If you fondly remember that golden era where graphic adventure games were at their peak, with Lucasarts churning out one classic after another and other developers following suit, then this could just be your lucky day. As far as the younger generation goes, however, the sedentary pace combined with largely cerebral gaming might not be enough to hold their attention.

Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon is hopefully the beginning of a revival for the true graphic adventure, where action is mostly forgone and the order of the day is problem solving and puzzles. I know, I know, forgoing the action seems like a very foreign concept in these days of racing and shooting but it's a refreshing chance of pace. And it's not as though there isn't any action in the game; indeed you begin trapped in a crashed aeroplane perched atop a cliff and face danger at every turn along your epic quest to save the world from destruction at the hands of a madman. It's just that you won't have entirely direct control over events, most of which unfold via non-interactive cut scenes.

You play not one but two characters, American patent lawyer George Stobbart and French journalist Nico Collard, who start off at opposite ends of the world investigating different crimes that bring them together on the same case. The story begins in impressive fashion and after seeing a mysterious old priest who informs us that the end of the world could be near, we are spirited away to the Congo where an aeroplane is flying over the jungle. The graphics are very good, hitting a halfway point between a stylised comic book feel and realism, which works perfectly and is very evocative of the old-style graphic adventure and a clear evolution of the concept. Gone are the static, painted backdrops, replaced with three-dimensional areas that you can fully explore to your heart's content.

We join George and Australian pilot Harry on their way to the Congo, where George is to meet a professor about a patent. As the plane flies over the jungle the combination of the sound of the plane's engine, the detail in the trees below and the rousing soundtrack creates a movie-esque feeling to proceedings that is kept up throughout the game. George and Harry are discussing women when a terrible storm comes out of nowhere and Harry is forced to crash land the plane after it is struck by lightning. Perched precariously on a cliff edge, the camera moves inside the plane and the game begins.

The format of gameplay in Broken Sword is pretty simple, yet the puzzles and challenges you encounter along the way can be fiendishly tricky. Each level of the game is played out as a scene at a specific location and each location is packed with puzzles but is also self-contained, meaning that everything you need to solve all the puzzles and progress the story is somewhere in your current area. This is very helpful, as you know that you don't have to worry about finding objects further down the road and then backtracking to a previous location to try and solve a puzzle you left behind. This isn't to say that you don't return to locations however, indeed almost every location in the game is visited more than once, but when you do you'll be exploring new and different areas and circumstances will have changed. For example, in the Congo you end up in a manmade cave that has a wall with a strange indentation in it. At the time you think little of it, as you escape the cave via a secret passage, but later on you come into possession of an artefact with the same markings as the cave wall. You end up back in the Congo and use the artefact to reveal a secret door but you don't choose to go back; once your character realises what the artefact is for, the game takes you there automatically. In this way you can keep your eyes peeled to notice clues and details that will be relevant later without travelling from one location to another just to blindly try some obscure combination to see if it works.

Anyway, getting back to the plane, as you make your way forward to the cockpit to see if Harry's okay the whole plane begins to tilt forward. Fortunately there is a moveable crate that you can push to the back of the plane to keep it from falling. This is the start of a series of increasingly complex block puzzles that will need intelligence and patience to complete. Once at the front of the plane you find that you can't wake Harry and all you have to hand is a bottle opener and a bottle of beer. The solution is simple, just open the beer bottle and waft it under Harry's nose (he's Australian and permanently drunk, remember) and he comes round straight away. You send him to the back of the plane to keep it balanced whilst you break the window in the cockpit and climb out of it to safety. Which you almost do, until Harry runs forward prematurely, causing the plane to topple over the edge! Luckily you and Harry land safely on rocky ledges just below the cliff's edge and thus comes the first of a series of physical puzzles, where you must work your way across a series of precarious ledges and find a route to safety above.

Broken Sword features a very intuitive and simple system of interacting with your surroundings in the form of a context sensitive on-screen display. There are four empty circles representing the four buttons on your controller and when you walk near something you can interact with, an icon appears in one of the circles. If you walk near an object you can look at it or pick it up, whilst with blocks you get the option to move them or climb on top of them. Anything of interest in the surroundings gets a little twinkling star on it when you come near, again showing various actions you can take. With doors you can not only open them, but you can also examine them and listen to see if you can hear anything on the other side. You can peer through windows too.

When it's possible to carry out an action then again an icon will appear and tell you, often requiring you to use a specific item from your inventory rather than just simple activation. This system is spot on and so easy to use that in no time you'll be moving blocks around and swinging your way across ledges like a pro. Actions to jump up to a ledge, hang down from a ledge, jump across a gap or sidle along a narrow ledge all appear in as icons and you cannot accidentally run off a ledge and fall to your death, meaning that you can relax and find your route without fear of a stupid and pointless death along the way and this is a very welcome approach to the action. The downside is that there is never any risk and you do feel a little detached from the action, but like I said the emphasis here is on puzzling, so finding your way is more satisfying than actually carrying it out.

You have full control of your character as you run around the various environments, combing the area for any sign of a twinkling clue, but instead of a full third person perspective the designers have gone for the cinematic style pioneered by Resident Evil, so every location is viewed from a set angle with static and moving cameras viewing the action. This creates a good atmosphere but also creates problems, as the angle changes so much that when you're running along you often go veering off the wrong way due to a sudden change of viewpoint for your character. It's probably a little more pronounced than similar problems in Resident Evil and can be quite annoying at times but it never causes a fatal mistake, so it is something you get used to.

The backdrops are very detailed but aren't a patch on Resident Evil (which is possibly the closest thing to Broken Sword around at the moment, but minus the killing and gore) and they can look quite jagged and grainy as you run around a room and they scale in size. Still, every location generally looks luscious and they are so packed with details and things to examine (with plenty of irrelevant stuff to look at so the clues aren't too easy to find) that this isn't too big a deal. The animation on George and Nico is very fluid and it's a pleasure to watch them push blocks around and climb up ledges. The cut scenes are cinematic too and always packed with plenty of action just in case you're feeling a bit starved for it after all that puzzle solving.

There are other aspects to the gameplay that crop up from time to time that do require a bit more in the way of quick reactions and control over your character. In a few instances an action icon will suddenly appear during a cut scene and you must press it very quickly to avoid death. This keeps you on your toes but it's annoying if you fail a few times and have to watch the cut scene over and over. Sometimes you must run for it and be very quick to get away from armed guards or escape from within a collapsing cave, with even a small hesitation resulting in death. The game autosaves however and won't make you replay too much if you do die, which is definitely a good thing. The other element of gameplay brought to the fore at times is stealth, but proper stealth rather than sneaking up behind someone and slitting their throat. George and Nico aren't fighters and don't wield guns, so in some areas the camera angle will switch to a high up bird's eye view and you'll have to sneak around avoiding patrolling guards and dogs by sticking to the shadows and keeping objects in between you and their line of sight. These sections are a different kind of puzzle and the direct control over your character's fate is refreshing after all that item finding and problem solving.

The sound in this game is excellent, with a range of totally realistic sound effects to fit your actions in the game and the voice acting is great, going for a light-hearted approach with plenty of subtle comedy that keeps things from getting too stale and serious. Most of the characters you'll meet are real clichés but they are clearly deliberately so and poke fun at themselves in a way that makes them likeable. George and Nico are very likeable leads and they have good chemistry together with their constant banter, while the evil and withered Susarro and his psychotic henchwoman Petra are villains through and through. There are plenty of amusing personalities to meet, such as the Parisian traffic warden who is actually an undercover member of a UFO cult that believes the aliens are coming, a strutting English colonel, a new-age hippy, an Irish TV presenter with a taste for alcohol that rivals Harry's and many more, plus they are all well-voiced, likeable characters. The music is great in cut scenes but somewhat lacking in the game and I think that more background music with plenty of variety would have created a better atmosphere throughout.

You'll visit a range of locations on your journey, including the Congo, Paris, Egypt, Prague and even Glastonbury and there are many areas to explore such as trap-ridden temples, an abandoned theatre, city streets, parks, buildings, caves, sewers and more. The regular change of scenery keeps things fresh and some of the puzzles will have you scratching your head for quite a while. Whilst some are pretty obvious, others are downright obscure so you'd best have a walkthrough guide handy if you're the impatient sort. Sometimes you must combine items in your inventory before you can use them in the most unusual ways (in one area you must put a stick of grease paint in a paper cup then use the heat from a bright lamp to melt it!) but if you keep trying combinations that seem reasonable you'll hit the solution in the end.

Whilst Broken Sword has a lot going for it, that's not to say that it's perfect and it definitely won't be for everyone. It took a while for me to become engrossed in the game and the slow pace can be very tedious at times. When you get stuck and end up running around the same areas, checking the same things over and over only to find you completely missed something like a low wall to climb it can be very frustrating but this does increase the satisfaction when you persevere and find the solution. The block puzzles can a bit of a chore to carry out as well (dragging big stone blocks around isn't exactly fast work) and despite the thoughtful additions of physical puzzles, stealth, climbing and quick reaction moments, it can become repetitive at times. Some gamers will find its slow pace too boring to bother with it whilst others will be driven mad by the trickier puzzles. The intrusive, frequent and long loading times break up the action too and become a real bane at times. Still, the story moves along at a good pace and with a couple of murders right at the start it all builds nicely to a spectacular conclusion (yes, there really is a dragon!) The addition of information on the background of the Broken Sword series and the story from the first two games is also a bonus for those who want to know what has gone before.

Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon is an intelligent, engaging and enjoyable graphic adventure that perfectly captures the style of old-school graphic adventures whilst bringing its look and feel bang up to date with luscious graphics and good voice acting. There is a brilliant range of puzzles, from searching for items and combining them to manipulating blocks, negotiating ledges and sneaking past guards and it will tax the wit and lateral thinking of even the smartest of gamers. However, the lack of direct action and slow pace of the game won't be for everyone, so for those of you unfamiliar with the genre it might be best to try before you buy.

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).