Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (2002 video game)

Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars
Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars cover art
Developer(s)	Revolution Software
Publisher(s)	BAM! Entertainment
Director(s)	Charles Cecil
Producer(s)	Steve Ince
Programmer(s)	Tony Warriner
Composer(s)	Ben McCullough
Series	Broken Sword
Platform(s)	Game Boy Advance
Release	NA: March 14, 2002[2] EU: March 22, 2002[1]
Genre(s)	Adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars is an adventure video game developed by Revolution Software and published by BAM! Entertainment for the Game Boy Advance (GBA) handheld game console. It is based on the original game of the same name from 1996. and released in North America and Europe in March 2002.

The designers chose to build the game from the ground up and picking what content from the original was most important to include. A major change from the original version was the control scheme: the original was a point-and-click adventure game using a computer mouse, but in the port, the player uses the GBA's d-pad to control the main character and his actions. The GBA version was later used as the basis for Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - The Director's Cut for convenience reasons. While the second game in the series, Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror, was planned to have a GBA title as well, it was canceled at the last minute when the studio shut down, leaving The Shadow of the Templars as the sole game in the franchise for the GBA.

Broken Sword puts the player in control of George Stobbart, a bystander during a bombing attack at a Paris café that causes the death of a man. He works with investigative journalist Nico Collard to find out the truth being the attack, which leads to him discovering a secret society and its conspiracy. Broken Sword received generally positive reception, with the biggest praise tending to be towards the plot and characters. The new control layout was praised as well, with a Hardcore Gamer writer claiming that he would have used it on the PC version if it was available. The biggest complaints tend to be directed at content limited by the GBA's comparatively weak system capabilities, including graphical fidelity, audio quality, a lack of voice acting, and missing content from the original. It was also criticized for multiple game-breaking bugs.