Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Silver Earring review

Pink cars. Admit it, it’s been a while since you saw one and when you were a kid playing car games, if you spotted a pink one, you’d generally get a lot more points. The rarity of this colour when applied to motor vehicles mirrors the rarity of a good point and click adventure game nowadays, although I’d be much more likely to own an adventure game. The genre has always entertained me, and while less so from its text based roots, it has consistently developed to bring new things to the genre. Sherlock Holmes’ new adventure, The Case of the Silver Earring certainly does this, however there does seem to be something integral missing that prevents the game from staying on my shelf for too long.

The game has you controlling Sherlock and dear trusted associate Dr. Watson at certain points in an attempt to solve the mystery surrounding a murder. Valuing collecting information above anything else, all conversations are logged in a notebook along with points of note that you’ve spotted on the way. Unlike most other adventure games, you may only progress through the game when you have collected all of the evidence in an area. This can range from interviewing all suspects and asking all possible questions to a pixel hunting style search around every location for anything suspicious.

Gathering Evidence

While the bulk of the game does revolve around having eagle eyes and spotting strange marks, flaky ash and torn clothing under tables, the other aspect to your adventuring revolves around solving a few cleverly designed and generally satisfying puzzles. These are set more in the mould of The 7th Guest rather than Monkey Island, however they do provide a good change of gameplay at certain points. It is certainly disappointing to have little inventory interaction though. Combining items to solve puzzles is rarely ever used for anything other than using a key on a lock, which hardly puts the game up for an originality award.

The only other section of the game that breaks from your average information detection business is a (now cliché) sneaking segment, where you must avoid being spotted by a guard and a dog on patrol around a warehouse at night. Unfortunately this is made much more frustrating by the fact that no matter whether you are spotted by the guard or the dog, it is the dog that barks first, implying that you are still too close to the dog and can afford to be closer to the guard. Knowing this makes the puzzle much easier but the instant ‘Game Over’ punishment means that frustration could stop you in your tracks.

The Case of the Graphical Glitches

While the only other instant fail moments revolve around doing certain things within a time limit (such as finding some water to put out a fire before it burns evidence… while it’s tipping it down with rain!), a few moments do imply that you are in danger without putting you in hazards way. At one point you enter a room filled with quicklime (which the narration assures is poisonous) and to find the clues in the room you have to backtrack to find a face mask. After a small bit of inventory interaction and the impression that a serious issue has been resolved, you return to the room, click in your inventory to put on the mask and take a deep breath while nothing changes. Apparently this face mask is invisible, but it doesn’t do much to enhance the effect or keep the realism of the game. Neither do the occasional moments where your character will walk right up a wall because the areas where you can walk haven’t been mapped out properly.

While the graphics are rather impressive with some nice shadowing and antialiasing going on, the lip sync is never very accurate, it doesn’t detract much from the game, because whenever there is any speech, it is difficult to ignore the outrageous voices. Holmes himself sounds plausible, but hardly how I had expected him to sound, and throughout the whole game, only Watson’s voice sounds as I would have expected it too. The acting isn’t bad, only a bit overdone to fit in with the period. The music compliments the voices well in style and theme, but there aren’t many pieces on offer, so it does end up a little repetitive.

Adventure games need plot

The narrative of any adventure game is probably the most important feature in it, to keep the player hooked and wanting to find out where the story is going. In such a murder mystery, ‘whodunit’ (or without wanting to spoil anything ‘whodunnem’) was enough to keep me playing through, despite Holmes’ lengthy explanations of such thrilling deductions as what Inspector Lestrade had for breakfast. The game is broken up into chapters that always end with a ‘quiz’, which has you searching through your notebook to find the right pieces of evidence to prove an answer. A rather clever prospect, especially for a Sherlock Holmes game, but while it tells you when you have a question wrong, and doesn’t let you continue to the next chapter because of this, it never tells you which question is answered or proved incorrectly; another frustrating aspect that could have made a clever and unique feature.

It is only fitting to end with a brief reflection on the entire game, now I have reached the end. The final conclusion; a fifteen odd minute speech by Holmes is rather clever, and goes over every aspect of the case and the clues surrounding his final deduction. The satisfying conclusion does go far to wrap up everything brought up in the game and reminds you of things you may have forgotten. If you manage to get this far through the game, you will be pleased to know that your time will be rewarded with this dénouement, but of course once you know who to point the finger at, will there ever be much cause for replaying? Adventure gamers will love and hate this game for the positive and negative contained within, but if this is your first adventure, your patience may wear a little thin. Try The Longest Journey instead!