Terry Penrod
May 29th, 2004, 06:03 am
.
What a damned shame that the developer had to stick a bunch of really annoying, totally useless and mindnumbingly dumb action sequences in this otherwise fine PC adventure game. It uses goofy, third person keyboard controls that are perfectly fine EXCEPT when anything must be done BOTH quickly and precisely. Then they become a very bad joke. Worse, there really is no "combat" to speak of in the game, yet your character can easily die.
You see, one several occassions throughout Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon you have to wait for what seems like an an eternity while a little cut scene plays before you begin a usually shortish (but generally pointless) action segment - that must be completed in one single pass before you can save your progress again. Worse still is that you can not gain control over the character until the split second before the action / combat begins. In some cases all you have to do is already be pressing the run and proper direction keys prior to gaining control or simply tap an action key very quickly to dodge / defend before someone can shoot you. However, in some cases you have to instantly turn and run like hell to escape death. But you see, the third person camera angle switches around so fast, so often during these stupid little segments that it takes forever to luck-out and get the damned character around blind corners, over little obstacles, to jump, climb or whatever always in rapid succession and with zero room for even a moment's hesitation or any error whatsoever. This simply becomes a meaningless exercise in kindergarten level rote + button mashing all while going as fast as possible and never with the ability to actually turn and fight.
There are some annoying timed stealth areas too but at least most of them can be done thoughfully through careful observation, a little planning and a few tries. But the fast action / "combat" in-game stuff is nothing more than a total pain is the ass wedged in all the way through a very good looking puzzle game with great voice acting, a solid story, funny dialog, great settings and loads of personality.
Oh, there are a whole bunch of crate sliding puzzles too that are really very, very simple to figure out but even they become quite laborious and there are simply WAY too many of them. I mean who the hell cares about sliding crate puzzles at this stage of the genre's evolution? That's kiddy crap, it's exceedingly predictable, unoriginal and it does not belong in high quality PC adventure games - supposedly made for adults with IQs over 40.
What a shame that I can not recommend this title to any pure PC adventure game lover simply because the developer no doubt wanted to appease younger players who love mashing buttons mindlessly on a gamepad. I had such high hopes for this one too and 90% of it is a sheer delight - except for the numerous, repititous and ALWAY annoying little, crappy excuses for action stuck in there from end to end. Without that nonsense, I would have given this game an nice big A. But with it, it gets a D or a C minus at best. I say either make a real 3D action adventure or not. But this abortion has the very worst parts of that style of game just arbitrarilly scattered here and there and in unavoidable places that require endless reloading and no possible way to cheat around them or (heaven help us) find an intelligent alternate solution.
Cheers, Terry
.
What a damned shame that the developer had to stick a bunch of really annoying, totally useless and mindnumbingly dumb action sequences in this otherwise fine PC adventure game. It uses goofy, third person keyboard controls that are perfectly fine EXCEPT when anything must be done BOTH quickly and precisely. Then they become a very bad joke. Worse, there really is no "combat" to speak of in the game, yet your character can easily die.
You see, one several occassions throughout Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon you have to wait for what seems like an an eternity while a little cut scene plays before you begin a usually shortish (but generally pointless) action segment - that must be completed in one single pass before you can save your progress again. Worse still is that you can not gain control over the character until the split second before the action / combat begins. In some cases all you have to do is already be pressing the run and proper direction keys prior to gaining control or simply tap an action key very quickly to dodge / defend before someone can shoot you. However, in some cases you have to instantly turn and run like hell to escape death. But you see, the third person camera angle switches around so fast, so often during these stupid little segments that it takes forever to luck-out and get the damned character around blind corners, over little obstacles, to jump, climb or whatever always in rapid succession and with zero room for even a moment's hesitation or any error whatsoever. This simply becomes a meaningless exercise in kindergarten level rote + button mashing all while going as fast as possible and never with the ability to actually turn and fight.
There are some annoying timed stealth areas too but at least most of them can be done thoughfully through careful observation, a little planning and a few tries. But the fast action / "combat" in-game stuff is nothing more than a total pain is the ass wedged in all the way through a very good looking puzzle game with great voice acting, a solid story, funny dialog, great settings and loads of personality.
Oh, there are a whole bunch of crate sliding puzzles too that are really very, very simple to figure out but even they become quite laborious and there are simply WAY too many of them. I mean who the hell cares about sliding crate puzzles at this stage of the genre's evolution? That's kiddy crap, it's exceedingly predictable, unoriginal and it does not belong in high quality PC adventure games - supposedly made for adults with IQs over 40.
What a shame that I can not recommend this title to any pure PC adventure game lover simply because the developer no doubt wanted to appease younger players who love mashing buttons mindlessly on a gamepad. I had such high hopes for this one too and 90% of it is a sheer delight - except for the numerous, repititous and ALWAY annoying little, crappy excuses for action stuck in there from end to end. Without that nonsense, I would have given this game an nice big A. But with it, it gets a D or a C minus at best. I say either make a real 3D action adventure or not. But this abortion has the very worst parts of that style of game just arbitrarilly scattered here and there and in unavoidable places that require endless reloading and no possible way to cheat around them or (heaven help us) find an intelligent alternate solution.
Cheers, Terry
.