Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror (1997). Play online

Summary

Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror is a classic point‑and‑click adventure that lets you control George Stobbart – and occasionally Nicole – through a 2‑D world using a simple interface. Every object you right‑click yields a description or a clue, and you can combine inventory items with the scenery or characters to untangle the puzzles, while conversation trees guide you with hints. The game runs on Revolution Software’s Virtual Theatre engine, the last title to use that technology, giving its hand‑drawn backgrounds a fluid, cartoon‑ish feel reminiscent of vintage animation.

While the original 1997 release earned mixed reviews for not matching its predecessor, it became a commercial hit, moving 750 000 copies by August 2000, most of them on the PlayStation where it outperformed sales forecasts. The soundtrack by Barrington Pheloung, supplemented by Bob Sekar’s closing score, adds orchestral depth to the quirky tone. A 2010s remastered edition stripped away the quirks of the old version and now boasts favorable critical praise, letting both longtime fans and newcomers experience the humor and danger without the original’s bugs.

Storyline

Six months after the events of *The Shadow of the Templars*, George Stobbart returns to Paris for his father's funeral and reunites with Nicole Collard, who has received a mysterious Mayan stone. They meet archaeologist Professor Oubier, but are ambushed; Nicole is kidnapped and George is trapped in a burning room. He escapes, learns she’s held at a Condor Transglobal warehouse in Marseilles, and rescues her. Nicole reveals the company’s head, Karzac, is after the stone for unknown reasons, and Oubier works for him.

The duo travel to Quaramonte City, where President Grasiento and her son Raoul collude with Karzac on a secret jungle excavation. After a helicopter attack, Nicole is poisoned by a snake and cured by a local shaman, who explains the stone is one of three that can trap the god Tezcatlipoca before a solar eclipse. George hunts the second stone in the Caribbean, while Nicole chases the third in London; Oubier tries to steal it but is killed by Karzak.

Back in Quaramonte, they find the jungle village burned and retrieve the stones, rescuing a dwarf named Titipoco. Inside a Mayan pyramid they solve traps, replace the stones, and watch Karzak die as Tezcatlipoca is forced back into the mirror. George secures the final stone, the eclipse ends, and the world is saved in *Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror*.