Great, laid-back experience with a unique atmosphere and a great story on top of it all.
The game begins with a short movie that mentions something about some sort of power that is building to a peak. After that we are introduced to George, who is flying to Congo to see someone about a patent but trouble strikes again (under the form of lightning) and the plane crashes. And our last stop is Paris where we witness the murder of a computer hacker, who apparently knew too much about the afore mentioned power and had to be eliminated. But by whom? After the intro we are ready to jump right into the action. It's worth noting that for the most part you will play as George, but once in a while you'll get to play as a french journalist by the name of Nico Collard, an older friend of George's.
So you start off as George and your first objective is to get out of the plane wreckage, but it's not that easy as the plane is balanced on the edge of a cliff. The first thing you'll notice are the game's mechanics. Broken Sword 3 doesn't use the usual point-and-click interface that most adventure games use, instead you use the arrow keys to control movement and the "W-A-S-D" keys to perform actions. For example, when you stand next to an object you will get a few options: examine it by using the "D" key or pick it up by using the "S" key. You can then access it via your inventory (default is "I" key). Also, your HUD will tell you exactly what kind of action you can perform on an object (or person). That's all, simple isn't it? But how does it feel? Pretty good would be the answer. It's intuitive and although the directions feel a bit funky at times, the system works great.
Of course, the whole game revolves around puzzle-solving and the puzzles are pretty common sense. I encountered few difficulties along the way, you just need to search every square inch of the level for clues and such. Also, the story and characters are an integral part of the game experience and in this regard Broken Sword 3 is a big success. Although the plot revolves around a sinister plan to destroy the world, the vibe of the game is pretty positive, thanks to George and Nico and their positive personalities. Also, some of their lines are really great (and funny too), actually, dialogs in general are good examples of great writing. It's definitely the aspect I enjoyed the most.
The game excels in terms of graphics and sound too. Its vividly colored graphics add more color to the already "colored" atmosphere; it's a colored game, what can I say... The sound also gets a thumbs-up for the excellent voice-acting, the good ambient sounds and the great music. The game runs perfectly stable, I haven't encountered any bugs or issues and on top of that, it's not demanding on the hardware.
So overall, Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon is an excellent game that is also something many modern games forget to be: FUN!!! Yes, it's fun! It has excellent writing, good puzzles, intuitive controls and two amazing protagonists. A well deserved 8.5 is in order... and a warm recommendation too.