Das Spiel ist schlecht.

Es ist der vierte Teil der Adventure-Serie, die im Englischen als Broken Sword und im Deutschen unter Baphomets Fluch bekannt ist.

Nach den ersten Teilen (Teil 1, Teil 2 und Teil 3) ist dieser Teil zwar von Revolution-Gründer Charles Celic konzipiert, aber von Sumo Digital als Auftragsarbeit entwickelt worden.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1663819914

Das Spiel krankt m.E. an der schlechten Steuerung, die ein Hybrid aus Point&Click und Tank Controls sind. Die Bewegung der Figuren ist einfach mühsam: mit der Tastatur jedenfalls, mit Controller geht's gar nicht (anders als noch in Teil 3), mit der Maus geht es eingermaßen.
Manche speziellen Aktionen müssen mit der Maus initiiert werden, wobei nur manchmal ein Icon angeklickt, manchmal auf gut Glück geklickt werden muss (z.B. Leitern). Insgesamt läuft es sehr sehr zähflüssig ab. Gebiete zu erkunden, Dinge auszuprobieren und Wege öfters zu laufen werden mir so total verleidet. Ich habe es schnell sein lassen.

Zudem stieß ich gleich zu Beginn auf zwei Bugs, die zwar nicht bei jedem auftreten, bei meinen Einstellungen dieses Programms wiederholbar auftraten und das Laden eines alten Spielstandes erforderte.

Zur Geschichte kann ich nicht viel sagen, weil ich das Spiel bald abgebrochen habe. George und Nico scheinen auseinandergegangen zu sein. George trifft eine geheimnisvolle Blondine, die ihn einerseits in ihren Bann zieht, andererseits sofort in ein gefährliches Abenteuer stürzt.

Viel vom Gameplay habe ich nicht gesehen. Es gab Dialoge, Kisten schieben und andere Manipulation der Umwelt (z.B. Kräne, Türen eintreten, u.ä.).

Die Grafik sieht schlechter aus als in Teil 3, obwohl man mehr Details sieht. Die Lippenbewegungen sind albern und George und seine neue Flamme seinen einen Stock verschluckt zu haben, während andere sich gräßlich albern bewegten. Die Animation vieler Handgriffe und Tätigkeiten ist oft minimal bis nicht vorhanden. Die Grafik der Umgebung ist auch eher schlecht.

Pro & Contra:

+ Eine (theoretisch) nette Geschichte
+ Gute englische/deutsche Vertonung

- Eher schlechte Grafik (für 2006)
- Eine sehr schlechte Steuerung

Wertung: 4/10

Es passiert mir relativ selten, dass ich ein Spiel nur wegen der Steuerung nicht weiterspiele. Hier ist es aber passiert. Die relativ schlechte Grafik kommt hinzu. Dass Nico nicht dabei ist (jedenfalls fast nicht) gab mir dann denn Rest.

PS: Der Name "Angel of Death" erinnert vielleicht zu Recht an "Angel of Darkness" aus der Tomb-Raider-Reihe, wo die Steuerung auch miserabel war (dabei kam AoD 3 Jahre früher raus).

Nach den ersten drei Teilen ist dieser Teil grafisch ja mal eine wirkliche Katastrophe. Rätsel sind gelungen und die Geschichte ist jetzt auch nicht ganz so schlimm. Aber der 3D Sprung ist diesem Spiel echt nicht gelungen. Gut, dass das Entwicklerstudio im fünften Teil wieder die Kurve gekriegt hat. Von diesem Teil kann man aber ruhig die Finger lassen.

Nach ettlichen abstürzen und ganzen sequenzen ohne Sprachausgabe und von der bescheidenen Steuerung
gar nicht zu sprechen......ein entschiedenes NEIN...... Spiele sollen Spaß machen und nicht nerven !!!!!!

leider eins der schwächeren BS. Steuerung, Grafik und Storylinie ist irgendwie total vermurkst. Kein vergleich zu den anderen Teilen. Ich hoffe das 5er wird mir wieder Spaß machen.

TL:DR Probably the worst game in the series so far, only for fans of the series.

For starters, let's fix the low framerate and the sound glitching:

1. Go to the game's properties in the Steam client: disable the Steam overlay(1), click on "Set launch options", put
   -compat-on
   and confirm(2,[www.gog.com]3)[www.gog.com].
   
2. Open
   \Steam\steamapps\common\Broken Sword 4\system\custom.ini
   in a text editor and look for this line:
   m_uiUseExtraProcessors = 0
   Change 0 to 1 and save(4);
   
3. Open
   \Steam\steamapps\common\Broken Sword 4\system\compat.ini
   in a text editor and look for these lines:
   m_bDSoundLocDeferOn
   and
   m_bDSoundLocForceSoftwareOn
   Change the first line's value to 0, the second to 1 and save(5)[www.gog.com].

This should be enough to make the game more enjoyable.

Now, about the game. This fourth chapter really felt rushed. Some characters felt rushed (I can't complain about Mark and Archie though, I liked'em). THE ENDING felt like someone was really in a hurry, the "I left the stove on" kind of hurry. The story starts a bit slow, it catches up in the middle and drops like a sack of potatoes at the end.
Look at the maps: NY, Istanbul, Rome. They all have at least 4/5 location shapes each, but you'll visit only 2/3 per map. It's like some locations were scrapped because of time/budget constraints and they didn't bother to change the maps design. You can't even skip dialogues.
Controls are meh, you'll get stuck often when running. Do yourself a favour and remap the directional keys to WASD.

This game could have been better D:

Absolute Katastrophe :-(

The 4th Broken Sword game is better than the 3rd game but that doesn't mean much because the third was a pure catastrophy.
This game brings back the point and click element and focuses much more on puzzles and classic P&C objectives like "How can i get into that building?" while the third game was endless sneaking, pushing crates and run through ugly 3D levels.

But still: This game feels like a satire on Point and Click games. Just like Revolution Software were totally frustrated by all the bad reviews of their 3rd game and now want to mock their players with: Bad voice acting, ridiculously bad written characters, dialogues and story.
They even manged to remove any kind of atmosphere. This game feels so sterile that even the most "dramatic" moments in the story are just a bad joke.

But what made me continuing and finishing this game: It's so bad that it's a huge fest for any trash game fan :D
I was laughing so much about all the "serious" moments in that game that i just wanted to see how they ruin the rest of the game :D And yes, they ruin it all the time and it's just so funny to see how bad a game can be :D

Thank god for the ppl out there who write walkthroughs even for the worst games out there!

This is the fourth game in Broken Sword series and... uhm... Oh, for god’s sake! No. Just no. Plain and simple. This game isn't worthy of the Broken Sword name. What have you done to the beloved franchise??? Sorry for blurting my frustration out but Broken Sword 4 - the Angel of Death is a complete disappointment for any fan of the series, and would be most certainly a wrong choice to introduce someone to it. I'll try to be very brief about what's been done in this game and why it just didn't fit with the rest of the series, neither with tone nor with the gameplay. Oh, and there is one thing that I've never dreamt of telling about a Broken Sword game to begin with: the scenario is bad!

After the events of the the Sleeping Dragon, George is back in New York and running a bail bonds office with his partner Virgil. Aside constant indigence due to the lack of decent clients, life has been quiet for Mr. Stobbart... that is until an attractive blonde named Anna Maria shows up on his door step, asking for help about another manuscript! That is the moment the Italian mafia takes a hit on George's shop, leaving the place wrecked and Virgil pretty much pissed. From that point onwards, George is yet again sucked into another adventure "vaguely" involving Templar lore. Ready for the Ark of Ashdod? Because that was one Christian legend not trifled by the series. They must have thought "Hey, we didn't include the Arc on any previous games. Wanna arrange an appearance for that?" and the response was this, I guess "Sure, let's make it Indiana Jones style with church thrown in as bad guys!"

Don't get me wrong, I'm not even Christian and I wouldn't be offended on religious matters to begin with. This is fiction. But the lore is so mismatched, the story gives you a headache in its short lived lifespan. Okay, here is the start of my actual complaints, so if you intend to play this game for the sake of completion, and would like to avoid spoilers, skip the rest of this paragraph. It is already customary to Broken Sword games to include interconnection for obscure political/religious groups but it's been done elaborately until now. Here, we have the mafia and the Vatican as core power players - and Mafia are the good guys! And there will be no decent explanation to the heartfelt (!) sacrifices (!!!) they've been doing to protect humankind! Weird, huh? Add to this already weird display the Arc of Ashdod, a scientist obsessed with monatomic gold, nuns working at a wafer factory and Turkish secret service. Frustrated yet? And surprise, there is no satisfying story explanation when you come to end. Just a bunch of needless NPC deaths and sacrifices, added with every good natured side character showing up in the catacombs of Vatican (???) to help our characters. That is plain lousy writing.

Another major disappointment is that we have a new protagonist to accompany George instead of Nico: Anna Maria. You heard it right. Nico isn't a protagonist in this story. She's been replaced by an Italian blond whose loyalty will be the primary concern of debate for the remainder of the whole game. Nico herself won't be appearing till way past the middle of the game to share some snarky remarks to display cheap jealousy, take under a brief and mostly irrelevant adventure in Arizona to “help” George investigate, and play the part of a damsel in distress by the ending. That's it. Nico is not relevant in this game. That is one tradition broken alright with much frustration attached to it. It was a decent idea to present some competition for Nico as a romantic interest, but this is badly done. Anna Maria is shallow and needy until the end of the game, and there, she serves as a traumatizing element for George. That's all.

Yes, I said traumatizing. Yes, in a Broken Sword game. The tone of the game is very slow pacing and somewhat dark compared to previous installations. It's as if there was a shortage of decent humor in the department when people were writing the script. It's always dark and moody, starting with the opening cinematic. That's specifically why this shouldn't be called a Broken Sword game. Even everything else were to fail, you could always count on humor in Broken Sword series. It seems not anymore. Whatever your take for this whole mess would be though, it will come to an end soon. The whole game consists of 4 places: New York, Istanbul, Arizona and Rome. Yup, that's it, and every story arc is so badly rushed you understand not a thing aside that there was an Arc and evil church was trying to assemble it.

The game already continues the 3D style of the 3rd game, but the art style made a fast transition from cartoony to robotic realism. Sure, layering seem decent and it is a fitting art choice for the already moody undertone but I wish characters would attain some facial expressions. There is no feeling left. They look clucky, they move clunky and they mostly seem like everyone is badly constipated. The gameplay is a hybrid between WASD controls and mouse, and it mostly doesn't work properly - especially on time bound game sequences. Cameras are as hellish as the third game too.

Let's talk puzzles btw. Now, gameplay logic is somewhat inferior and obscure, sure. This is not unheard of from adventure games anyhow. But some puzzles are not only ill-prepared and time consuming, some are plain irrelevant to common sense. There is a scene that George is tied down at the back of an Italian massage parlor and has to escape, for example. Now that was some enforced ACME logic if I've ever seen some! One positive thing that can be said is that hacking puzzles are a decent addition and they are somewhat fun.

At the end of the day, you'll play this game to say that you've played it if you are a Broken Sword fan anyhow. You'll get annoyed, you'll curse, you'll be fed up half way through but you'll play. If you are not though, spare yourself some pain and just find something better to do.

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Kurz: Das schwächste Baphomets Fluch in der Serie.

When I saw that this game received mixed reviews, I still kept my hopes high. After all, Broken Sword 3 got mixed reviews, and I enjoyed it, despite being trampled by boxes ;). Then I played it. I will say this: I'm glad I played it. I'm a Broken Sword fan; therefore, I must play the whole series. If you are a Broken Sword fan, you probably should play it. It doesn't get everything wrong, it just doesn't get enough right. I feel that Broken Sword 3 was much stronger in terms of story and graphics. Anyhow, lets get to the positives of this game before I load you with the negatives.

First of all, the characters are still great. George Stobbart is still wonderful. We have the same voice actor, and his delivery is great. We get to see some "guest star" characters from previous Broken Sword games, which I always enjoy. There are a few new characters that are amusing, and well done all around. Also (slight spoiler, but good grief she's on the cover), we have a new heroine! Her name Anna Marie and I personally wish she wasn't there because Nico Collard is the best. However, she is there, and she does a good job at keeping you guessing about character loyalties, overrall game plot, etc. I love the sountrack. There are portions that sound like the regular Broken Sword standard soundtrack (which is great), and then there are the special portions. There is a stage in the game where Nico is in Phoenix, Arizona. Yeah...more on that later. While she is there, there is a great guitar soundtrack that really enhances the atmosphere. There is a spy soundtrack in a section where George is doing a covert operation. Very cool. Also, the controls are much better. I didn't like how BS3 only used the keyboard. Here, you use both mouse and keyboard, pointing where you want to go or look at with mouse and hold control to run. So the positives are the characters, the music, and the script. Now the negatives.

First of all, the story is horrible. For me, it boarders on heresy. In each BS game, we are dealing with an ancient artifact or technology that will bring about the end of the world. This time around, the ancient artifact is The Ark of the Covenant. Now, if your mind jumped to Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark...you would be on the right track. (Spoiler!) (Spoiler!) George Stobbart is our Indiana Jones, the "good guys" are the Mafia, and the Nazis are played by...high officials in The Catholic Church. Nico Collard and Anna Marie take turns being Marion. If this plot doesn't sound absurd, I don't know what does. High officials in the Catholic Church want to use the Ark of the Covenant and capture either Anna Marie or Nico to use their body as a sacrifice and/or vessel for the Angel of Death to inhabit, so said angel can destroy all those that don't believe in the one true faith . Horrible isn't it? The game really doesn't look finished either. There are instances where you look on a large area map, and there are indentations in the map that make you think that you will go to said place once the story opens up to that area. Some of the places show up, and some don't. Seriously, the look and feel of this game is like Nico's hair: messy and unfinished. The ending is incredibly rushed and depressing. The ending sequence throws logic out the window, since all the characters you helped in the game somehow find the secret entrance and come to your aid, and it's never explained how. Apparently its easy to find the secret chambers in the Vatican. You know how you had so many places to visit in the first three games, not to mention hidden temples and stuff? Even in Broken Sword 3? Well, here you get to start in NY, go to Turkey, then Phoenix, Arizona, then lastly, a small section of Rome including supposed hidden offices of The Vatican. Thats it. Four. There are no cut scenes. The game just puts widescreen bars into view, which lets you know this is a cut scene, with no change in graphics. I'm not a stickler on graphics, but they should be at least on par with the previous 3D title. This takes a step backwards. Now the character gripe. While Anna Marie is not a pointless character, Broken Sword has always been about George and Nico. Nico doesn't show up till halfway through the game. She is a side character in her own game series, which ticks me off. I'm sorry if the negatives seem to be disjointed. To sum it up: The story is ridiculous, the game looks unfinished and ends rather sadly (trust me when I say that it was not necessary).

So should you buy it? If you are a BS fan, I think you should still play it. If the storyline strikes you with the "its so bad its funny" vibe, or if you don't think it a ridiculous premice, then you should play it. The script works well within the plot. For all my complaints, I'm glad I played it. It would have annoyed me if I hadn't. Also, I got this game on sale. Knowing what I know now, I'm really glad I did. This is definitely the weakest game in the series. I hope for a better time with Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse.