"I may not be making millions of dollars and I may not have thousands of nubile if uncritical young women lusting for my body but I've got something you haven't... this small piece of coal." - George Stobbart

Not as intriguing and well-arranged as the first instalment of the series, Broken Sword 2 - The Smoking Mirror still is a nice adventure and a decent sequel to a wondrous game. First and foremost, I am happy to announce that there has been no content cut in this remastered version compared to '97 original. Everything there was in the first place, is still there contrary to Director's Cut version of the first game. Also, it might be significant to mention that this is the only game in the series that wouldn't center around a mystery concerning Knight Templars.

It is a couple months after the first game's end. George has been back to America for some time to attend personal businesses - no spoilers - and Nico has been left alone in Paris. Without supervision from George and already having a knack for getting into trouble, Nico starts to investigate a party of drug smugglers that would import cocaine from South America in the guise of importing historical artifacts for a gallery. Nico gets her hands on a small Mayan tablet and André arranges a meeting with Professor Oubier, an expert on the Mayan culture and artifacts for consultation. Just coming back to Paris in time for the said meeting, George meets Nico as they arrive at Oubier's house together, only to be apprehended and left in a burning house! As Nico gets abducted by a South American Indian alongside the mysterious tablet, George starts yet another adventure after a criminal mystery which will soon turn very much esoteric.

Well, let's take a look upon this lovely setting. I have to declare that the story and power dynamics behind the scenes aren't as elaborate as the first game. It is pretty much black and white, good vs. evil this time, which is slightly disappointing. George and Nico are as witty and as able as ever though, with a notch of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ innuendo building in between. Humor is slightly crueler and highly sarcastic too. Nico is a highly influential character in this game compared to the previous one though, not only a pretty side-kick waiting for George to save the day. As another side point, the ending wasn't that much of a satisfaction, considering the game cuts player involvement just before the actual ending sequence, leaving us with a cartoon cinematic. Oh, well... you can't always get what you want.

Display is nearly identical to the previous game. Hand-drawn art with engaging atmospheres and animated cartoon cinematics with classic scenes. Music is lovely as always too. Sadly, we are presented portrait close-ups of characters up on the screen in this remastered version, very much like the Director's Cut. Facial expressions of characters are a bit limited with those, and they mostly end up presenting characters unsympathetic, contrary to the original tone of the game. In those portraits, George was practically pouting half the time, and Nico always had an expression as if she just stepped onto something unpleasant.

As for the gameplay, it is slightly lesser compared to the first instalment. Some combination actions cannot be achieved before proper dialogue is triggered, even though the action would be quite obvious. You gotta step through everything in proper order to proceed. Fast transportation between scenes aren't there anymore either, so you keep walking on a somewhat prolonged pace. Puzzles are okay, yet not challenging much. You figure out everything at the first glance. They just mostly take time to get through, rather than actually thinking how to deal with. On a note, there is a truck load of funny easter eggs in this game, winking to some pop culture references or other games from the developer team, such as Beneath a Steel Sky. Wanna see a goat in existential crisis? Intriguing.

Last call? Broken Sword 2 - The Smoking Mirror is a decent sequel to a glorious first game, a break from the Templar storyline and an opportunity for our characters to build some more common ground + character development. If you enjoyed the first game, there is no reason that you wouldn't like this one. It is the slightly lesser cousin of the previous anyhow. As George and Nico's story continues, we are to live a lot more with them soon.

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BottomLine at the Top: A textbook Point & Click game that although not as good as the first entry is still a must play for all fans of the genre!


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Pros
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-Started right up. No initial setup headaches.
-Compatible with steam overlay and screenshot support.
-Built in hint system as in the last entry's remastered version. ( I also appreciate that I can use a built in hint system without any kind of "Penalty" like fewer points or not achieving a steam achievement....although the reason why is because there are no achievements and no points in game.)
-Same great sprite animations as in last entry. Detailed movements custom to each location.
-Built in in game diary to help keep track of where you are (useful if you stop playing for a while and come back to the game)
-Good in game music. Catchy end credit music.
-One of my fav things of this and the first game is the ability to ask most NPC's about items in your inventory and hear their custom responses. This is a nice little detail that must have taken some time to include and to me it makes the game both funnier and feel more interactive.
-This game like the previous remaster includes a copy of the original game (which is a nice addition and I am sure the "purists" will appreciate for the nostalgia factor)
-Appreciate how the same voice actor as in the first entry was used for George. Nico had a different voice actress, but I felt was comparable.


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Meh.
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-No Steam Achievement integration.
-Did not like the lack of buildup to the intro in this game. The first entry was more dramatic.
-Sprite animations, although detailed, do not seem to be as "sharp" as I remember in the previous game.
-I would have liked to see more save slots.
-Some voice recordings sound "remastered" whereas others sound original. Not terrible, but it sticks out.
-Full screen setting did not take up full screen, had black bars around top/bottom & left/right sides of screen.
-Can use arrow keys to pan across screen. Nice touch but I just wish there was a double click fast travel instead.
-A weird gripe, the wrench icon for the settings menu. Why not a gear? But also...why do we use a gear to symbolize settings in the first place?? That’s my shower thought for the day....


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Cons
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-Everyone. Walks. So. SLOWWWWWWWWWW..... By far the biggest short coming in this game is how long it takes to do anything. I seriously think there would be an hour less game play if you could adjust the walking speed. No double click fast travel on screen or to next room.
-Related to the slow speed is waiting on things to happen after you clicked an action. Several times there was an NPC going thru some kind of default animation routine and you would have to fully wait until they were done before you could talk to them. It was only a few seconds, but it happened enough to get irritating.
-It would be amazingly easy to get stuck without the hint system. You can also do things like use items in places where you actually need to use the same item someplace else first. However, you would not think to go back and grab the item as you thought you are making progress with your original course of action (I'm referring mostly to the slingshot puzzle here). This combined with some real moon logic puzzles as well as a lack of an object highlight function can really slow down gameplay if you are trying to do this without hints.
-Although the hint system is mostly good it is not always clear cut. Certain events need to be triggered or there are things you sometimes need to do before you can proceed with the instructions given. I had to look to outside sources at least once as the hint system did not mention an important step.
-The ending Mayan puzzle with Nico is tedious, boring, and took too long. Unintuitive that positioning Nico in certain places will change wheel rotation from clockwise to counterclockwise
-Ending felt abrupt and unsatisfying. Also, Nico and George are supposed to be bf/gf yet the most interaction we see between them is a less than one second friendly embrace at the end of the closing animation. I thought this was kind of strange.


Final Thoughts: As other reviewers have commented it does fall short of its predecessor, but as a standalone Point and Click game entry it is particularly good. The regular $6 for approx. 6 hours of game play is not bad although this game is frequently available with the other Broken Sword games in discounted bundles so be on the lookout for a good one!


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This game is a true classic. This is my favorite point&click game. Probably one of the reasons is that it was my first. I fell in love with this game right from the beginning and couldn’t stop playing. Remember that when it came there was no internet and youtube walkthroughs, there was no hints and highlighted objects. I spent couple of weeks or even more until I completed it (I understood only half or less English text back then and couldn’t understand a single spoken word) and it felt so rewarding and this was the day when I knew I want more drawn point&click adventures.

The game is…I don’t know what to say. It’s like a definition of point&click games to me. You play as George Stobbart (or Georgie) who has a partner named Nico (that accent of hers) who is kidnapped and George needs to find her. Later they embark on a journey to find the perpetrators and that journey evolves into a real adventure. Not gonna spoil the story but it’s one of the strongest parts of the game.

Gameplay is simple, collect items, combine them, use them, talk to people, solve puzzles. This will require exploration and thinking. There’s good amount of different locations every one of them with quite difficult puzzles. Especially that one which everyone who played the game back when it got released will remember all their life. The famous goat puzzle, it almost made me stop playing the game. But the solution was so simple that I felt dumb. It was hard probably because it used a different mechanic.

What is good about drawn games is that they age very well. Even today the game looks decent. Just looks at Broken sword 3&4, they looked like crap 3-4 years after release. They released a remaster(kind of) but I don’t think this was needed. Graphically it’s pretty ok for today’s standards. There are many characters to meet and places to explore, some of them really make you smile. Oh and animations are just great, it’s rare to see that in current games.

Music is another amazing thing, when I was replaying the game after many years I felt that nostalgia feeling, you start feeling good hearing that music. Voice is acting is superb, I have nothing bad to say here..

No need to talk about performance, this game will run on any PC.

If for some reason you don’t still own this game then open your wallet, take some pennies from it and buy this game.

Pros

• Good story
  
• Great soundtrack
  
• Graphics aged really well
  
• Animations look good

Cons

• None

My curator page

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odH49AVOOck
The game takes place after 6 months of the first game following the story of Nico and George. Instead of templars they will be following a lead regarding a Mayan Artifact </Synopsis>. Some critics/fans held Shadow of templars better than Smoking mirror but for my personally tastes i find this game lot better. Not only from dialogue aspects and better graphics, but also from story/length. Its somewhat shorter than previous game, but thats how i prefer my Adventure games (Not too long)

• Better story than in first game, less siderailing & filler hubs
  
• Cool characters making return from first game
  
• Mayan's are pretty cool subject
  
• Great & Funny dialogue

• Some very minor bugs do occur by clicking sometimes the objectives (Nothing too drastic)
  
• Was wishing for more puzzles, first game had more

Like far too many other sequels, the game doesn't live up to the expectations its predecessor set forth. Though it is well produced and solid, a worthy sequel. It may be more linear than the first, but the luscious visuals and gameplay more than make up for that. In the second half of the game you play as both Nico and George separately, at opposite sides of the world, which helps break up the environments. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=836574575 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=841827083

A solid, very traditional adventure game with excellent voice acting and some great writing. The puzzles are usually logical, but some suffer from only having one (very linear) solution, occasional pixel-hunting, etc. The Broken Sword series is about the only adventure game franchise that measures up to Lucasarts' heyday, so if you're looking for a Fate of Atlantis-style adventure game, that's pretty much what you get here.

Kudos to the devs for not abandoning it. This game is over 20 years old, but Revolution finally remastered it for the PC - adding an augmented screen resolution and Steam achievements. It's been nostalgic and fun replaying it again.

Now please do the same for the original Broken Sword!

7.9/10 - Solid Point and Click Adventure; Falls Short of Original!

I really enjoyed this next installment of the series, but it definitely fell short when compared to the first. The campaign is only about 7 hours and that's with really slow walking animation, no quick travel when leaving a room and delayed dialogue at times. If you don't get frustrated with that then this is a follow-up worth playing!

We find George and Nico 6 months later, and it appears things didn't end happily ever after. After an impromptu break up George comes across information that Nico is now missing. He will have to once again circumnavigate the globe, beat the bad guys and protect the sacred Mayan stones!

Overall, I had a lot of fun with this, it’s worth the $1/hour price tag. It's half the length of the original so pay accordingly.

A great sequel which maintains the charm of the first game (same colourful characters, same witty dialogues) . A must have for any fan of the series.

Broken Sword 2 offers pretty much identical gameplay to the first one. The story on this one felt less than believable and was often times plain comical. Like the first one, this is a very casual adventure; the puzzles are extremely easy, plus the blue markers remove any difficulty in finding whatever you need. There is also a hint system in the unlikely event you ever get stuck. The movement is still slow paced. Often times you have to wait for an animation sequence to complete and you can't double-click to run or quickly move from one location to the next. Overall, it was is a reasonably well done adventure game that feels a little dated.