Gamescom 2014: Hands on with Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments

For those that have had experience with the previous Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series from Frogwares, this game may come as a surprise. It has gone from a point and click game to an adventure game. You walk around in the world of the most famous detective of the 21st century. The game is shipped with six cases, which may seem small initially, but with nine possible endings per case you get a lot of replay value.

Sherlock Holmes is known for his unscrupulous ability to analyse details. But he is now at the mercy of the choices you make. Each case has five suspects, it is your responsibility to pick the right one. Choose the right one and you will get nothing short of worshippers sending you letters of admiration, choose the wrong one and you may receive a bullet included with the letter.

I had the good fortune to spend 30 minutes playing the game. As a fan of L.A Noire, I was pleasantly surprised how the dialogue goes with persons of interest. By finding clues around the person you can profile them. Finding the clues was a bit easier than I hoped it would be. Simply by pressing abutton you will go over the majority of the highlighted clues.

But after playing for a bit and solving different puzzles, I came to the conclusion that the puzzles are just unimportant mini-games to gain information about the case. The real mind breaker begins with putting all the information together and figuring out who committed the crime.

As for the graphics, they’re pretty but not gorgeous. It looks like a typical game from 2014, so it has some flaws as well, like not having reflection in windows.

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments is set out to be released on 30 September 2014