Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror

Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror builds on the success of the first instalment just a year later and moves the duo George Stobbart and Nicole Collard from European cities to Central America. The game opens with a break-in at Nicole's flat, after which the journalist is kidnapped, and George sets off following a trail made up of Mayan artefacts, antiquities dealers and a cult trying to awaken an ancient deity. The story again alternates between the two heroes and once more moves somewhere between a gripping adventure and dry humour.

The controls remain classic point-and-click with a simple cursor and inventory, but the game reduces the ways to die and is generally more forgiving. The puzzles grow out of the environment and mostly make sense; a few of them involve cooperation between the two characters or timing, which brought a bit more variety to the series. The structure is more linear and the pace brisk, so the playthrough is noticeably shorter than its predecessor's and can be finished over a few evenings without the feeling that the story is dragging anywhere needlessly. Technically it was again a two-dimensional game with hand-drawn backgrounds, this time with a richer palette of jungle and city locations, released on CD for DOS and Windows and running without trouble on the Pentiums of the day.

The art direction is just as accomplished as in the first game, the character animation even smoother, and the orchestral music with a Latin American flavour supports the change of setting well. The voice acting stayed, and the main characters kept their tone, so the series feels cohesive. Contemporary critics received the game well, though a common complaint was that it doesn't surprise much and is more a faithful sequel than a step forward. But the reverse is true too: anyone who loved the first instalment got exactly what they expected. Today the second part is part of the widely available re-releases, and together with the first it forms a pair that can be recommended even to complete newcomers to the genre.