Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror

The Good
It starts interesting, it puts you on fire, and ties you to a chair. And as much as it sounds I'm referring to a player, this is just about what happens to George as the game starts. George... player... George... player... what's the difference, right? Well for one thing, George rushes too blindly into anything that starts with 'dangerous', not much different from Indy, actually. The story takes on after the original as it is clear that George and Nico aren't such strangers anymore (and if they were ever any less, alas, we don't get to see that like in GK3). The graphics is as beautiful as ever, and the game comes with plenty hand-drawn 2D cinematics just as its predecessor. Furthermore, there's an ability to "enhance" how the graphics look, even though I'm not entirely sure what was that about, it's probably something no other game tried before (and never will).

This game as well will take George and Nico across the globe in search for whatever they'll be searching to uncover this time, and dialogues and puzzles will keep you amused, and if they don't, the scenery should, because it's really one of the finest (and alas, among the latest rare few) 3rd-person point-and-click 2D graphic adventures. This time soundtrack is 'better' and it doesn't consist of only short clips, and credits even have a song with lyrics. Only one year pause, and it seems as they did invest a lot of sweat into creating this game, which ultimately turned into a fine product.

And by now, it was nothing new, but still great to see, you could control Nico as well as George.

The Bad
The story doesn't seem as interesting as the original, and becomes really dull at some points. Going into supernatural stuff just doesn't fit characters like George Stobbart or Indiana Jones, it's more for those like Gabriel Knight. Also, cover art doesn't seem much creative, at least US one I got, box front cover, and jewel case front, inlay and back have the same picture on it. Since they lost "ink" on printing the picture at all, what difference would it be if they actually added some more creation to the cover art, if for the players who bought their games.

The Bottom Line
Graphically reaches the first place in the trilogy, story cuts it down to last, and any other characteristic makes it equal with the trilogy. George is back, that is reason enough to buy this game, he's a character we players like, and good adventure game characters can be counted on one hand. This is a good game, and good adventure game that should not be left out if you played either from the series, it's part of a bigger picture, and I can say I would really like if they continued making game like this every 1-2 years than what I waited for 6 years and got BS3.