Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Revolution has announced that there’s to be a director’s cut of Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror. This is the second remake of the series, following 2009′s embellished Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars. (Which in the interests of disclosure, I must add that I worked on, script editing, and writing the diaries and the hints. I’ve nothing at all to do with this second re-edition.) Unlike the first game, this new version will not contain any new story or puzzles, but will improve the graphics, animations, and cutscenes, as well as adding in a diary and hints.

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A pretty major declaration of interests here: I worked on the Director’s Cut of Broken Sword, now available on Steam and GamersGate, from concept to release, and thus am in no position to tell you whether it’s any good or not. But it’s great. Especially the new diary and hint system – I mean, the quality of writing there is just exceptional. Really stand-out stuff, a league ahead of anything else that’s ever existed. Anyway, that aside, this version originally developed for Nintendo DS and Wii, then iPhone, is now available on PC. It has a whole new opening story, interwoven with the original beginning, this time giving a background to Nico and building on the main plot.

There’s also new artwork from Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons Some of the puzzles have been much improved, including the legendary goat puzzle, and as mentioned there’s now a rather fine hint system that will give you progressively more clear clues should you get stuck, and a diary that updates as you progress, reminding you of what’s been happening, and including whichever jokes I could sneak in. Oh, and since I’m declaring that interest, I’ll also add that I got paid for my work at the time, and get nothing at all from any sales. So there. Details below.

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Goodbye The Silver Lining. Our culture is formed by the sharing of ideas. Throughout history, for millennia, every piece of art, music, literature and entertainment has been the result of a worldwide collaboration. It’s been an astonishing act of creative evolution, the most vibrant and extraordinary gene pool of imagination and inspiration, from which all were free to draw and create. It has been exceptional, and in the last 50 to 100 years it has come to an end.

The tragedy of the abuse and misuse of intellectual property and copyright cannot be counted. After centuries of sharing, we have allowed a “MINE!” tag to be affixed to every thought, string of notes, doodle on a page, or merest whim. We have committed a grotesque cultural suicide. And the extent to which this has reached should be a parody. We have now allowed ourselves to be in the situation where art museums ban sketching – something that should surely make anyone whose understanding of art history goes beyond yesterday scream in fear. And it exists in our world of gaming in a similarly berserk form. And so it is that Activision has closed down work on not-for-profit fan creation The Silver Lining.

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After last Sunday’s peek into the peculiar world of German simulations, I thought I’d go mainstream this week and draw attention to a free Portuguese-language action-adventure featuring swordplay, art appreciation, and conversations with Voltaire and Rousseau. Having stumbled through about twenty minutes of Tríade so far, I’m convinced it’s both “The finest Brazilian-made game about the French Revolution I have ever played” and also “Probably not worth downloading”. 
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[I'm entirely unsurprised when going through this again that I used the word "Avuncular" to describe the ever-avuncular Charles Cecil. Bless him. The interview happened as he was revealing Broken Sword 4, and written in an optimistic and I don't think Sam and Max had shown their face yet.]

The Adventure is dea… okay, let’s try again. The number of articles which started exclaiming the death of the most point-and-clickery of genres has gone far past saturation point. Especially because, increasingly, it’s just not true anymore. It’s arguable that Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon was a major stepping stone towards the interesting adventure mini-revival of this twelve months (Looking back at Fahrenheit, and looking forward to Dreamfall and Broken Sword 4). Brilliant, yet far from perfect, Broken Sword 3 (As it’ll be known for the rest of this feature) was an attempt to co-develop for both consoles and PCs, while trying to master the vagaries of direct controls and real 3D. There was a lot to learn for developers Revolution.
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