Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments

As one of the most famous detectives in fictional history, Sherlock Holmes has often been a fine video game protagonist. The series produced by Frogwares, though, includes Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments. This release was brought out in 2014 and has been released numerous times since on various platforms. The game puts you into the late 1800s and drops you into London, leaving you with a game that is full of depth, story, and choices to make. Is this the kind of invocative adventure, though, that you are likely to enjoy?

A mystery well worth tying yourself up in

Given the massive amount of source material to take from, it should be little surprise that this game comes packed with interesting details. taking much of its inspiration from the Arthur Conan Doyle stories to begin with, the game leaves you in the London suburbs. Here, you will be expected to make choices to find the right culprit for a series of crimes. It is up to you to find the right person and then either absolve or condemn them for their actions. Across six cases, you will be expected to overcome a series of red herrings and challenges that might leave you to feel like you have barked up the wrong tree. The story is full of interesting twists an d turns, and will expect you to be pretty specific and thorough in your investigations.

A massive improvement for the series (7.5/10)

If we are honest, we were never huge fans of other Sherlock Holmes games. Some felt rushed, others felt years out of date in terms of their visuals and mechanics. This game, though, was a positive boost for the series. It showed a big increase in the atmosphere, the gameplay, and the visuals as a whole. The games overall change, though, takes us away from the idea of a virtuous Holmes and focuses more on a man who is happy to break every rule going and manipulate those to get the results he needs.

It’s a good take on the character, showing you to be an amoral character who just wants to get results. It’s intriguing in that it puts you in various positions where you need to be a moral judge and jury all at once – this will force you to have to really think closely about what you are doing, and why you are doing it.

The main challenges we probably found with the game was that some of the actual cases seem to come down to very circumstantial evidence. Unlike other detective games such as Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, here you feel like half of the time you are winning a case based on the most unsatisfying forms of evidence possible.

Pros:

• Big improvement on visuals, detail, and atmosphere compared to other games
• Good variety of cases help to keep you thinking and ahead of the challenges

Cons:

• Lacks the kind of payoff for the end deductions in cases you would want