Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments Review
Made by the tantalisingly strange Ukranian/Irish outfit Frogmind for more than a decade, the Sherlock Holmes adventure games have always been aimed primarily at people who don't traditionally play video games, and Crimes & Punishments doesn't buck that trend. It's extremely dialogue-heavy, some of the so-called "mysteries" are downright elementary (sorry) and a large sub-section of the core gameplay can be skipped altogether… but there's a charm and directness here that could sway almost anybody. If you've played these games before and walked away unimpressed, then you're very likely to react to this outing in exactly the same way. But if you loved those games to bits? Say hello to your potential game of the year.
The Sherlock Holmes featured in Crimes & Punishments is an amalgam of every single cinematic interpretation of the classic character. Holmes' avatar looks and sounds like Basil Rathbone - the first ever big-screen Sherlock - while the plot offers up some of the same occasionally larky tone seen in the two Guy Ritchie movies… while the gameplay has clearly been inspired by Benedict Cumberbatch's BBC-made Sherlock. It's a credit to the game's creators that they've managed to blend those three (very different) takes on Sherlock Holmes together rather seamlessly.
For the uninitiated, these games puts you directly in the shoes of Baker Street's favourite son, and (in this case) asks you to solve seven different cases, all inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories. What's so effective about Frogwares' approach is that, despite a few sidesteps into broad comedy and unexpected action, this is a very straightforward (and VERY plot-heavy) collection of Sherlock stories. You're never left wondering who that character is or why you're being asked to visit a specific location: if you've been paying attention, you know precisely what's what.
The gameplay never stops shifting. Sometimes you're slowly glancing over a suspect, Cumberbatch-style, and looking for clues. Other times, you're playing an unusual mini-game in order unlock a locked safe or beat a navy beefcake at an arm wrestle. While in other instances you're walking around a crime scene pressing a single button in the hope that you find a critical piece of new information. By themselves, any single one of these elements could get boring very quickly. But it's a testament to the development team's storytelling nous that these elements are so well blended that individually, they never become a chore. And what's more: if you get stuck during one of the case-specific tasks, you can always skip it.
However what makes this game so much more interesting than its predecessors is that you are essentially playing as the judge, jury and executioner of every person that you accuse. The story expands based on the suspicions that you have and the accusations that you make. At the climax of each case, if you shamelessly accuse the wrong man, you are nevertheless free to continue. You're warned ahead of time that you might want to reconsider, but every decision that you make affects subsequent choices. Was it a crime of passion? Or was it an honest misunderstanding? Sherlock Holmes decides, and if he (i.e. you) decides to do so, he can persecute the accused to the full extent of the law.
There are definitely stumbles. There are sections in which you spend what feels like an age wondering around locked-off areas looking for clues, which involves pressing a single button over and over again while aimlessly stumbling around the place. What's more, incorrectly accusing someone of a crime doesn't cause the story to branch out to accommodate you, it just demands that you go back and select the correct answer instead. It also doesn't help that the whole project is almost entirely bereft of humour, and loading times are so severe that moving between two locations to gather clues (which you're asked to do rather frequently) takes way, way longer than it should do.
But the writing is smart, the acting is competent (when it isn't being amusing, at least) and the fact is that this game offers not one but TWO copycat gameplay systems based around Arkham Asylum's detective ability, and neither of them harm the overall package… because you're rarely forced to rely on them. The voice acting is universally stilted - the cast includes a few of the worst cut-price cockneys in history, guvna - and technically it isn't very hot at all, so if you have the option of picking it up on PS3 or Xbox 360, take that. Nevertheless, this is a genuinely unusual little project - aimed at a very specific group of people - that is well made, occasionally compelling, occasionally infuriating but always engaging at the very, very least. That's always worth something.
7/10
Review By Chet Roivas
