Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror Review

Point and click adventures seem to have found a great home on the App store. Recent hits like Gobliiiins and Broken Sword 1 have shown that there's clearly a market for well told point and click tales. Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror, much like its prequel Broken Sword, offers a hugely entertaining adventure that's bound to enthral.

George Stobbart, the charismatic but foolhardy hero of the original, is back again. He's in even more trouble as he uncovers an ancient artifact alongside his unrequited love Nico. As they discover more and more about the artifact, they're thrust into a world of intrigue and must travel all across the world from Paris to London to the rather quirkily named Quaramonte city. If you loved the original Broken Sword like I did, you'll adore this. It's more of the same with a sharp sense of humor and plenty of conspiracy theories and fascinating story development. The return of a few old 'favourites' such as Andre Lobineau and more are there too.

The point and click controls are spot on as was the case with the original game. Holding your finger on the screen also reveals what can be interacted with which is rather handy, especially on the small iPhone screen. There's no doubt that this game would look particularly nice on the big screen of an iPad but I didn't feel like I was suffering on the iPhone by any means.

The Remastered suffix in the title mostly relates to minor improvements more than anything else. Unlike the original release, there's now a built in hint system which you can use as often or as infrequently as you like. A comic book style interface pops up during conversations with some appropriate character animations to boot. There's also the kind addition of Game Center achievements which are rather snazzy. One very convenient feature is that you can upload your save files to a DropBox account which takes seconds to set up, you then need never worry about losing your save file. Even better, you can always pick up where you left off if you're lucky enough to own both an iPhone and a iPad as this is an universal app.

Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror is a fantastic game. The story feels as fresh and as entertaining as it did back in the day, and the slightly improved graphics are much appreciated. Many hours of entertaining storytelling lie ahead.