once you've finished the game, you might put it away, but you'll dig it up pretty soon to go through it again to see which plot points you missed, or just to be completely entertained by its enthralling story.

Game Boy Advance · by Ruben van der Leun (13) · 2002

[ View all 13 player reviews ]

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.

Information also contributed by Garcia, Rola and Sciere

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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, Sciere, Kohler 86, Ghost Pirate, CaesarZX, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added November 30, 1999. Last modified March 19, 2024.