Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5 out of 10
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments is a third-person and first-person detective adventure game available from retail stores and for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4. The game is based upon the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes who was created by the Scottish author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with the character evolving in his status ever since the original novel A Study in Scarlet was published in 1887 and The Sign of the Four in 1890 with serialisations and short stories following until the second set of stories came to a climax in 1927. Since the original incarnation of Sherlock Holmes there have been numerous theatre productions, television and film adaptations from across the world with videogames being another popular form of adaptation.
The earliest known Sherlock Holmes videogame is Sherlock for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum in 1984, while Sherlock Holmes: The Kidnapping of the Earl’s Daughter was released on December 11th 1986 and was released exclusively in Japan for the NES or Famicom as it was referred to in Japan with two sequels also releasing exclusively for the NES in Japan titled Great Detective Holmes: A Case of Murder in London Fog on May 13th 1988 and Great Detective Holmes: A Challenge from M on May 1st 1989. The three volumes of Consulting Detective were released from 1991 through 1993 and were so well loved that a Kickstarter campaign was created in March 2012 in an attempt to raise enough funds to remaster them although was unsuccessful due to only receiving one third of the proposed $55,000 investment, while another notable retro release was The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes from 1994 on 3DO. The developer Frogwares is responsible for around half of the Sherlock Holmes games ever created under what is called the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Series, but can their latest effort Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments stand out from the crowd?
The story is set in London and takes place in 1895 with Sherlock Holmes continuing his investigations with the help of Doctor John Watson over a period were six cases of varying criminal activity from murders, missing persons and theft occurs with Holmes possessing the greatest chance of tracking those who are guilty for their crimes.
The game starts out with a rather amusing scenario as players briefly play as Watson as he is reading a book; he hears a gunshot only to discover that it is Sherlock Holmes aiming his gun at the vases scattered around the room while being blind folded. Players have to guide Watson closer to Holmes by scrambling for cover behind furniture throughout the room in an attempt to make him stop wildly shooting his gun. This is followed by an immediate showcase of Holmes’ brilliance as he correctly predicts who is about to enter the room by the pace of his footsteps and clinking of handcuffs.
There are six cases to solve as Sherlock Holmes is called upon to investigate various crimes and murders that have been committed with the unique ability to approach each case from different angles and perspectives by pairing two of the clues found during your thorough investigation together to form an idea of how to progress forwards with the case, therefore providing players with the freedom to crack the case however it pleases to do so. There are multiple endings for each case with between three and seven different outcomes depending upon the amount of characters involved with each case, so there is room to accuse the wrong person and imprison someone who is innocent resulting in having to be very precise and thorough with the investigations, although the point is to find the clues in order to make a deduction before being able to accuse any of the potential criminals, which really integrates an element of morality in regards to whether to absolve or condemn the correct suspects and any potential accomplices.
Completing a range of mini-games are part of solving investigations, such as piecing together an image from inside a tobacco pouch in order to analyse which type of tobacco is contained within and who would smoke that variety of tobacco; another mini-game sees the creation a chemical reagent that removes ink spilt upon a letter to allow the uncovering of vital clues from the viewable words and letters on the page; lock-picking a tool box to find new clues; and arm wrestling; amongst many more unexpected activities that all forms the progression of the investigational work.
A valuable asset in solving crimes is Sherlock’s archives, which allow players to search through various categories of encyclopaedias, research materials and newspapers to gain historical data on a person related to a case, such as searching for the name of a man that is inscribed upon a ring through an extensive archive of newspapers.
Sherlock is capable of building character portraits by analysing the possessions they are holding or wearing, personality traits and physical attributes during an interview with a person that is considered a victim rather than a suspect or a more sinister interrogation at Scotland Yard for those believed to be involved in criminal activity, which then provides an insight into the background history of the potential suspect of the committed crime and is logged in Holmes’ casebook, which is effectively a journal covering every crime and suspect. The casebook is an excellent design choice as it can be referred to at any given moment and is therefore ideal for attempting to match multiple threads of the case together as evidence, dialogues and character portraits are all stored within the casebook for future reference, alongside a list of tasks, maps showing areas of interest, documents, souvenirs and echoes that could all lead to solving the crime.
Character customisation plays a big part in getting into the mind and closer to the prime suspect as Sherlock dons various costumes and disguises, although there are initially six suits and no make-up with five more outfits, thirteen hair and hat combinations, two pairs of glasses and eighteen distinct types of facial hair unlocked as players progress further through the cases, which is an excellent design choice as it allows more freedom with plenty of customisation pairings between the outfits, hair, hats, glasses and facial hair as well as following in the footsteps of using disguises to solve crimes as Sherlock Holmes would regularly do so in his stories.
The character design is excellent as Sherlock Holmes makes a fascinating lead character, while Doctor John Watson is the superb sidekick assisting in anyway he can during his attempts to keep Holmes sane, while there are a wide cast of characters that assist and communicate with Holmes in different aspects. Inspector Lestrade will ask if Holmes has any new insights into the investigation, while there are plenty of police constables in their full uniforms situated at Scotland Yard and the scenes of crimes that will stand tall and say “Mr. Holmes” in acknowledgement of Sherlock being on the case. Beyond Doctor John Watson and Inspector Lestrade; there are more people that Holmes will ask for help, such as young uneducated beggars with the main source of information as he keeps watch and a firm ear to the ground is Wiggins for which Holmes pays two Guineas as a reward for his services in research and information. There are a variety of people that range from criminals and accomplices to innocent civilians that have been misunderstood or in the wrong place at the wrong time, while the victims wear their emotion and sorrow on their faces.
The environment design is as good as the character design as the locations are realistic of London in the late 1800s with such famous landmarks as Scotland Yard and Baker Street, while the surroundings of a crime scene have a gruesome atmosphere and edge about them that is not easy to create when considering that they have to be far more foreboding than Sherlock’s home or other neutral locations.
The game starts out in a third-person perspective, although at any given moment players can change from a third-person to a first-person perspective with a single press of a button, which is not exactly a regular feature for any genre, so it is pleasantly surprising and quite ambitious as the third-person and first-person camera angles are both implemented to precision, therefore allowing a closer perspective during your search for clues. It is an excellent design choice to implement both perspectives as there is no question that it will expand the audience of the gamers who would play the game as there are similar quotas who prefer their adventures to be in third-person or first-person, so it is great to see that divide being removed and hopefully virtual reality components can be patched into the game at a later time for the first-person perspective when Sony release their Project Morpheus virtual reality headset.
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments supports the share feature that allows players to upload a video clip or a screen shot to Facebook or Twitter and broadcast live gameplay footage via Twitch or Ustream as they are experiencing the game with a simple tap of the share button and selecting the option of choice. The PS4’s hard-drive continuously stores the players most recent fifteen minutes of gameplay footage, so they still have the chance to decide if they would like to share something amazing a few minutes after it has taken place. The share feature is a next-gen revolution that has only improved with the further customisation provided by the Share Factory app that allows commentary, music, themes, stickers, effects, text, picture-in-picture video between your game footage and your reaction from the PlayStation Camera and much more besides, which will only continue to prosper and flourish as it matures with additional features and further experimentation in the future.
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments supports the remote play feature that allows players to play almost any PS4 game on your PlayStation Vita via a Wi-Fi internet connection by pairing up the PS4 and Vita via configuring the settings on your PS4 to enable the Vita to connect to it, then entering the code provided from the settings menu on the Vita’s PS4 Link application with the initial setup taking around only two minutes. The game’s performance during remote play is amazing as the graphics, audio and general performance is identical to that of its PS4 counterpart with the exception of three changes to the controls of switching characters and running as L2 and R2 are mapped to the left and right of the rear touch pad along with the DualShock 4’s touch pad being replicated on the Vita’s touch screen in the functions of Sherlock’s imagination and talent.
The controls are well mapped to the DualShock 4 controller with the control scheme consisting of pressing X to perform actions; pressing square to open the casebook; pressing triangle to open deduction space; pressing O to switch between first-person and third-person perspectives; pressing L1 to launch imagination; pressing R1 to launch Sherlock talent; pressing L2 to switch characters; pressing R2 to run; pressing any of the d-pad buttons to select an action; changing the direction of the left analogue stick to move the character; changing the direction of the right analogue stick to move the camera; pressing L3 and R3 simultaneously for help; pressing the share button takes you to the share feature menu; and pressing the options button to display the pause menu. The touch pad implementation provides an alternative to L1 and R1 as swiping to the right will engage Sherlock’s imagination and swiping to the left will use Sherlock’s talent, while the DualShock 4 controller vibrates occasionally such as during arm wrestling, which only produces a subtle vibration despite it being a rather strenuous exercise. There is no light bar implementation, which is surprising as it could have turned green to show a correct deduction of two clues and red for an incorrect deduction of two clues.
As a detective game will see crimes and murders committed; conveying emotion should always be a major factor of the graphical performance and the game certainly excels in this area with a wide range of emotions from sorrow of loss to anger at being detained while protesting innocence all being worn on the appropriate character’s faces. London is portrayed quite accurately from what could be imagined to see in 1895 from horses and carriages to the relevant architecture and decor, while the lighting, shadows and smoke effects as Holmes smokes his pipe are also excellent.
The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main menu, options menus and gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons, although it does not include support for navigation via the touch pad and the right analogue stick. The background of the menu screens revolves around Sherlock Holmes sitting in his chair as he smokes a pipe, while looking out of the window at a huge thunder storm that is taking place as heavy rain lashes against and trickles down the window, which immediately sets an atmospheric tone for the game.
The audio consists of voice-overs, sound effects and music with the voice-over actors producing top performances to bring the appropriate emotional depth to their characters from dark humour to inquisitiveness to insanity and distress given each character’s scenario in that given moment. Kerry Shale voices Sherlock Holmes who has had a long career in television and film having previously guest starred as Doctor Renfrew in the Doctor Who episode Day of the Moon in 2011 and provided the voice of the Medi-Bot and Taiwan Tony in the Red Dwarf episode Fathers & Suns in 2012 with numerous voice-over appearances in Thomas and Friends and a role in Universal Solider: Regeneration, while also having voiced many videogame characters in Broken Sword: The Serpent’s Curse; DmC: Devil May Cry; Driver: San Francisco; Killzone; Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch; Puppeteer; Pursuit Force; The Testament of Sherlock Holmes and many more besides. Nick Brimble voices Dr. Watson who has also had a long television and film having previously guest starred in a range of television series, such as Blake’s 7; Emmerdale; and Space 1999 as well as roles in A Knight’s Tale and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The ambience of the surrounding world is quite interesting as players can hear the crackling of the fireplace, people talking from outside, bells and chimes sounding and horses with carriages being used for transportation outside of Sherlock’s home or animals and flies heard in the background of a garden during an investigation, while there are also general sound effects such as walking, running and opening doors. An arrangement of atmospheric classical orchestral music with a foreboding nature appropriately sets the scene of the crime and the punishment awaiting those who have committed such atrocities. The lack of DualShock 4 speaker implementation is surprising as it could have produced the voice-overs from the cast of characters or perhaps even Sherlock’s personal deductions of the investigation with alternative possibilities being the ambient sound effects and atmospheric music.
The trophy list includes twenty-five trophies with six bronze, twelve silver, six gold and one platinum trophy. Seven of the trophies are related to the story of the cases, so as long as players crack all of the cases, then there are a guaranteed six bronze trophies and a silver trophy; however there are a lot of trophies that are related to each case, but are missable due to having to complete certain events that occur during your investigation, although success is not an absolute certainty resulting in a 50/50 probability of earning a lot of trophies through the first playthrough or narrowly missing out on them. The hardest trophies have to be the I Never Guess gold trophy for reaching the correct conclusion for who committed the crime across all six cases and the A Complex Mind gold trophy for reaching all of the possible conclusions to each of the six cases in the game. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take between ten to fifteen hours to platinum the trophy list.
There are no difficulty levels, although the complexity curve is purely decided by how easy players get to grips with the investigation of the crime in regards to how quickly they are capable of seeking out the clues and drawing what they need to from them. The difficulty curve is increased further by the possibility that the player may absolve a criminal or condemn an innocent person if they are not completely accurate with the deductions made from the clues found throughout the investigation of the crime.
There is no local or online multiplayer and no online leaderboards and although they would have added to the game; it must be said that the focus of a detective game must rely upon the enjoyment of the single player experience. However, online leaderboards would have added an extra element of competitiveness, such as how quickly each player could crack the case and just how many clues each player was able to find along the way.
The replayability is produced from the main aspect of the game; as each case has a fair length to it with plenty of puzzles, mini-games and clues to find during your investigations and twists and turns throughout the story of every case, while each case also has multiple endings to encourage revisiting the same cases to find every possible outcome with a total of twenty-seven possible deductions through the six cases.
Overall, Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments is Frogwares’ best attempt at creating an accurate representation of the character and sleuthing of Sherlock Holmes and therefore elevates it to being the best videogame adaptation of the character and story thus far. If you are a fan of the character and stories of Sherlock Holmes or even if looking for a great detective game, then Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments ticks every box making it an absolute must purchase!
Jason Bonnar
Analysis
- Title: Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments
- Developer: Frogwares
- Publisher: Focus Home Interactive
- System: PS4
- Format: Retail/PSN Download
- Cross-Buy: No
- Cross-Play: No
- Players: 1
- Hard Drive Space Required: 8.7GB