(VIDEO BELOW FOR THOSE TOO LAZY TO READ)

The Sherlock Holmes games are something of an enigma to me. On the one hand, they provide a unique experience offering occasional opportunities of pure brilliance, yet on the other hand the games suffer from basic design flaws, the likes of which most other titles had addressed by early 2009. I know what you’re thinking, give it time, it’ll probably come good, I mean how many Sherlock Holmes games can there be? Eight, and that’s just in the series because there are eleven in total, which is bewildering as I would imagine the player base would have been somewhat dry until old mate Downey Jnr hit the big screen. However, for those that are fans of the series, the character or mystery games in general, I’m pleased to tell you that this is the best game in the series to date, though not without its problems.

Frogware seems to have really developed and grown the characters in this 8th installment to the series (which is ironic seeing as all the characters have got physically younger then the previous game). It has taken the systems from the previous game and improved in some areas, while adding various other mini games and activities to flesh out the games 5 cases. Each case takes around 2 – 2.5 hours to complete meaning you can pretty easily work your way through one case in a single sitting. The game opens with Holmes on the run from an unknown assailant, out of breath and racing through a forest that looks like a cross between the woods from Twilight and the Dead Marshes from Lord of the Rings. In good video game fashion, jump back 48 hours and you find yourself bored once more, lying in your metaphorical bat-cave, 221B Baker Street. This was immediately familiar, from the wardrobe and make up table used to disguise yourself as a priest with pubes for hair (among other things of course), to your archives and even your chemistry bench, nothing has changed. This immediately changes as soon as you step outside however. The world is much more open and lively then I was used to from any of these games. Right from my first case of having a street address and actually following signposts and asking directions from people, I felt like a real detective. Or, someone who lived in the 1800’s and didn’t have access to Google Maps. Each case has a different flavour to it, taking you to numerous locations (although you will spend a lot of your time at 221B and Scotland Yard) and generally not overstaying their welcome.

The cases themselves however try to find a balance between being difficult enough to make you feel like the world’s greatest detective (sorry batman, I’ve already referenced you once so far) but not hard enough to cause frustration. Unfortunately – like a one-legged, slightly overweight ballerina – this balance that it so desperately seeks is never quite there, but not for lack of trying. In each case you will get a chance to profile suspects, make some quick-time decisions, search for clues and of course, make your deductions. The former two work excellently, making you really feel like Sherlock Holmes. Being able to look over your suspects and actively making deductions about them to create there profiles (which could be wrong) is a lot of fun. The quick time events also go a long way to making you feel like a brilliant strategist. There is one particular moment in a tavern about 3/4 of the way through the game that does a particularly good job of this. The clue gathering and deduction making parts however, while getting the job done, don’t hold up to the prolonged staring sessions and slow motion fights the game provided us earlier. Investigating crime scenes makes sense 9 times out of 10, however you do get to the point where it feels like you are playing a point and click adventure, just clicking on everything until Sherlock starts commenting on it. This isn’t because the clues are hard to find, rather the game forces you to investigate every item, relevant or not, before you can move on to the next task. The deduction system from the previous title is also back, and while still an excellent idea, often times isn’t clear enough or provide enough clues to accurately solve a case.

This is not a massive deal however, as this game has more commitment issues then a 22 year old man who’s parents abandoned him and now he spends his time reviewing Sherlock Holmes games… It’s not me by the way, just someone I know. Whenever you make your accusation, the game will not only let you check to see if it is the correct answer or not, but it will also let you go back to make a different choice. This essentially undermines everything the game builds, meaning you can stumble across clues with as much precision as a blind drug addict locked in an opium den and never have to figure out what they mean. Once you have all the clues, it’s purely trial and error until you pick the correct criminal and takes less thought then remembering what ingredients you need for a peanut butter sandwich. The other thing that made me think the game was underestimating my brain thinks intellect was the puzzles. I don’t know if anyone ever had a teacher that would give you a puzzle, and you’d work on it for 10 seconds and then they’d say ‘oh it looks like it might be a bit hard for you. Let’s skip it and move on with the rest of the day’. This is exactly how the Devil’s Daughter handles its puzzles and other mini-games. It even gives you achievements for completing them as if to say ‘you know you could have just skipped it right? Oh well, here’s to say thanks for putting in the effort’. While definitely not overly difficult, the puzzle mechanics are slow, clunky and not overly fun to play.

Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter is definitely a step in the right direction for the series. While it doesn’t quite give you the chance to actually work stuff out on your own like games like The Witness and L.A Noire, it is still one of the better mystery games on the market. Visually it looks quite good, and despite some slow pacing here and there, the game attempts to make up for it with exciting moments that make you feel like Sherlock Holmes. With that said, I can only imagine that people who lived in the 1800’s were either idiots or dying from some sort of disease, so realistically, crimes were probably piss easy to solve anyway. Would this have made me a god to the people who lived 200 years ago? Probably yes, but that’s not important now. What is important is that one of these days I will be able to write a review on a Sherlock Holmes game and have it titled ‘Finally, no shit Sherlock’. It saddens me that that day isn’t today, but we are definitely much closer then we were this time last year.

6.5/10

Video Review here: