![]() If Umberto Eco’s unabashedly intellectual approach doesn’t strike your fancy, you can always turn to The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown’s decidedly more populist take on the theme from 2003 - one of the most successful novels of the 21st century, the founder of a veritable cottage industry of sequels, knock-offs, and cinematic adaptations. In his review of it back in 1982, Anthony Burgess famously wrote that “it is typical of my unregenerable soul that I can only see this as a marvelous theme for a novel.” Many others have felt likewise over the years since. It’s a rare literary beast: a supposedly nonfiction book full of patent nonsense that remains thoroughly entertaining to read even for the person who knows what a load of tosh it all is. Charles Cecil freely admits that it was The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail that really got his juices flowing. The Knights Templar were formed to guard the holy bloodline, a purpose they continue to fulfill. He had rather run away with Mary Magdalene and fathered children with her, creating a secret bloodline that has persisted to the present day. It connected the Knights Templar to another, more blasphemous conspiracy theory: that Jesus Christ had not been celibate as stated in the New Testament, nor had his physical form actually died on the cross. Three Anglo authors ingeniously expanded upon his deceptions - whether they were truly taken in by them or merely saw them as a moneymaking opportunity is unclear - in 1982 in the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. In the 1960s, the old stories were revived and adapted into a form suitable for modern pop culture by a brilliant French fabulist named Pierre Plantard, who went so far as to plant forged documents in his homeland’s Bibliothèque Nationale. Meanwhile other conspiracy theories - sometimes separate from, sometimes conjoined with the aforementioned - have posited that the Knights left a fabulous hidden treasure behind somewhere, which perchance included even the Holy Grail of Arthurian legend. People have been claiming for centuries that the order wasn’t really destroyed at all, that it just went underground in one sense or another. After that, it played no further role in history. It was founded in 1119 and torn up root and branch by a jealous King Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V in 1312. Our respectable books of history tell us that the Knights Templar was a rich and powerful but relatively brief-lived chivalric order of the late Middle Ages in Europe. Thus was born Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars. Why not do something like that? Perhaps the Knights Templar would make a good starting point. Chasing a trail of literally and figuratively buried evidence across time and space… it seemed ideal for an adventure game. Brennan said that he had recently struggled through Umberto Eco’s infamously difficult postmodern novel Foucault’s Pendulum, an elaborate satire of the conspiratorial view of history which is so carefully executed that its own conspiracy theories wind up becoming more convincing than most good-faith examples of the breed. The amorphous notion began to take a more concrete form after he broached the idea over dinner one evening to Sean Brennan, his main point of contact at Revolution’s publisher Virgin Interactive. ![]() “York is a very historical city.” Charles Cecil, Revolution’s chief motivating force in a creative sense, felt inspired to make a very historical game. “We’re surrounded by history here,” said Revolution co-founder Tony Warriner. ![]() But by the time Revolution turned to the question of a follow-up, they had upped stakes for the stately city of York. Work on Beneath a Steel Sky, the company’s breakthrough graphic adventure, began in Hull, a grim postindustrial town in the north of England, and those environs were reflected in the finished product’s labyrinths of polluted streets and shuttered houses. This is adventure gaming at its very best.The games of Revolution Software bore the stamp of the places in which they were conceived. It’s time to experience George and Nico’s worldwide adventure in a whole new way, with brand new puzzles, hilarious new jokes, and the distinctive, rich story that made the series so deservedly renowned. "Broken Sword: The Director’s Cut" introduces an intricate new narrative thread, alongside the classic story that has charmed millions of players. Guide George and Nico on their globe-spanning adventure, exploring exotic locations, solving ancient mysteries, and thwarting a dark conspiracy to reveal the secret truths of the Knights Templar. One of the all-time classic adventures, multi BAFTA-nominated "Broken Sword: Director's Cut" pitches sassy journalist Nico Collard, and intrepid American George Stobbart into a mysterious journey of intrigue and jeopardy. When Nico Collard is invited to interview statesman Pierre Carchon, she finds herself inextricably drawn into a terrifying conspiracy. ![]()
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