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Broken Sword: Directors Cut Heads To The Wii

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Point and Click fans get ready for another great game headed your way. All the details and pics are nicked from Neogaf.

 

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Facts:

- based on the original Broken Sword, possibly the best adventure game ever created

- lots of new content, new puzzles, new locations, expanded story

- controls obviously redone for DS and Wii

- some new animations by Dave Gibbons (Watchmen)

- developed by Revolution, published by Ubisoft

- game's pretty much gone gold, coming to Europe in March 2009

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Top stuff.

 

I was actually looking at the release list you posted in the other stickied thread at lunch time, and I spotted Broken Sword on it. I wondered where the info on it was seeing as its down for March... and lo and behold, the info has started to emerge. :hehe:

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Never played a Broken Sword game. Not really played point and clicks in general! Think I've watched someone play one of the Monkey Islands, and definately remember working on an Indiana Jones point and click with a friend way back in the day!

Will keep an eye on this one!

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Never played a Broken Sword game. Not really played point and clicks in general! Think I've watched someone play one of the Monkey Islands, and definately remember working on an Indiana Jones point and click with a friend way back in the day!

Will keep an eye on this one!

 

Dude, you need to get yourself Sam & Max Season 1 for the Wii (episode 4 on the PC can be obtained for free from Telltale's website or Steam) and Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People (demos on the Telltale site).

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Broken Sword is nowhere near as good as Monkey Island.

 

But yeah, still cool to get the point and click genre back. Think I'll miss this one as I've already completed this one, and I can't really buy it again for a few new puzzles and whatnot.

 

Still, it's a good addition.

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Pedrocasilva, exactly the same to me.

Its not that hard to see in a Broken Sword game, though.

It was damn scary for a non-horror game for its time.

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IGN Full Interview:

 

http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/949/949584p1.html

 

Just the gameplay info...

 

IGN UK: How has Revolution exploited both the Wii and DS's unique features in Broken Sword? What new elements have these enabled you to include in the game?

Charles Cecil: The 'Director's Cut' has been considerably enhanced to include new content, graphics displayed at a higher resolution, animated faces in conversations, a hint system, two player mode on Wii, and many other additional features.

 

We start the game a day earlier than the original, told from Nico's perspective. This adds a considerable amount of gameplay over and above the original – lots of new screens. That gives us the opportunity to explain a bit of background that was not clear first time around. Nico's story then, obviously, juxtaposes with George's. However, our rule in designing the new content was that everything from the first was the absolute truth – nothing in the new content could contradict or change it. So we have added a new subplot for Nico which resonates throughout the game – juxtaposed seamlessly with the original George gameplay. I won't give anything away, but I was very pleased when our casual testers indicated that they were very surprised that the story had been added to – they had no idea where the joins took place. Hopefully people will feel that it works well!

 

We have also added a facial animation system, which I'll elaborate on later, plus a number of first person views for when your character is examining a small area. Sometimes the interface reflects that of the main game, sometimes it offers a mini-game. This makes the game feel very dynamic.

 

A diary has also been added so that players can recap on the story so far and we've taken the opportunity to tweak puzzles that maybe could have been better designed first time around too – for those familiar with the original, the diary entry for Lochmarne Castle reads "So the 'ghost of Locahmarne' is no more than a fierce Billy goat. For a moment I thought it was going to be incredibly awkward to get past, but in the end it was surprisingly simple. Who would have known?". Should I take this opportunity to apologise again for the infamous goat puzzle while assuring all that it's now more logical in its execution? Another interesting thing about the new diary is that even those of us who've played the game through many many times during testing tend to click on the diary each time a new entry is added. It seems to work pretty well, so I'm pleased about that.

 

I have long been concerned that while some people love the cerebral challenge of a tricky puzzle, others get frustrated. Having to look the answer up online is thoroughly unsatisfactory, so we've added a dynamic hint system – which players are invited to turn off it they don't want it. For those that do, a question mark discretely flashes when the game thinks the player is getting stuck. This offers a vague hint. If, after a certain time, the puzzle has still not been solved, then a further clue is offered until finally the solution is given. The only downside to asking for clues is that the number is tallied and is displayed with your save game. Again, this feature was greatly appreciated by the casual testers – it gives the opportunity to play through fast, almost like an interactive movie, or at a slower, more thoughtful rate.

 

On Wii, we've gone back to the source art material and now display colours in 16-bit rather than the 200 colours of the original, plus we've added alpha layers, redrawn the icons and so on. Graphically, the game is now much richer.

 

The Wii version's control system uses the pointer to highlight hotspots, in a way that is not dissimilar to the 'point and click' system, although we use rumble and, where appropriate, motion control for turning objects. Meanwhile, the DS version is totally stylus driven. After a lot of experimentation, we settled on a control system which has the player sliding the stylus over the screen to find and highlight hotspots then selecting the specific action by lifting. It works really well. The upper screen is used to display facial expressions when character engage in conversation – or talk to themselves.

 

IGN UK: With new sequences and story elements this time around, how hard has it been to integrate the new elements alongside those of the original? For instance, do you have the original cast back on board?

 

Charles Cecil: I wanted to keep the original voices wherever possible so that the game felt authentic. We were lucky enough to be able to hunt down the original George and Nico actors – and they recorded the new dialogue to sound like the old. So there is a feeling of continuity between the games. One other character has additional dialogue, so we simply re-recorded all their script. The remaining characters are new.

 

IGN UK: If this latest outing for Broken Sword is a success, how likely is it that we'll see Director's Cuts for the series sequels? Do you already have ideas floating around for expanded sequels?

 

Charles Cecil: The answer is yes to thoughts of potentially doing more Director's Cuts but, frankly, I haven't thought too hard about how they would be approached. When you write a game, there are so many elements that need to be balanced – and it is very easy to misjudge some of those elements. It's such a pleasure and a privilege to be able to re-visit the first Broken Sword game. It would be great to do the same with the others.

 

But that's not to say that this is the future in its totality for the next few years. We are always thinking of new projects – and that is not to forget the approach from the movies studio to make a Broken Sword film which we are taking very seriously.

Sounds really good!!

 

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Having never played the series; this is possibly my most anticipated Wii game!

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Having never played the series; this is possibly my most anticipated Wii game!

 

Really?! I never played many point and click games, but this still looks pretty average too me.

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Really?! I never played many point and click games, but this still looks pretty average too me.
It's certainly right up there, along with Another Code [another point and click puzzle adventure], HotD: Overkill, Sin & Punishment 2 and Mad World.

 

Other choices such as The Conduit, FFCC: CB aren't really doing it for me atm!

 

Had such a blast with Zack & Wiki, and I love a good adventure story, so this seems perfect to me!

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Really?! I never played many point and click games, but this still looks pretty average too me.

 

It is one of the better point n' click games around, and modern classic of the genre. It is also very long (25-35 hours) for this type of game. There is, however, two things I'm worried about this port. First is the animation. Original had rather simple (and shitty) animation, and its flaws are only emphasized by higher resolution. If they aren't willing to spent time to adjust frames, game will be very awkard looking in some parts (just look the grandma in the second picture that Retro_Link posted).

 

Then there is voiceacting. Yeah, most fans says that the original had outstanding voice-acting, but to be fair, it is ***king terrible. It lacks emotion, and every character outside Stobbard has this over-exegrated accent that sounds really stupid. Do joo want some waterrr fith thaat?

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^ Tepppppppo! good to see you back!

 

Also:

 

Finally, now that Revolution has re-teamed with Dave Gibbons, how about that Beneath a Steel Sky sequel? Isn't it about time?

 

Charles Cecil: It is time – and lots of people ask the same question. A few years ago we released the original for free to be played using the Scumm VM emulator. Our thinking behind this was that no one could play the game without Scumm VM – and Scumm VM was free, so it only seemed fair to give it away. This was, in hindsight, a brilliant marketing initiative (I wish I could claim that we were strategic enough to have seen this at the time) because literally millions of people have played it in the past couple of years. And many of them have joined the clamour for a sequel. This Broken Sword Director's Cut will go a long way to proving the potential market for this type of adventure – if it is successful then we will certainly explore opportunities for a BASS sequel.

 

BENEATH A STEEL SKY 2!!!!!!!!! WANT!

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I hope this looks better in motion because it looks incredibly average from the screens.

 

Also Gabriel Knight > Broken sword.

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It's remade locales based closely on an old PC/PS1 game, it's not going to look stunning but the character animation should improve things in motion.

 

The original is probably my personal favourite point and click adventure due to the quality of the humour and George Stobbart's legendary voice actor (who thankfully they've confirmed to have back for this game).

 

If they re-record almost every other charater's dialogue with new va's I just hope they can come close to being as good as the original lines. There's plenty of classic moments and locales in the game. I remember loving the Ireland section in particular.

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Really looking forward to this. Used to have it on PC but never got finished so definitely a day one purchase for me. Has there been an official release date announced?

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Charles Cecil of Revolution Software comments on the possibility of more Broken Sword goodness on Wii and DS, including 2D versions of 3 and 4.

 

Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars - Director's Cut for Wii and DS isn't even out yet, but Charles Cecil, the founder of Revolution Software, says that if the game is successful, they'll probably make even more Broken Sword games, and are even considering remaking the third and fourth games in 2D. Given that those two games were originally in 3D, Cecil commented that "it would be a case of reinterpreting them, probably taking more liberties than we did with the first one."

 

The success of The Shadow of the Templars might not only pave the way for director's cut versions of the four Broken Sword games, but also new entries in the series, new games and even a new Beneath a Steel Sky, which is looking very likely.

 

There you have it. If you're a Broken Sword fan and want more, you know what to do! Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars - Director's Cut for Wii and DS are coming out in Europe on March 1st and March 24th in Europe and the US respectively.

 

 

http://www.n-europe.com/news.php?nid=12924

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I always get excited by the title but as soon as I come in the thread and see the images, "oh, that one...".

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A new Beneath a Steel Sky that would awesome...for only who doesn't know you get it from gog.com for FREE...tons of great games on there, I just re-bought Simon the Sorceror and am playing through it for something like the 30th time...love the game such a good sense of humour and Chris Barrie's voice work on the "newer" versions (first owned it on the Amiga) is great.

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