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The Testament of Sherlock Holmes
The Testament of
Sherlock Holmes is the seventh game in the
long running crime solving series developed by Frogwares. Set in late 18th
century London, super- detective Sherlock Holmes finds himself in a bit
of a pickle; he’s trying to crack a case in which he is the main
suspect, which begins to affect his relationship with his partner and
dear friend Dr. Watson. Following in the footsteps of its predecessors,
The Testament of Sherlock Holmes is quite an enjoyable mystery
solving game, despite being disappointingly easy and not the prettiest
thing to look at or listen to.
Gameplay
The majority of The Testament of Sherlock Holmes
is controlling either Holmes or Watson, walking around a room and
searching for clues. The gameplay is very reminiscent of fellow crime
game L.A. Noire, with players having to search every
nook-and-cranny of a room in order to piece the clues together and solve
the case. It sounds complicated, however the game is unfortunately very
easy. All clues in the room can be easily seen by the push of a button,
taking some of the exploring aspect out of the experience. While some of
the puzzles in the game are sometimes ridiculously hard and challenging,
if the game realises that you’re taking longer than it wants, it’ll
allow you to skip it without any penalty. Some of these puzzles are
poorly introduced; on several occasions I was faced with a mini-game
with little instructions, leaving myself puzzled. The solving of a case
can be quite fun if you pay attention to the dialogue and analyse the
clues, however the layout and presentation of the clues you discover
leaves a lot to be desired.
Graphics
While the newly developed graphics engine shows
noticeable improvements over previous games in the series, the overall
quality in the presentation is subpar. Every character looks as if
they’ve recently had Botox injected into their face, as no emotion is
shown at any point throughout the game. Body animations are extremely
dated and stiff, and the in-game cutscenes are painful to watch because
of this. Environments and locations are rather well done on the other
hand. The developers took extra care in recreating 19th
century London and the result has paid off, it’s just a shame the frame
rate is extremely inconsistent. The game would frequently dip to less
than 25fps or freeze; I considered myself lucky if it maintained the
same rate for more than five seconds. The Testament of Sherlock
Holmes wants you to to fully ‘explore’ Holmes as a character, but if
he acts like a cardboard cutout in an environment on the verge of
crashing, you might not get very far.
Audio
The Testament of Sherlock Holmes
is heavily driven by dialogue, and the quality of
voice acting on display is an assorted mix of decent and appalling.
Sherlock Holmes’ voice is calm and composed throughout the game, which
fits well with his confident character, however his voice would be much
more effective in telling the story if it wasn’t for Watson using his
outside voice every time he opened his mouth. It’s very inconsistent and
distracting, and I found Watson to be exceedingly annoying, and Holmes
an idiot for putting up with it. The rest of the voice acting is rather
poor, with the child voice acting being some of the worst I’ve heard
since Heavy Rain. On the other hand, the soundtrack for Sherlock
Holmes is rather good, with the dark and moody piano jazz heard in
the background adding some emotional intrigue to the gameplay when
searching for clues. So despite the awful voice work, the game’s
soundtrack makes the audio one of the highlights.
Final Thoughts
The Testament of Sherlock Holmes
is an intriguing and well-written interactive adventure, it’s just a
shame that less attention was paid towards the presentation. It may be
just the PS3 version, but the frame rate may be an unfortunate
distraction for people used to the high standard set by the current
generation of hardware. For fans of the series and characters however,
there’s plenty of solid narrative and development that may cause you to
look at your beloved Holmes in a much darker light. |
