Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror is a classic, point-and-click adventure game created by Revolution Software. As the 1997 sequel to the 1996 hit Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (Circle of Blood in the US), Broken Sword II is the last of the series’ four games that would use 2D sprites.

Broken Sword II tasks players with guiding the series’ main character, patent lawyer George Stobbart, through his adventures with his journalist girlfriend, Nico Collard. Though almost twelve years have passed since the game’s original release, Broken Sword II is still one of the finest adventure games available today. This is due in no small part to its outstanding voice work, scripting, and direction coupled with plenty of humor, mystery, and intrigue throughout the story. Player frustration and bewilderment is kept to a minimum by way of accessible and satisfying puzzles. There are a few brain teasers and situations where players will need to think and act quickly lest they end up on the business end of a gun, but there’s nothing as obtuse as duct-taping cell phones to cats or quicktime events.
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The latest Steam Weekend Sale for February 20th through the 22nd is debuting a new indie game bundle for just $9.99. Inside the pack are several games that have been featured here at Downloadable Suicide including Eets, Trials 2 and the recently expanded Gravitron 2. Also included in the package are I-Fluid and the multiplayer version of the award-winning RTS Darwinia, Multiwinia. After the sale, the bundle (if it still exists) will cost $44.95.

Chaos Theory is an independent casual game created by German developer blurredvision. The objective of each level in the game is to populate particle collectors with magnetically charged particles. Objects placed throughout each level, each with their own behavior and rules, will help get the particles to their destination. Ample dexterity, short term memory, and timing will be called upon to complete most of the later levels.

Tutorials which introduce new mechanics are peppered throughout Chaos Theory’s levels. This applied-learning helps difficulty ramp up at a pretty even pace through about the first third of the game, but a close relationship with the “retry” or “skip” button will quickly develop thereafter. While solving levels is rewarding in its own right, there are also Steam achievements and a level editor bundled for enthusiasts.
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We have two zero guest passes left for The Ship to give away. The game is unorthodox, but brilliant. It’s set during the early 1900s on various luxury cruise liners. Each passenger is given another passenger’s name. They are then supposed to seek out that person and murder them. Various murder weapons are given cash bonuses if you can find and use them. Meanwhile, you have to take care of your character while navigating the ship on the hunt. This mechanic is not too unlike The Sims (but with murder!). What keeps things interesting here is that you never know who your murderer is and because you have to take care of your character and find useful weapons, you may leave yourself vulnerable at times. It gives me a surprisingly strong sense of paranoia. (good paranoia!)

There’s various gameplay modes with support up to 32 players, with optional bots. That last part is important because there’s only roughly 50 players on at any given time. The bots are fun to play against in my opinion, but that may be a no-go for some. If that’s the case, you may want to wait for the possibly more popular The Ship 2. I love the game, personally. (we’re currently considering this game for a feature)

The game costs $10-20 (barring a sale), depending on what you want and where you get it.

For this weekend only, the DoSu-featured independent game Gish is on sale for $3.99 on Impulse, StarDock’s burgeoning competitor to Valve’s Steam service. Gish on Impulse usually costs $19.95 as opposed to Steam’s $9.99, which is why it isn’t linked in our database.

If you’ve never used the Impulse service before, it’s very similar to Steam. You can browse and purchase games as well as download demos either from their website or from within the Impulse client. Games you own show up within the client and can be downloaded there. One key difference from Steam is that the Impulse client does not need to be running in order to play your games; there isn’t even a background process for authentication. Pricing, game selection and community features leave a bit to be desired when compared to Steam, but it’s still a fine place to purchase games when the price is right.

To make some sense out of the second half of the title, I also wanted to bring up a relevant item from Edmund McMillen, creator of Gish. This is a Cry for Help is a CD collection of ten years worth of Edmund’s work as an independent artist. The CD includes 17 games (including Gish), 15 comics and a ton of extras including artwork and animations. While some games – such as Cunt – are flash games which can be played for free through a browser, I felt the collection was worth purchasing not only for the sake of convenience, but to support the creator as well. If you’re thinking of buying Gish anyway, I suggest getting this CD instead as Gish is included and it will only cost you $10 plus shipping.

An update for Gravitron 2 has just been released in the form of a 15 level map pack. These new levels can be accessed from the game’s main menu by cycling the “Map Pack” setting. Be advised that starting a game on the new map pack will overwrite your progress on the original map pack and you’ll have to start over.

Steam users will get this update pushed to them automatically. If you purchased Gravitron 2 directly from the developer’s site you’ll now find a patch available there.

1UP.com produces many fine gaming podcasts such as 1UP Yours, Retronauts and LAN Party (previously GFW Radio). While they are all worth listening to, the podcast formerly known as EGM Live and currently known as 1UP FM offers something unique: The Backlog.

The Backlog is a feature at the tail end of each week’s episode where some 1UP editors get together to discuss some cult classic games that the majority of gamers probably skipped in favor of some of the more well-marketed releases of their time. The game that the editors play is voted on by the community in forum polls. The editors all play separately, on their own time, often on differing systems. Meeting each week, for as many weeks as it takes, they discuss their progress and give their thoughts on the games. Each segment runs for about thirty minutes or more. So far Backlog has featured Shadow of the Colossus, Psychonauts, Indigo Prophecy (AKA Fahrenheit), and STALKER. Special guests relevant to each game are not a rarity. During the final segment for Psychonauts they were joined by lead designer Tim Schafer. After playing Indigo Prophecy they interviewed producer Constantine Hantzopoulos. I don’t believe they had a special guest for Shadow of the Colossus or STALKER; it’s likely that a language barrier was to blame.

If you’re wondering why I’m turning you on to this now, it’s because this week on the 12/01/08 episode of 1UP FM (at 73:15!) began the discussion of Beyond Good & Evil. You may recall BG&E being featured here at Downloadable Suicide as a cheap game that you need to play back in June. Did you play? Doing so has never made more sense than it does now.