Circle of Blood

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.

The Good
The Shadow of the Templars is the first game in Revolution's Broken Sword adventure series, and like Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers before it, it delves into some history besides concentrating on what usually happens in the introduction. The player takes on the role of George Stobbart, an American tourist on vacation in Paris, who barely survives an explosion outside a Paris café when the killer walks in, takes a dude's suitcase and replaces it with an explosive, then walks back out. Now George has to find out the identity of the killer and track him down. He discovers that there is something much larger and more dangerous going on that stretches back as far as the Knights Templar. As the game progresses, he finds out (with the help of a French journalist) that the suitcase contains a manuscript once belonging to the Knights Templar. This leads them to various locations such as Ireland, Syria, Spain, and Scotland; and soon, they want to get down to the nitty-gritty of it all.

More often than not, you will spend most of the game interviewing people for information that will lead you to the next clue. I enjoyed interviewing people because I wanted to know what would happen later if I get the right information out of them. The script is well-thought out, and I felt that it is enhanced if you play the game with subtitles, which is what I do because I sometimes do not follow dialogue unless it appears on screen.

The interface in Templars is a bit unusual. It looked to me as if the game is presented in widescreen, but what made me think otherwise is the top and bottom bits are reserved for the inventory and interview topics, respectively. I like the way when you move the mouse to these areas, you get a smooth transition effect. The interface will still be around in the future BS games.

The hand-painted backgrounds are nice. The artists did well in determining what is in each location and make us experience what it is in real-life. For example, Ireland has pubs almost around each corner, and if you actually go there, you will see this. The buildings that I enjoyed looking were mostly in Paris. When I went to Paris four years ago, I remembered the buildings were basically in pink, yellow, and white; which is what the buildings in Templars look like. The individual cut-scenes are nice, and they trigger whatever major event is going to take place. During the game, you have to use the phone, but unlike other adventure games, you can actually see the person that you are talking to.

The music in the game is created by the London Symphony Orchestra, and it reflects well with what happens and what you are doing. In my opinion, some of the music is heard when you are in Syria. I did not know the difference between Indian and Arabian music. I thought that they were similar in style until I played this game. Other notable music include the Irish music in Lochmarne.

I read most reviews of this game here on MobyGames where the writers say that the game can't make up its mind whether it wants to be a comedy or a serious adventure. To me, this game is not humorous. Apart from what one of the lieutenants on the case says at the beginning of the game, not one conversation after that made me laugh.

The puzzles in Templars are simple, they probably take just a few minutes to complete. An example is the chess puzzle somewhere in the middle of the game, in which you only have to move the white chess pieces in the middle of the board and not the red pieces that surround it. If you place them in the correct order, something will happen. That is the only puzzle that I saw in the game, that is worth mentioning here.

I was impressed by the installation program. It is not one of those boring old installation programs where the desktop is still shown (like InstallShield), but it is based around the same color as the in-game control panel, which has shades of brown. The program has a nice transition effect where the options appear scrolling from the left or right. While files are being copied to your hard drive, you can play a Breakout game until the installation has been completed. What sets this game apart from other Breakout games is the fact that there is no lives or score, and the blocks reset when the paddle does not connect with the ball. There is a female voice to guide you through the installation as well.

The Bad
I didn't like how, during the game, you are required to do a bit of CD swapping, even though you are asked to CD-swap during the installation.

The Bottom Line
Templars is a brilliant adventure game from the dudes who brought you Beneath a Steel Sky. The hand-painted backgrounds are nice, and each building in them is modeled on real-life ones. The music suits the situation that you are in, the puzzles are not too hard, and the game comes with a superb installation program. Game number one is suitable for the whole family as there is no violence, sex, or bad language here. My sister would love to get her hands on this.

The Good
| Where's My Hat & Whip? |
Well, this isn't Indiana Jones game, but close enough. You've been assigned a role of George Stobbart, an american in Paris. Holiday, vacation, job, he doesn't give them much of a distinction, but when a bomb blew out the café bar he was spending a pleasant evening in (it was actually noon or morning, but sounds better for the review), he took that a bit personal. And ever since, he's bound to find the trouble. So, what would a normal fellow do? Perhaps thanking God he's still alive. But not our George, he picked up his remains and set off after the phantom (again, it was clown, but sounds more interesting this way, vbg). Due to game's further progress, you'll visit locales all around the world and will see how one may confuse George for Indy... he's restless, he'c charming, and he's always where the trouble is. Only he doesn't seem to be interested in the relics, though.

| Upper Cup of His Personality |
Well, I remember playing this game first as it got out. I had some semi-version of it without voice-acting (that was actually a good thing in this case scenario, but we'll come to that later), and after playing the game for some time I officially decided I don't like it not one bit. And the whole clown charade was waaaay out of my point of interest (can't really see what people see in circuses, I can't stand them, unless perhaps Guybrush is performing his cannonball act). However, as I got this game years later, it all started to change slowly, and I realised that George has one helluva personality... and we had some great things in common. For starters, we both really don't like clowns and mimes ;)) Well, as I started to like him, playing started to grow easier and by now it's one of the finest adventure game franchise I've came across (not the finest, but great nonetheless, at least this original is).

| Adventure Away! |
Good riddance smaller companies didn't all gave up on the adventure genre when LucasArts withdraw in his corner. By the time this game came out, I gotta admit that adventure games were scarce (or maybe I got so much used to see LucasArts adventures every year out that I felt like some link was missing) and as hardware became more powerful and soon after 3d graphic accelerator cards came out, the more real-time action was able to infiltrate our games. Still, somewhere behind, companies kept developing adventures, and this one was using it in style, using high color SVGA graphic (hm, actually, it's 8-bit color, but it looks much better) yet remaining on fully hand-drawn art, in a 2d point-and-click style using 3rd person perspective (my favorite genre even now). The graphic art is really beautiful (mark the word beautiful, I'm not referring to technical marvel, but something that is really sightfully pleasing) and everything, from background to sprite animation was great. Of course, it was nothing new, we got used to such quality with LucasArts, but they were no longer leading the genre so we had to look elsewhere for the results. Particularly neat touch are cartoonish animations every now and then (short but sweet), so it kinda adds a feeling like you're in some well done cartoon, and Scooby will pop-out anytime now.

The Bad
| And Revolution Software Created Woman |
Well, as much as this sounds great in theory, on the screen it was a big cast aside. Nico (probably Nicollete, lol), the reporter, the most annoying creature in the game. Yes, she is good looking, and yes it's nice to have a sidekick or someone to call at your side, but the voice-acting they used for her ruined 99% of this game. I don't mind the french accent, but... well, something's really weird about it to say the least. LucasArts never ever used bad voice-acting in any of their games, and they used several different accents to emphasize certain characters. It's not the quality of sound in this game, it's the voice itself. It's like she's mocking at you all the time, and with that bad attitude, I really wonder why George put up with her for so long. I mean, she's a reporter for Pete's sake, can it get any worse than that?

The Bottom Line
| The Sum of All Fears |
Nothing to fear from this game as long as you can turn your head the other way whenever Nico's doing all the talking. Aside from that, this game is a real adventure in a true sense of that word. You won't be fighting your way out like Indy does most of the times, but you'll be handshaking to Mr. Death on a regular basis. The story gets interesting, but in the end, it's not the final revelation that counts here, it's the journey itself. You get to visit many different places, meet interesting characters (and animals), and start to appreciate the effort put in this game altogether. And if interested enough, even better, the trilogy's out there as we speak.