Frogwares' Sherlock Holmes games

[Redlands]

Spoiler

Is the detecting part you're referring to the murder of Simon Hunter? Yeah, they really didn't lead up to that very well.

Spoiler

Was that the bartender? Yeah, I actually liked that part because it reminded me of Murder in Mesopotamia somewhat due to the layout of the room and the courtyard. Then the terrible maze happened and I gave up.

I had my suspicions on the Lieutenant early on (All over an heiress like a cat on a hot tin roof, straight after her father's murder? Please!), but what clinched it was Watson and/or Lestrade complimenting his good character. My immediate reaction was "That's it then. He did it." mostly because of memories of another Christie story.

Spoiler

Peril at End House; Poirot tells Hastings that after Hasting complimented another character's "good man"ness, that Poirot immediately became suspicious of the other character because Hastings instincts are so often wrong.

 

[Infinitron]

OK, finished The Awakened.

It wasn't very good. I mean, it was more of an adventure game than Silver Earring, but the story just wasn't very interesting or "detective-y", even with the Cthulhu elements. And even the puzzles weren't all that.

Also, they were obviously going for a more cinematic approach with this game, but they didn't have the money to really pull it off, so it didn't even look that good.

I think that's enough Holmes for me for now. I'll get to Arsene Lupin, Persian Carpet and Jack the Ripper sometime later.

 

[Darth Roxor]

It wasn't very good.

What

You are fucking nuts.

 

[Infinitron]

It wasn't very good.

What

You are fucking nuts.

Although I don't agree with this review's assessment of the game's areas (I found New Orleans banal and the Black Edelweiss probably the best part of the game), I heartily concur with the conclusion:

And so we finally come to The Awakened's biggest problem. It does some things well and some things not-so-well, but its prevailing characteristic is that is offers very little incentive to go on playing. I said at the beginning that Holmes was "on the trail of a cult of Cthulhu worshippers who have kidnapped various people for use in one of their dark rituals". That wasn't a summary of the early portions of the game; that's basically all there is to the plot. When you hear the names of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.P. Lovecraft, one thing it is reasonable to expect is mystery -- and that is precisely what this game fails to provide. It plays out in a completely predictable fashion, without a single twist or revelation, as Holmes just follows the trail of the evil cultists in order to avert the end of the world -- though he could probably have stayed at 221B and waited for the game's plot to bore Cthulhu to sleep. There are some smaller mysteries along the way, but the game does a poor job at conveying their relevance in the larger picture (apart from providing the clue to the next step). And when you take it for granted that you're facing an army of bloodthirsty weirdos going on a rampage, a murder or two hardly feels surprising or interesting. At the end of the day, when the motive is known and the circumstances irrelevant, determining whether this blood splatter on the left comes from the same person as that blood spatter on the right doesn't feel worth either a backache or a headache.

 

[Gord]

Hm, personally I found Awakened interesting insofar that they managed to keep a certain ambiguity to it regarding the evil cult out to destroy the world. It wasn't really clear if that Lovecraftian stuff was true or just the imagination of the cultists.

Btw. Infinitron , I would recommend Jack the Ripper next, because it's more atmospheric and to-the-point than Arsene Lupin, which, while having some nice parts, drags on a bit eventually.

 

[Infinitron]

Hm, personally I found Awakened interesting insofar that they managed to keep a certain ambiguity to it regarding the evil cult out to destroy the world. It wasn't really clear if that Lovecraftian stuff was true or just the imagination of the cultists.

Btw. Infinitron , I would recommend Jack the Ripper next, because it's more atmospheric and to-the-point than Arsene Lupin, which, while having some nice parts, drags on a bit eventually.

I really enjoyed the "Whodunnit" aspect of Silver Earring. I enjoyed meeting and interacting with a large cast of well developed characters, each with their own motivations and agendas. If you give me a story like that but in the form of an actual adventure game with puzzles, instead of a game where you have to click on all the things in a level before proceeding to the next level, I'll be very pleased.

 

[Gord]

JtR had some nice "Whodunnit" to it, imho. It stays very close to the actual historical facts and manages to weave Holmes into it.
The game introduces you to several (real) suspects for the Ripper murders and let's you investigate them - although it could be considered a bit detrimental that you investigate them somewhat sequentially, not in parallel.
The case it makes against the final "real" JtR makes sense and is quite solid - in fact he is one of the more probable suspects that have been brought up over the years.

I also liked the deduction boards. Does Silver Earring have those?

My biggest complaint is probably that you had to do a lot of busywork for various characters that sometimes seems a bit out of place given the gravity of the situation.
Also one particular riddle was somewhat silly, as it had you rely on pretty specific knowledge of historical facts that were not accessible inside the game, which is bad style, imho.

 

[Infinitron]

No deduction boards. By the way, I've just learned that Mystery of the Persian Carpet is some sort of casual game, so I guess I'll skip that.

 

[Infinitron]

Finished Nemesis/Arsene Lupin. Another flawed game, although overall I enjoyed it more than The Awakened. The Tower of London was a great adventure zone, and the little character development vignettes with Watson that recur throughout the game were nicely done, although it was kind of annoying how much of an idiot he turned out to be in the end.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, they never reveal who Arsene's accomplice was in the first robbery! Did I miss something?

 

[Darth Roxor]

although overall I enjoyed it more than The Awakened

Arsene Lupin was easily the weakest one of the Awakened+ Sherlock games. For the most part it hardly felt like a game, but just a rollercoaster of very obnoxious puzzles that had some plot glued on in the last moment, although I agree that the Tower of London was great, as was the Museum. It also had a cool light-hearted atmosphere compared to all the other ones. But that's all there was to it.

 

[Infinitron]

although overall I enjoyed it more than The Awakened

Arsene Lupin was easily the weakest one of the Awakened+ Sherlock games. For the most part it hardly felt like a game, but just a rollercoaster of very obnoxious puzzles that had some plot glued on in the last moment, although I agree that the Tower of London was great, as was the Museum. It also had a cool light-hearted atmosphere compared to all the other ones. But that's all there was to it.

I will say that I would have probably preferred The Awakened if it managed to sustain the quality of the Black Edelweiss chapter. But instead the game became completely incoherent after that.

A huge New Orleans where you do nothing except engage in a huge QTE-fest chase scene and never even find the guy who robbed you. A corrupt Sheriff who is out to get you, about whom you learn nothing. Instead of raising the stakes and letting you investigate an entire cult like in the Call of Cthulhu story by Lovecraft, all you do is dick around in the mansion of a character who doesn't really matter, talk to his prostitute girlfriend who also doesn't really matter, then take a boat into a swamp where Watson gets to shoot one (1) negro.

And finally there's the random endgame villain whose identity and backstory are basically just a last minute ass pull.

The great thing about Arsene Lupin though is that they worked in references to the cool stuff in the Awakened. I like how Watson still has nightmares and how Barnes the bookshop owner is turning into a creepy Cthulhu cultist.

 

[Suchy]

Goddamnit, I'm trying to play The Testament, but it keeps crashing every five fucking minutes...

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

At the end of the Awakened;

Spoiler

Holmes says he is bothered that the whole Cthulhu affair has "awoken" something sinister, I think he mentioned a person. Who the hell was he? The next game is Arsene Lupin, who was he talking about?

I liked it. Good. Not great. New Orleans had amazing climax, but I love it everywhere. I think I need to watch Treme tonight.

 

[Infinitron]

At the end of the Awakened;

Spoiler

Holmes says he is bothered that the whole Cthulhu affair has "awoken" something sinister, I think he mentioned a person. Who the hell was he? The next game is Arsene Lupin, who was he talking about?

I liked it. Good. Not great. New Orleans had amazing climax, but I love it everywhere. I think I need to watch Treme tonight.

Moriarty, from the asylum, remember?

 

[Infinitron]

Finished Jack the Ripper.

Spoiler

A deranged syphilitic kosher butcher! That's certainly different.

The game is very similar in its structure to Secret of the Silver Earring. The same areas revisited many times and a defined cast of characters and "suspects" that you get to know very well over the course of the story. This is the best way to tell a Sherlock Homes story IMO, as opposed to the "location hopping" approach of The Awakened and Nemesis.

Too bad that like Secret of the Silver Earring, it also has crappy vestigial puzzles. Kind of a waste IMO, that Whitechapel area could have been a lot more. It could have been more of a fun "puzzle solving area" like the Tower of London in Nemesis.

I also thought the obvious fedexing at the beginning of the game was obnoxious. It felt like it was keeping you away from the cool bits of the game - examining the murder scenes. It does ultimately pay off as a way to introduce you to all of the characters and locations, though.

The (non-adventure game/inventory-based) puzzles, the deduction boards and all the other little investigation minigames were pretty fun and helped you feel like you were part of the investigation, even if they were ultimately very easy. I liked that.

The game's historical accuracy is great, and I like how they managed to tell a story that occurs over the course of several months without making continuity errors. Holmes re-reminds people who he hasn't seen for weeks who he is, and also if they only met Watson and not him, or if he was in disguise, etc.

Overall, I can see why people think this is the best Frogwares Sherlock Holmes game, but I can't really say that it's a great adventure game per se. Probably none of them are, so might as well take them for what they are.

 

[Gord]

Finished Jack the Ripper.

Spoiler

A deranged syphilitic kosher butcher! That's certainly different.

It's cool that all (iirc) of the suspects are people that really came up over time as a possible JtR.
The guy that turns out to be the Ripper in the game is one of the more likely suspects that came up over the years, imho.

 

[Infinitron]

Finished Jack the Ripper.

Spoiler

A deranged syphilitic kosher butcher! That's certainly different.

It's cool that all (iirc) of the suspects are people that really came up over time as a possible JtR.
The guy that turns out to be the Ripper in the game is one of the more likely suspects that came up over the years, imho.

Spoiler

I think the Solomonovitch cousins are fictional (Abraham the animal food merchant is a suspect) but the rest are real.

 

[Infinitron]

So, played Testament of Sherlock Holmes.

Boy, was this game's plot kind of derpy! Setting aside the truly bizarre finale and metaplot, taking all those "Holmes abuses Watson" character development scenes from the previous games and basing the entire game around that wasn't a bad idea. BUT, the way Holmes constantly keeps secrets from Watson makes it impossible to feel engaged with the unfolding mystery. Everything feels too random. I also think it allowed the writers to simply be lazy and not explain details that should have been explained. The end result just doesn't feel Holmesy enough.

On the plus side, this game has what I think is probably Frogwares' most refined puzzle implementation yet (both adventure game item-based puzzles and puzzle-puzzles). The adventure game puzzles still aren't exactly great, but more often they use the environment in fun and interesting ways. The puzzle-puzzles, meanwhile, are well-paced and lack any abrupt difficulty spikes necessitating a run for a walkthrough (although you can still skip them if you want). The only bad thing I can say is that the game needed more non-linear areas, where you can solve multiple adventure game puzzle chains at once. Still, the huge size of the game's final area, a fun place where you explore the villain's stronghold and take out his various henchmen one-by-one, almost makes up for this.

Finally, Frogwares stepped up the production quality a lot for this game, which is always nice. Probably the first game in the series that can fool you into thinking it's not LOL EURO BUDGET SHOVELWARE at first. Movement in first person has a slight "simulated" sluggish feel to it now, but it's really not that bad.

tl;dr Decent design, but ffs give me a real Holmes plot next time

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I was going to write a long and interesting piece about these games, but it seems that everyone has already said everything I possibly could about them. At least, that's how my eyes were protecting me while I read the thread:

mediocre story and quite buggy.

It is not perfect. The pacing, I felt, could have been a bit tighter, as I sometimes felt the leads I was pursuing were too tangential to the case. And one puzzle requires knowledge not provided in the game (about dates concerning the American civil war), a puzzle design that Frogwares seems to be fond of and with which I completely disagree when it comes to single player games in general.

I played a bit the silver earring and I found it rather dull

I don't believe the Frogwares games are as good as the Lost Files games... I was just very disappointed by the... zero atmosphere... It feels like you're just among retarded people...you almost feel like you're up against The Riddler, but it just drags on and on seemingly forever... incompetent... and you wonder why such a bright guy would... dumbed down

Far too many "oh, you need item X? do me favor Y first!" fetch quest puzzles... it feels very mundane.

Didn't like them at all. Horrible stories, horrible puzzles, horrible horribleness. Play the oldschool adventure games instead.

settling for sub-par entertainment.

THOSE FROGWARES ADVENTURE GAMES SHIT GAMES STARRING SHERLOCK HOLMES?!!"

all characters including Sherlock are all stupid motherfuckers... they're still a hell way off when it comes to what I want out of an adventure game. What goes as a "puzzle" these days is simply not up to par with what I grew up with.

What the fuck is with all these fetch quests when I'm not actually investigating a murder... this is the most brazen and ridiculous I've ever seen. Do they go away? Please say they go away.

there simply isn't all that much action in the story... this means that JTR is plagued with a lot of puzzles and red herrings which really... look very out of place.

"Hello, I am Sherlock Holmes, world famous detective, please give me information that will allow me to solve your serial killer case."
"Oh, I WILL....once you find my completely unrelated and unimportant bag that I dropped somewhere on account of being a pillock."
"Righto, bag, here I come!"

Seems kinda beneath SH, and the game is full of quests like this.

pixel hunting.

not as good

Mystery of the Mummy is a worthless, worthless piece of shit... it is one of the most boring adventure games I've ever played... in a SHERLOCK HOLMES DETECTIVE GAME they stop to have one of those puzzles where you fill in a grid with white or black squares based on the numbers in the rows and columns.

why

It is coming out on consoles also

I was wondering why I was seeing TV commercials for this one, which I immediately took as a bad omen.

prepare to get stuck on several occasions for 20+ minutes searching for an item in a cluttered environment. It will happen

a “stupid” approach

what am I reading...?

My boner has gone away.

Dogshit... Faggotassery... Totally homoqueer!

derpidation... there was A LOT of pixel hunting going on

God damn...

Jebus fuck! The deadly cancer... continues....

What the fuck were they thinking? Fucking hell...

the fact that motherfucking EVERYBODY in Victorian Britain seemed to have a clever puzzle lock on whatever shit-encrused paper bag they stored their essential quest items in, causing many screeching gameplay halts when you have to stop playing an adventure game to work out some inane and poorly explained puzzle...shittily explained...

It also sadly moves away from the whole "investigation" aspect and becomes a more straightforward item-based puzzler about 2/3rds into the game... let me investigate some shit, please! I can go elsewhere if I want to use every item on every object in the gameworld... annoying faggot... the writers appear to have run out of ideas... falls flat

cancer inducing

cancer-inducing... shit... If you want to hate it, there are reasons to

Will wait for -75% sale then.

Meh

I had hoped they would move forward... I found mediocre, but it seems they haven't. Waiting for a sale.

The game is pretty janky... I recommend... using the skip puzzle feature... totally sucks....This one loses

I found Holmes to be out of character... I don't really understand why they made him sneer from time to time with no reason whatsoever either... seems rushed and just fanservicy... decline... the puzzles were flawed... you had to go against the notes that explained the puzzle... not really fitting for the game... really lazy.

No more... Eh...

puzzles are a bit obscure though, or depend on pixel hunting.

not very good

was ruined for me... fetch like quests... annoying... none of them rises to the same awesomness... foreboding feeling... "The fuck is this?"... the puzzles offer the skip button more quickly

there is a lot of things that DONT work... the fucking children... those little shits... they served no purpose besides being a reminder children are in fact rather annoying... bullshit... who the hell wrote this... fucking... I mean... why the FUCK... God, this game story... FUCK YOU... you are a HACK WRITER... a ton of shit that just drags... dumb... I am going to say this is decline... so absurd... thats it.

 

[ManjuShri]

They're on flash sale... but this thread saved me from impulse purchase, thanks.

Sherlock vs Jack the Ripper is well worth buying.

 

[Explorerbc]

Well, the Testament of Sherlock Holmes was good enough for me to buy Jack the Ripper, after all it is 2 euros so you can't go wrong

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

They're on flash sale... but this thread saved me from impulse purchase, thanks.

Sherlock vs Jack the Ripper is well worth buying.

I'd say all of them starting with Awakened (Awakened being the best Lovecraft video game adaptation too) are worth buying. The ones before Awakened are just too ghetto production value.

 

[Bubbles]

(Awakened being the best Lovecraft video game adaptation too)

I suppose this is technically correct, though not exactly high praise.

Just start with Jack the Ripper.

 

[CyberP]

Awakened being the best Lovecraft video game adaptation too

Dark Corners?

 

[Dzupakazul]

I feel like I should try out one of these games. I'm not well-versed in the adventure game genre, but I don't know games other than Ace Attorney and this that seem to be your standard detective fiction, with all the down-to-earth puzzles and deduction associated. Or maybe there are some like that? Wasn't there some sort of a Poirot game a long while ago?