Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments Reviews
Poor voice acting and obnoxious back tracking let it down – but this is still on the right side of the law as far as we're concerned.
[C]lunky controls, frequent and time consuming travels between areas and the ability to literally skip through all of the challenging sections are real setbacks to what could have otherwise been a very enjoyable game.
Smartly written dialogue, strong voice acting, and terrific graphics help make up for some technical flaws as well as a couple cases of that would offer little challenge to Sherlock Holmes. A must play for Holmes buffs, but it's somewhat slow of pace so action seekers would be wise to look elsewhere.
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes And Punishments is a perfect example of only being able to recommend something to either fans of the source material or of the genre of games. It's neither amazing nor terrible, but will satisfy anyone interested.
Over the last decade, Frogwares has been steadily eliminating the impossibly bad elements from their games, and what remains is the closest anyone's ever come to an authentic Baker Street experience.
Overall Crimes and Punishments serves as a deliberate, well put together mystery game. It serves as a great change of pace from the shooters and action fodder out there now and that will undoubtedly follow in the coming months. Unfortunately, lack of a cohesive story, feeling of being on a set, and the overall vapid nature of those sets lead the game to a somewhat boring end.
With clever puzzles and a dash of modern sensibilities inspired by the BBC show, Crimes and Punishments is an easy recommendation to armchair detectives - and the first to let players really experience being Sherlock Holmes.
This is clearly a game made by Holmes fans, for Holmes fans (although you don't have to have read the stories to enjoy it). Hopefully the game doesn't get lose in the holiday game release madness, because it would be great to see follow-up titles building upon all that this game does right.
If you want your fix of Sherlock and don't feel like whipping a book open, this game is a safe bet to whet your appetite. Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments has a ton of charm, uniqueness, and freedom, and with the right gamer, this will be a dream.
While the narrative is a bit disconnected, Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments uses the short story framework to its benefit, keeping each of its cases focused on pure, thrilling detective work.
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments is an enjoyable collection of different cases putting you once again in the shoes of the one man that can solve them all. The synapse style deduction board is a giant leap forward for the series, allowing you to finish cases with inaccurate information. I did end up sentencing an innocent man to death, but the game does allow you to go back and adjust your conclusions before proceeding to the next case.
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments delivers a good system for finding clues and solving murders with a complex clues and deductions system, plenty of puzzles to be had, and good mysteries to boot. The gameplay can be a bit repetitive at times, however if your willing to overlook that, it can turn into quite a mystery game. The visuals and art are sure to impress, and you can expect hours of content from this title, all with a unique moral system to track how you compare to others who play the game.
What we have here is the first, full-on, legitimate mystery game for the current generation.
Crimes and Punishments is a game that is otherwise fantastic in nearly every aspect it devotes its time to. It's a game that reminds us of how great Sherlock Holmes is, and why the character has endured for so long. But it's also one that reminds us why Conan Doyle wanted to abandon the character. You can't escape him. He'll always decipher the clues, always find you, always see through the most perfectly planned murder. He marches ever onward, against the flow of time, holding on steadily. He'll always be there, Watson in tow, ready to take the next case. And God help us, there's still some appeal in that.
Fun puzzles, inventive murders, and new crime-solving features help make up for a morality system that needed far more fleshing out to be effective.
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments is more than just an excellent detective adventure, it also absolutely nails the essence of being the pride of Baker Street and in doing so provides an exciting roadmap for where Ukrainian developer Frogwares will take the series next.
It would be easy to give Crimes & Punishments the typical "for fans of the genre" recommendation, but I think it aspires to and accomplishes more than that. Sure, it has some rough edges, and not every case is a home run, but the Deduction system makes it all worthwhile.
This latest puzzling offering is more than elementary then, we'd say. Multiple cases presented well (ignoring the loading issues) all with a variety of possible outcomes which can be achieved using various tools and the power of your own deduction. You do get to feel like Holmes if we're honest; searching for the evidence, logical reasoning and grand espousing - it's very Conan Doyle. The fact it can all be played in bursts or short sessions given we're looking at discrete cases, and the way the game gives feedback on your choices compared to the reality of the situation - and compared to other gamers - adds to the experience the same way similar feedback does in many interactive novel games around at the moment. Ultimately Sherlock's alright - not much more, but alright might be all you need in the quiet autumn evenings.
That said, we thoroughly enjoyed our time with Sherlock Holmes Crimes and Punishments, which is our favourite game starring the drug-addled sleuth so far. From the crisp and detailed graphics to the huge variety in gameplay, this is a solid puzzling adventure that will please anyone after a good yarn.