Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror - Remastered (PC)

Developer:

Revolution

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Release Date:

1997

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Systems:

Win, OS X, iOS, Android

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Looking back over the games I've played for my site over the last seven years, I've noticed a pattern forming: I've played a horror game for Halloween on every odd-numbered year, while even-numbered years have gotten games like Snake's Revenge and Saints Row IV at the end of October instead. Seems to me that I've got a bit of a tradition forming here... but I despise pointless traditions, so this year on Super Adventures I'm breaking the pattern by playing Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror - Remastered! I don't think I'll be seeing any ghosts or zombies in this one.

I'm torn here, because I really want to call it Broken Sword II, but there's clearly no 'II' in that logo up there. There was in the original game's logo, but they've taken it away for the Remastered version, because I guess knowing what order things go in only confuses modern audiences. Personally, I'm more confused by the subtitle. Is it referring to a mirror that's recently been used as a murder weapon? A mirror people that go out to when they fancy a quick smoke?

Wait, I forgot to mention that I'm playing the game on Halloween because it was released on October 31st, 1997, the same day as Curse of Monkey Island and the Blade Runner adventure game, so all three are twenty years old today! Well okay, technically this is only seven years old because I'm playing the Remastered version on Steam. I would've played my original CD version but I've lost it. I’ve checked shelves, I've checked boxes, I’ve checked other boxes buried underneath boxes, and it seems like the bloody game’s just vanished.

Funny thing is, when I bought the game the discs were already damaged and some of the video files wouldn’t copy when I installed it. Fortunately, when ScummVM came out there was a compatibility problem with the video codec so Revolution put revised cutscene files up for free and I could finally play this game I'd owned for years! I actually still have that install on my hard drive ready to go, but I lost half the files in a hard drive failure and now ScummVM won’t even recognise it.

It’s like fate doesn’t want me to play this game, and it doesn't care how much physical storage media it has to break to keep me from it.

Tales of Symphonia (PC)

Developer:

Namco Tales Studio

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Release Date:

2003 (Jp)

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Systems:

GameCube, PS2, PS3, Windows

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This week on Super Adventures I'm looking at this title screen wondering what 'Custom' does. Is that the 'Options' option maybe? Now I'm wondering if that other Tales game I played a while back did this as well; is it a Tales tradition, or are they rebelling against standard video game terminology for the sake of being weird?

I've only really played one of these games before, Tales of Destiny II on the PlayStation, so I went back and checked and it turns out that it has 'Customize' in place of 'options', so I see what they've done here. It also turns out that I played that six years ago now, so that explains why I've forgotten everything about how Tales games play. All I remember is that the trees looked very nice and by the look of this title screen that definitely is a Tales tradition.

Here's a fact that'll shock absolutely no one: Tales of Symphonia here is the 5th game in the long running Tales series, and yet it's the first to have been released in Europe! I'm surprised to learn that they've already reached game number 16 since then though. It's kind of hard to keep track of where they're up to as they don't usually put numbers on the games, and when they do you can't trust 'em. If you're curious, Tales of Destiny II is the 3rd game... and Tales of Destiny 2 is the 4th.

(Clicking pics will make them big.)

Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (PC)

Developer:

Revolution

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Release Date:

1996

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Systems:

Windows, Mac, GBA, PSX

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This week on Super Adventures I'm playing Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars. Not to be confused with Shadow of the Beast, Shadow of the Colossus, Shadows of the Empire, Shadow of Memories/Destiny or the Christian Slater/John Travolta movie 'Broken Arrow'. Wow, I haven't seen that film in forever, I should give it a rewatch some time.

In America the game was originally given a different subtitle: Circle of Blood. I guess shadows and Templars just didn't seem as marketable back then in those pre DaVinci Code/Assassin's Creed days. In 2009 it got another subtitle: Director's Cut, as the game was remade with extra content for PCs, phones and the Nintendo systems of the time.

This is Revolution Software's third adventure game, after Lure of the Temptress and Beneath a Steel Sky, but I've also written about In Cold Blood as I'm getting to them all out of order. Plus it's the second graphic adventure I've played this year about the Knights Templar, as I took a look at Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade back in January. There, I think I've just broke the record for the amount of games I've mentioned in an intro! I'll say Monkey Island as well just to make sure, seeing as it's inevitably going to get brought up at some point anyway.

Alright, I'm going to give Broken Sword an hour or two and take lots of screenshots, while writing up what I've been doing and what I thought about it. Same deal as ever.

Kingdom: The Far Reaches / Thayer's Quest (MS-DOS)

I've been looking through my list of 'K' games and there sure are a whole lot of titles beginning with Knight, King and Kingdom in there, so whatever I end up going with I'll be seeing a lot of blokes with swords over the next two weeks. Today's game is Kingdom: The Far Reaches, AKA. Thayer's Quest or just Reaches, and it looks like I'll even get a castle or two in this one.

Kingdom has been sitting in my GOG.com library, taunting me, ever since I bought it in a pay what you want Interplay bundle two years ago. I've been putting off playing it though because at a glance it kind of looks a CD-I port. But no longer! Today you and I are going to find out what this game actually is, and hopefully figure out if it's any good while we're at it.

BCV: Battle Construction Vehicles (PS2)

Today's B game is... BCV: Battle Construction Vehicles! AKA. Kensetsu Juuki Kenka Batoru: Buchigire Kongou!! Man I wish I could've made this title screen animated, it'd look so pretty with the cherry blossom blowing in the breeze.

This was one of the PlayStation 2's earliest games, out in Japan before the console had even launched in North America or Europe, though it took three whole years before it got an English release. Sadly the game never did make it over to the US, but it did make it over onto my shelf somehow; which is weird because I definitely didn't buy it. It just sort of appeared there one day out of nowhere. I'm hoping that if I play it for a bit and discover its dark secrets it might disappear again and become someone else's problem.

I do know that it was developed by Artdink, makers of A-Train, No One Can Stop Mr Domino, and a whole bunch of anime tie-in games. Though it's been published by Midas, which is kind of a big warning sign to me as... well it seems harsh to say that everything they touch turns to shit, but I haven't had a lot of luck with their games so far.

Mega Man X4 (PSX)

Today on Super Adventures, because YOU demanded it, I'm taking a quick look at another Mega Man game! Last year I played the original Mega Man on the NES (plus a game claiming to be Mega Man for DOS), but I thought I'd skip the others and jump right ahead to the PlayStation era and the fourth of the Mega Man X spin-off series, mostly because I was asked to.

The first three Mega Man X games had been developed for the Super Nintendo, though X3 eventually found its way to PC and the shiny new PlayStation and Saturn systems. But by '97 the SNES had retired, so the series jumped to the fifth gen machines exclusively.

I was kind of surprised to see that Sony America let another childish low-tech antiquated 2D platformer slip out onto their edgy mature 3D game system, so I looked it up and it seems they weren't overly happy about it. It apparently took sustained pestering from Capcom before they relented and allowed the game to get a US release.

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 (PC)

Huh, is that red rabbit's arm bracer melting? Oh wait, I think that's actually his tongue dripping.

It's been over two years since I played the original Jazz Jackrabbit for the site and I figured it was about time that I got around to the sequel. Plus I keep getting requests for it, so that was another big hint that it's overdue.

Tequila & Boom-Boom (MS-DOS) - Guest Post

Surprise! Hey everyone, I'm back! At least for today. As if I would miss Obscure-As-All-Hell Animated Cat Game August!

Previously on Animated Cat Game August, we've had the piratey PC platformer Claw and the Scandinavian sci-fi scrolling shooter Interpose!

And now, from Italian developers Dynabyte, it's Tequila & Boom-Boom.

Superfrog (Amiga)

Today I'm taking a look at classic Amiga platformer Superfrog, made by classic Amiga developer Team17. You may remember them from such games as Worms, Worms United, Worms 2, Worms Armageddon, Worms World Party, Worms 3D, Worms Blast, Worms Forts, Worms 4: Mayhem, Worms: Open Warfare, Worms: Open Warfare 2, Worms: A Space Oddity, Worms 2: Armageddon, Worms Reloaded, Worms: Battle Islands, Worms: Ultimate Mayhem, Worms: Revolution...

I have to admit, this isn't my first attempt at the game, as I used to play this when I was young. But I was even worse at games back then than I am now, so I probably didn't even make it past the first world.

Outlaws (PC) - Guest Post

Last FPS Friday, I played Behind The Iron Gate, which was all blue and full of robots and misery.

Today, it's Lucasarts' Outlaws! If there's any robots in this, I'll eat my massively oversized wide-brimmed cowboy hat.

Claw (PC) - Guest Post

This time last year, I played Interpose, a naff shmup with animated cats in it. It was hard work finding a game that could top that in terms of cat quotient, but I think I've found one in Claw, aka Kapitan Pazur.

Look at the box! (Mobygames link) How could anyone not want to play that!

Kishin Douji Zenki FX: Vajura Fight (PC-FX)

This is the first time I've played a PC-FX game, and I'm curious to see what this system can do.

Akumajō Dracula X: Chi no Rondo / Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (TurboGrafx-CD)

Also known as... Castlevania: Rondo of Blood.