![]() On the plus side, the ill-conceived combat sections of Chapter One were apparently tossed overboard on the ship ride home from Cordona, keeping the emphasis on the brainpower of Sherlock rather than the firepower of his flintlock. Whereas the previous adventure had Sherlock investigating evidence of vampires in a graveyard and determining the whereabouts of an escaped elephant, The Awakened sticks mostly to more generic kidnappings and murder, and is all the more forgettable for it. While it can still be rewarding to piece it all together, there’s no question that the cases in The Awakened are far more straightforward than they were in Chapter One. CSI: Old Blightyįor the most part, Sherlock’s crime scene investigations are conducted in much the same manner as they are in Chapter One: Presented with the often-grisly aftermath of some wrongdoing, you must first pixel-hunt your away around the scene to gather evidence like bloodstains and footprints, interview potential witnesses or known acquaintances of the victim, and then determine the sequence of events by shuffling through possible scenarios and the order in which they took place via a visual representation of Sherlock’s imagination. So the only real mystery surrounding it was trying to determine why it was included at all. In fact, it wasn’t until I had reached the final hours of the journey that I finally managed to stumble into a side case in London involving a dead spy, but it was jarringly snuffed out by Mycroft Holmes before it could develop into anything of substance. The bulk of these settings present a substantial space to explore, but there’s almost no incentive to do so since I found little of consequence to uncover off the main story path. Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One is out now £39.Unlike Chapter One, which populates its open-world island setting with a variety of cases and side stories to uncover, The Awakened is a far more linear affair that sends Holmes and Watson globe-trotting from the streets of London to an asylum in the Swiss Alps to the swampland of New Orleans and back again. While there are some technical issues, and the game understandably lacks the glossy polish of bigger-budget titles, this is nonetheless something that I’ve been wanting for a long time: a properly open-world interactive detective story. This is a lively world, with wonderful smaller mysteries and an overarching story that brings you closer to its famous main character and his personal history. You can populate this place with paintings, furniture and possessions, filling out its character and history, a decent metaphor for your progress through the story and the game. The doors of Sherlock’s decrepit, abandoned family manor unlock for him as he remembers more, slowly piecing together what happened to his mother. This is an inexplicably unfriendly visual design decision, made more annoying by the fact that detective vision needs a few seconds to recharge. As someone with a minor visual impairment I had to squint to make these tiny dots out – and then, at nighttime, fireflies appear, which are also small yellow dots. ![]() ![]() Holmes has a detective-vision ability that highlights important objects with a small, white circle that looks like a crosshair, or a small yellow dot. I really could have done without having to listen to Jon berate me before every subsequent attempt. ![]() Frustratingly, the game requires you to piece together crime scenes, evidence, archival research and mind-palace deductions perfectly, but it’s not always clear what its version of perfect entails, and it’s easy to get it slightly wrong. He whines when I don’t get the right solution, or ask the wrong questions, offering only criticism and no hints, which was pointless and off-putting. Accompanying Sherlock is his imaginary friend, Jon – a role later to be played by his chronicler Dr John Watson. ![]()
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