Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One

I have yet to play a game from developer Frogwares. I’m loosely acquainted with their more recent releases, which is really just a byproduct of writing about and consuming video games. As far as I can tell, Frogwares’ output mostly consists of Sherlock Holmes titles and The Sinking City (as well as a few other titles). Now, I thought about picking up The Sinking City at one point, but some lukewarm reviews soured my enthusiasm before I made a purchase.

But as a fan of murder mysteries in general, and Sherlock Holmes more specifically, I have always had a passing interest in seeing the character brought to life in the realm of video games. To date, however, there haven’t been any games to really grab my interest. 

From my outsider perspective, I gather that Frogwares’ output has a certain level of jank to it (though their games admittedly seem to be increasing in quality with each new endeavor). To be fair, jank is not an automatic game-killer for me. I love a plethora of janky games, and I imagine I will love a good deal more. But there is a tipping point, and if a game wanders past that point, I am automatically disinterested. I haven’t yet seen a Sherlock game to sit comfortably on the correct side of that tipping point.

That said, even though there still seems to be some level of jank in the upcoming Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One, the balance seems to be tipping in the right direction.  

Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One

With the increase in the scope from previous Sherlock games, Frogwares seems to be displaying a level of confidence in Chapter One that I haven’t really seen from the studio — at least as far as Sherlock games go. It seems they are incorporating the open-world aspect of The Sinking City, while hopefully also learning from the shortcomings of that title. 

And although I do not necessarily think of combat when I think of Sherlock Holmes, the trailers for Chapter One suggest that the game’s combat seems to be tied more to Sherlock’s powers of deduction, with slow-motion response mechanics in the gunplay. In a lot of ways, this aspect reminds me of the two Robert Downey Jr. movies from 2009 and 2011. And even though those depictions of Sherlock were far from models of excellence, I did enjoy some of their action elements.

Mostly, though, I just want to play a really good — or even just mostly good — detective game. I harken back to games like L.A. Noire or the original Condemned, both of which managed to offer simple but effective tools of deduction and baked those into their overall respective gameplay packages. And that is what I am hoping Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One will be able to pull off.

Initial responses seem to be positive, but I will have to wait until Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One releases (on November 16 of this year) to find out just how afoot the game might actually be.

Oh, and if you pre-order Chapter One, you will also get a copy of Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishment — so in effect you can get two games for the price of one.

For now, you can check out the Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One release date trailer below.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x