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A few years back I recorded a blind Let's Play of this game, and got hours of torture on tape. It caught me losing my temper several times. On one occasion, I even audibly pounded my desk. I hated the experience so much, I decided to retaliate by making every video thumbnail display a character blinking. Like those failed photographs where you blink and look like a dimwit, I wanted to make the game look dimwitted.
When I reached the Topkapi palace in Istanbul, I tried to catch the palace guard blinking, but I couldn't get it quite right. Although he'd shut his eyes, he kept staring back at me through the freeze-frame. I soon realized, the graphic designer had mistakingly papered textures of eyes on the character model's eyelids. It was as if they had seen my footage and patched in a lame countermeasure. I promptly chose another victim, and cursed the game for even denying me some fun at its expense.
Returning to Broken Sword: The Angel of Death - George and Nico's fourth historical adventure - reminds me why I consider it the worst game I've finished. It is like revisiting the scene of some traumatic event from the past. Every part of every location is a wreck. Although you know exactly what to do, you might get stuck for ages trying to figure out the correct input to make it happen. In the end, you feel a lot older and dumber than you deserve.
Secondly, you lack all camera control. It constantly pans, zooms, tilts and shifts angles on its own accord. This is made worse by the location design. Games of this genre used to come with a gentlemen's agreement: The designer always places all important objects clearly visible within a frame, and the player does their best to solve the puzzle. This is not the case here. Important things are often hidden out of sight - not George's sight, mind you, but the player's. Because of the perspective, some vital items look so small and insignificant you hardly register they're even there. One particular puzzle needs you to place George in the exact right spot to get a sign in view of the camera, otherwise you wouldn't know it's there.
The third mistake belongs to the puzzle design. The Broken Sword "examine-compulsive disorder" is a stain upon the series, but hits an all-time low with The Angel of Death. If you do not inspect everything, you might be locked out of crucial conversation options. The player could figure out a puzzle solution long before George does, which means you waste time endlessly trying to make him understand your intentions. You might very well end up doubting the correct solution and going off at a tangent.
Fourth, the writing is shockingly bad. Every other transgression can partly be attributed to publisher (THQ) decisions, but this one's on the studio (Revolution). Apart from the abrupt ending, not much is really wrong with the central plot, involving intricacies with the Mafia and the Catholic Church. The characters and dialogue, on the other hand, are awfully written. To appeal to a gamer's low-brow intellect, it constantly goes for cheap laughs through badly executed one-liners, stereotypical tropes and sexual innuendo.
Fifth, the game completely fails at indicating progress. Upon completing a puzzle, a previously locked door somewhere far away might suddenly open for no reason, and you don't get notified. Out of the blue, the hacking mini-game (the best part of the game) might suddenly be available to make progress, with no feedback of that being the case. You might finish a location, and get no clue of where to go next. With every location being unreasonably big, it takes a lot of running around to find out.
Sixth, the visuals look drab and gloomy, which completely flies in the face of the silly tone. Some locations have a depressing overlay of brown or grey, sucking all life out of the picture. The 3D environments are texturized to a bare minimum, with inconsistencies in pattern, and consist mainly of rock, bricks and concrete. The character models look stiff, as revealed by the unflattering close-ups in the cinematic cutscenes.
Nothing works, the controls absolutely suck, the writing's terrible and the dialogue is unskippable, making it tortuous to suffer through. To add, the graphics are atrocious, and sometimes, where you expect a sound effect, there's silence. Even pointing and clicking doesn't work reliably, as the mouse cursor repeatedly fails to register the object of interest. Only the music performs at a level worthy of the franchise, but the betrayal of everything else attaches too much negative emotion to the melodies.
Replaying it only reaffirms my opinion that Broken Sword: The Angel of Death is the worst game I've ever finished. Whereas previous installments were hard only in an abstract, dialogue-heavy way, Angel of Death is hard in the most moronic way. Its most impossible puzzle solutions hinges on characters being irrational and stupid. One particular puzzle requires George to impersonate a health inspector with a German accent - although he spoke to the same people in his normal, American accent only minutes before.
When I reached the Topkapi palace in Istanbul, I tried to catch the palace guard blinking, but I couldn't get it quite right. Although he'd shut his eyes, he kept staring back at me through the freeze-frame. I soon realized, the graphic designer had mistakingly papered textures of eyes on the character model's eyelids. It was as if they had seen my footage and patched in a lame countermeasure. I promptly chose another victim, and cursed the game for even denying me some fun at its expense.
Returning to Broken Sword: The Angel of Death - George and Nico's fourth historical adventure - reminds me why I consider it the worst game I've finished. It is like revisiting the scene of some traumatic event from the past. Every part of every location is a wreck. Although you know exactly what to do, you might get stuck for ages trying to figure out the correct input to make it happen. In the end, you feel a lot older and dumber than you deserve.
MORE THAN A HANDFUL OF MISTAKES
The first mistake is the controls. Even the simple task of moving around stresses me out. When playing a point-and-click adventure, you could traditionally at least expect a relaxing time with one hand on the mouse and the other inside your pants or wherever. But like the previous installment, Angel of Death is designed around a 3D engine (Revolution Software enlisted the aid of Sumo Digital). Controlled through both mouse and keyboard, the player character runs around completely erratically, like someone fresh off a dizzying merry-go-round.
Secondly, you lack all camera control. It constantly pans, zooms, tilts and shifts angles on its own accord. This is made worse by the location design. Games of this genre used to come with a gentlemen's agreement: The designer always places all important objects clearly visible within a frame, and the player does their best to solve the puzzle. This is not the case here. Important things are often hidden out of sight - not George's sight, mind you, but the player's. Because of the perspective, some vital items look so small and insignificant you hardly register they're even there. One particular puzzle needs you to place George in the exact right spot to get a sign in view of the camera, otherwise you wouldn't know it's there.
The third mistake belongs to the puzzle design. The Broken Sword "examine-compulsive disorder" is a stain upon the series, but hits an all-time low with The Angel of Death. If you do not inspect everything, you might be locked out of crucial conversation options. The player could figure out a puzzle solution long before George does, which means you waste time endlessly trying to make him understand your intentions. You might very well end up doubting the correct solution and going off at a tangent.
Fourth, the writing is shockingly bad. Every other transgression can partly be attributed to publisher (THQ) decisions, but this one's on the studio (Revolution). Apart from the abrupt ending, not much is really wrong with the central plot, involving intricacies with the Mafia and the Catholic Church. The characters and dialogue, on the other hand, are awfully written. To appeal to a gamer's low-brow intellect, it constantly goes for cheap laughs through badly executed one-liners, stereotypical tropes and sexual innuendo.
Fifth, the game completely fails at indicating progress. Upon completing a puzzle, a previously locked door somewhere far away might suddenly open for no reason, and you don't get notified. Out of the blue, the hacking mini-game (the best part of the game) might suddenly be available to make progress, with no feedback of that being the case. You might finish a location, and get no clue of where to go next. With every location being unreasonably big, it takes a lot of running around to find out.
Sixth, the visuals look drab and gloomy, which completely flies in the face of the silly tone. Some locations have a depressing overlay of brown or grey, sucking all life out of the picture. The 3D environments are texturized to a bare minimum, with inconsistencies in pattern, and consist mainly of rock, bricks and concrete. The character models look stiff, as revealed by the unflattering close-ups in the cinematic cutscenes.
WORST GAME
As far as I'm concerned, Broken Sword: The Angel of Death represents the rock bottom of commercially released adventure games. A perfect shit storm of bad decisions and execution makes it an almost dysphoric experience to suffer through. At this point, Revolution were veterans of the business, but all the mistakes make them seem like absolute beginners.Nothing works, the controls absolutely suck, the writing's terrible and the dialogue is unskippable, making it tortuous to suffer through. To add, the graphics are atrocious, and sometimes, where you expect a sound effect, there's silence. Even pointing and clicking doesn't work reliably, as the mouse cursor repeatedly fails to register the object of interest. Only the music performs at a level worthy of the franchise, but the betrayal of everything else attaches too much negative emotion to the melodies.
Replaying it only reaffirms my opinion that Broken Sword: The Angel of Death is the worst game I've ever finished. Whereas previous installments were hard only in an abstract, dialogue-heavy way, Angel of Death is hard in the most moronic way. Its most impossible puzzle solutions hinges on characters being irrational and stupid. One particular puzzle requires George to impersonate a health inspector with a German accent - although he spoke to the same people in his normal, American accent only minutes before.
It is baffling and sad to see this franchise degrade along with the entire genre, and to what extent it loses its identity to stay with the times. Revolution themselves must agree, because unlike the first two games, this one has never received a remake, director's cut, remaster or even a console port. They just ushered it into the dark corners of the web, where they hoped to only make some revenue from die-hard completionists like myself. And take it from someone who cares - this game is infinitely skippable.
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