(3 / 4)
Also on: Gameboy Advance, Macintosh, Palm OS, Playstation, Windows, Windows Mobile
THE GOAT WHO STARES AT MEN
"Paris in the fall, the last months of the year and the end of the millennium. The city holds many memories for me; of cafés, of music, of love... and of death."
The opening lines of Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars, uttered against a black screen, are as good as they come. Before even displaying anything, the game suggests an upcoming grand, romantic and sophisticated adventure. This sets the stage and a season as seen through someone's lens of nostalgia. The opening credits start rolling to a panoramic view of Paris, and the superb soundtrack, composed by Barrington Pheloung (best known for his iconic Inspector Morse TV-series theme), only strengthens these notions.
Before this playthrough, I'd already completed Shadow of the Templars a handful of times, so I knew that it fails to fully live up to said expectations. But the opening nevertheless instils a goodwill in me each time, carrying me through endless backtrackings, lines of expository dialogue and half-hearted jokes. Who said that first impressions don't matter?
BACKSEAT DETECTIVE MYSTERY
The point-and-click adventure Shadow of the Templars was released in 1996, in the twilight of the genre's heyday. By then the graphical user interface had been refined. Here it consists only of a pop-up inventory and conversation topics shown during dialogue. The two mouse buttons cover all actions, the function of the left button adapting to the position of the mouse cursor, and the right one reserved to looking at things.
Through such simplifications, creators Revolution Software took the opportunity to design their adventure as a sort of archeological detective mystery. Think along the lines of The Da Vinci Code and you're not far off. Forget the genre's typical focus on inventory and command puzzles. Instead you're supposed to carry out historical research by conducting interviews and inspecting the surroundings. This is why, although having played it numerous times, I managed to once again get a little stuck.
When compared to a game like The Secret of Monkey Island, which I could solve in my sleep, the puzzles simply aren't that memorable. They mostly boil down to the same basic solutions - talking and examining. It feels more like hard detective groundwork than a challenge to your deductive skills, since you don't have to perform a lot of unique actions and item combinations.
Are you getting stuck? Have you talked to everyone and still not made progress? Well, try examining everything and everyone, then talk to everyone again - you might have opened up new key conversation topics. This is not inherently a weakness, but it is a different approach to the adventure game as a whole. Once all puzzle pieces are in place, the player characters makes most of the deductions themselves.
This allows the player to take even more of a backseat approach to gameplay and better soak up story details and atmosphere. This design philosophy can be derived back to such genre classics as the murder mystery Cruise for a Corpse (1991), a game I have yet to play. If you prefer classic inventory puzzles, don't fret. There are a few of those as well, they're just not very challenging.
That's when the bomb concealed inside the accordion detonates, instantly killing the old man and shattering the interior. The waitress is unharmed but understandably shocked. George is dazed but unhurt, thanks to an umbrella by his table that shielded him from the blast. He rises to his feet.
This is where you take command, guiding George through an adventure with connections to the age-old feud between the Knight's Templars and the Assassins. He teams up with his newfound friend, a cute french journalist named Nicole Collard (Hazel Ellerby). They are a lovely pair, and clearly grow fond of each other over the course of the game. Together they travel the globe (or rather: George travels while Nico does research from home), chasing the trail of an assassin with a thousand faces.
It is a grim opening indeed, but the dark tone is offset by the gorgeous, sunny backdrops as well as the lighthearted character design and writing. Describing the opening makes it sound like you're in a Tom Clancy novel when the truth is much closer to, say, a Tintin comic. I don't mind it at all. It is quite a pleasant, laid-back adventure spearheaded by intelligent characters, whose sardonic remarks sometimes make me smile, sometimes cringe. The game is mostly well-written, but not entirely so with certain characters being almost offensively stereotypical, and our heroes seemingly unperturbed in the face of certain death.
Character animation is a bit bland, and in close-ups I find the design simplistic to a fault. Sometimes, I could swear they are drawn by different artists who haven't yet decided on a uniform look.
What's worse, though, is that I keep struggling with the game's pathological need for George to inspect everything. Say, for instance, that you see a shifty fellow in a street corner flipping a coin. You examine him, and the game confirms that he seems shifty. You proceed down the street. Soon, you reach a situation where you realise you need a coin. You remember the shifty looking fellow, run back to him and try asking for the coin. But you don't get the dialogue option to do so, no matter how many times you try. And no one in the vicinity will help, either.
What to do? Well, it turns out the game needs you to examine him again. Knowing what you seek, this time George has a new description, something along the line of: "Yup. It was the same guy, looking as shifty as ever. Suddenly, I realised that he was flipping a coin - of the very same value the coin collector was asking for!" After which you're able to weasel the guy out of his flippin' coin by just talking to the dude.
This is not a real example from the game, but it illustrates one of the major flaws of its puzzle design. It's not enough for you to see the coin, even though it's there in plain view. George has to catch on as well. You might have examined everything, but once might not be enough, even though nothing's changed since the first time. This failure to communicate progress is the game's major fault, and I hate to say it's one that keeps marring the series as a whole.
I'd also be remiss not to mention the infamous goat puzzle. I've seen it listed as one of the worst and hardest adventure game puzzles of all time. It was so bad that it got entirely removed from the 2009 release Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Director's Cut.
Once you come across a goat in the game, you might as well look up the solution online, because figuring it out on your own is downright impossible. I won't spoil it, but will mention that solving it relies on a game mechanic you didn't even know existed. It never gets introduced, and isn't repeated past this puzzle. You might get lucky -- as I did on my first playthrough after being stuck for several days -- or else you might not get past it at all.
In this day and age, it might fall a little flat as a game heavily reliant on story. What once seemed mature, now comes across as rather sweet and innocent. These qualities are not worse, but different, and while I once held Shadow of the Templars aloft as a favorite game, I can't honestly say that I do anymore. There's not much depth to the experience; not much to glean other than a brief history lesson and a good time. The years have been unkind to the entire genre, and Shadow of the Templars is no exception.
I'm not ashamed to say, however, that it holds a special place in my heart. Any point-and-click aficionado should give it a go.
When compared to a game like The Secret of Monkey Island, which I could solve in my sleep, the puzzles simply aren't that memorable. They mostly boil down to the same basic solutions - talking and examining. It feels more like hard detective groundwork than a challenge to your deductive skills, since you don't have to perform a lot of unique actions and item combinations.
Are you getting stuck? Have you talked to everyone and still not made progress? Well, try examining everything and everyone, then talk to everyone again - you might have opened up new key conversation topics. This is not inherently a weakness, but it is a different approach to the adventure game as a whole. Once all puzzle pieces are in place, the player characters makes most of the deductions themselves.
This allows the player to take even more of a backseat approach to gameplay and better soak up story details and atmosphere. This design philosophy can be derived back to such genre classics as the murder mystery Cruise for a Corpse (1991), a game I have yet to play. If you prefer classic inventory puzzles, don't fret. There are a few of those as well, they're just not very challenging.
A MURDER MYSTERY EMERGES
The story begins with our protagonist, american tourist George Stobbart (voiced by veteran actor Rolf Saxon), basking in the autumn sun outside a Parisian café. A polite old man walks by and steps inside the café, interrupting George's flirting with the waitress and souring his mood a little. Shortly afterwards, a clown arrives playing a sinister tune on his accordion before also entering the café. He grabs the old man's briefcase, replaces it with the accordion and rushes out the door and towards an alleyway.That's when the bomb concealed inside the accordion detonates, instantly killing the old man and shattering the interior. The waitress is unharmed but understandably shocked. George is dazed but unhurt, thanks to an umbrella by his table that shielded him from the blast. He rises to his feet.
This is where you take command, guiding George through an adventure with connections to the age-old feud between the Knight's Templars and the Assassins. He teams up with his newfound friend, a cute french journalist named Nicole Collard (Hazel Ellerby). They are a lovely pair, and clearly grow fond of each other over the course of the game. Together they travel the globe (or rather: George travels while Nico does research from home), chasing the trail of an assassin with a thousand faces.
It is a grim opening indeed, but the dark tone is offset by the gorgeous, sunny backdrops as well as the lighthearted character design and writing. Describing the opening makes it sound like you're in a Tom Clancy novel when the truth is much closer to, say, a Tintin comic. I don't mind it at all. It is quite a pleasant, laid-back adventure spearheaded by intelligent characters, whose sardonic remarks sometimes make me smile, sometimes cringe. The game is mostly well-written, but not entirely so with certain characters being almost offensively stereotypical, and our heroes seemingly unperturbed in the face of certain death.
TECHNICAL AND DESIGN ISSUES
Spoken dialogue was still relatively fresh in 1996, which might explain some hiccups in both voice acting and audio mixing quality. It doesn't become a full blown detriment until we reach a certain out-of-game-engine cutscene, where Nicole Collard narrates an overview of the templar knights' history. Here the music is mixed so loud it totally drowns out all her dialogue. With no subtitles available, I still to this day don't know what she says. But overall, the acting is solid.Character animation is a bit bland, and in close-ups I find the design simplistic to a fault. Sometimes, I could swear they are drawn by different artists who haven't yet decided on a uniform look.
What's worse, though, is that I keep struggling with the game's pathological need for George to inspect everything. Say, for instance, that you see a shifty fellow in a street corner flipping a coin. You examine him, and the game confirms that he seems shifty. You proceed down the street. Soon, you reach a situation where you realise you need a coin. You remember the shifty looking fellow, run back to him and try asking for the coin. But you don't get the dialogue option to do so, no matter how many times you try. And no one in the vicinity will help, either.
What to do? Well, it turns out the game needs you to examine him again. Knowing what you seek, this time George has a new description, something along the line of: "Yup. It was the same guy, looking as shifty as ever. Suddenly, I realised that he was flipping a coin - of the very same value the coin collector was asking for!" After which you're able to weasel the guy out of his flippin' coin by just talking to the dude.
This is not a real example from the game, but it illustrates one of the major flaws of its puzzle design. It's not enough for you to see the coin, even though it's there in plain view. George has to catch on as well. You might have examined everything, but once might not be enough, even though nothing's changed since the first time. This failure to communicate progress is the game's major fault, and I hate to say it's one that keeps marring the series as a whole.
I'd also be remiss not to mention the infamous goat puzzle. I've seen it listed as one of the worst and hardest adventure game puzzles of all time. It was so bad that it got entirely removed from the 2009 release Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Director's Cut.
Once you come across a goat in the game, you might as well look up the solution online, because figuring it out on your own is downright impossible. I won't spoil it, but will mention that solving it relies on a game mechanic you didn't even know existed. It never gets introduced, and isn't repeated past this puzzle. You might get lucky -- as I did on my first playthrough after being stuck for several days -- or else you might not get past it at all.
SWEET AND INNOCENT
Those are my complaints. Don't let them discourage you. Of the opening cinematic's early promises of grandeur, romanticism and sophistication, we get a little of each, which was more than almost any other game back in 1996. After a slew of hectic games, few games can ease you down to a mellow state of mind like a good point-and-click adventure. A playthrough of Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars is a very lightweight, relaxing way to experience that.In this day and age, it might fall a little flat as a game heavily reliant on story. What once seemed mature, now comes across as rather sweet and innocent. These qualities are not worse, but different, and while I once held Shadow of the Templars aloft as a favorite game, I can't honestly say that I do anymore. There's not much depth to the experience; not much to glean other than a brief history lesson and a good time. The years have been unkind to the entire genre, and Shadow of the Templars is no exception.
I'm not ashamed to say, however, that it holds a special place in my heart. Any point-and-click aficionado should give it a go.
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