Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments

Developer(s) Frogwares
Publisher(s) Focus Home Interactive
Series Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Engine Unreal Engine 3
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
PlayStation 3
PlayStation 4
Xbox 360
Xbox One
Release date(s) NA September 30, 2014
AUS September 30, 2014
EU October 3, 2014
Genre(s) Adventure
Mode(s) Single-player
Distribution Optical disc, download

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments is an adventure video game in the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series developed by Frogwares and published by Focus Home Interactive for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One in 2014.

The game takes place in London and its suburbs in 1894 and 1895, towards the end of the 19th century; it resonates with the Russian novel Crime and Punishment by author Fyodor Dostoyevsky focusing onto finding the right culprit and making the moral choice of absolving or condemning them. The game is the first in the series to use the Unreal Engine 3, and was inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories. The game is split into six cases of murders, disappearances and thefts written in the tradition of Doyle novels.[1]

Gameplay

An artwork from the game

The majority of the game involves exploring crime scenes and examining clues. Once discovered, clues are added to a "deduction board", a gameplay mechanic which involves linking pieces of information together. It will lead to possible different deductions. Once deductions are connected together, player will have a full tree of deductions. Depending on how player interpretes the clues, they will have different conclusions. Therefore the player can fail or succeed in finding the culprit. He also decides whether he wants to absolve or condemn the criminal. The moral choice the player makes will influence the further gameplay. Each case will have 3-5 possible solutions; in total there will be 6-10 different endings for each case. In total, the game offers 14 investigation mechanics, including Sherlock Holmes' skill to guess many details about someone's life simply by glancing at them or to imagine and reconstruct the course of event by carefully observing all the key details of a crime scene.

There are two camera views available – a first person point of view and a static third person camera. The player is able to change between them at any time. Sherlock can also draw evidence from autopsies and scanning the people he meets. For the latter, players will enter a first-person view for an up-close inspection of a character's face and emotions, clothing and belongings, where he'll find everything from scars and bruises to the quality of an outfit. Frogwares have fully detailed Victorian-era London using the new engine and it can also be explored.[2]

Frogwares is tweaking its Sherlock Holmes series to be more modern with the introduction of "Sherlock Vision," a mechanic that will help in highlighting evidence that would otherwise be missed. For example, through Sherlock Vision players can look at a dusty bookcase shelves and notice that a chest has been taken from the shelf, or that an item may have a hidden inscription on it. According to Frogwares' business developer Olga Ryzhko, Sherlock Vision will help take the series to the "next level". Ryzhko calls the game the "most challenging, most sophisticated" Sherlock game yet, and said the development team has built on previous games' mechanics while tweaking them slightly for a more modern feel. In Crimes and Punishments, text will appear detailing what he is thinking, such as how approaching footsteps sound and who might be at the door.

Development

Development of lighting

Crimes and Punishments is developed on Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3,[3] allowing the series to jump far ahead of previous installments in graphical quality. Environments will be more realistic and finely detailed with dynamic lighting and shadows. Choosing this engine also lets the game benefit from many technologies like a powerful animation engine for smooth movement and animation transitions, real-time shaders and a particle system, and advanced post-processing effects. Frogwares have scrapped its old method (employing one huge texture) instead opting to use Tiled Textures.[4]

Reception

Reception
Aggregate scores
AggregatorScore
GameRankings(PC) 80.29%[5]
(PS4) 75.00%[6]
(XONE) 72.50%[7]
Metacritic(PC) 77/100[8]
(PS4) 73/100[9]
(XONE) 69/100[10]

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments has been previewed by several major gaming news sources. Jessica Conditt of Joystiq points to "[t]he setting, tone, mechanics and graphics in Crimes and Punishments each appear to be updated vastly and in a wonderfully gritty direction compared with previous Sherlock games."[11] VentureBeat's Jasmine Maleficent Rea says "The once gentlemanly adventure-game star is now a deceitful amalgam of Arthur Conan Doyle’s original character and the 21st-century interpretation we find on television and in movies. [...] Crimes & Punishments shows us the very manipulative side of Sherlock that modern audiences expect. He remains an amoral character in a world desperately trying to reclaim its morality, and he seems to revel in it."[12] Michael Cromwell of PCGMedia says that the game is "a self confessed departure from the prosaic and amoral, with Frogwares pushing for a more hands-on, ethically involved experience – putting you, the player, in the mind of Sherlock Holmes."[13] Gamercast awarded the game Best Adventure Game at E3 2013.[14] Jeuxvideo.com granted the game Best Adventure Game at E3 2014.[15]

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments received mostly positive reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the Microsoft Windows version 80.29% based on 14 reviews and 77/100 based on 31 reviews,[5][8] the PlayStation 4 version 75.00% based on 30 reviews and 73/100 based on 36 reviews[6][9] and the Xbox One version 72.50% based on 4 reviews and 69/100 based on 6 reviews.[7][10]

References

  1. ↑ Frogwares (11 December 2013). "Sherlock_Game: 7 crimes: your decisions, their ...". Twitter. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
  2. ↑ "Detective videogames this 2014! Featuring Batman and Sherlock Holmes". BadassToTheMax.com. 2014-05-27.
  3. ↑ Frogwares (29 April 2013). "Sherlock Holmes: Crime & Punishments...". Tumblr. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
  4. ↑ Brown, Fraser (24 October 2013). "The finer details of Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments". PCGamesN. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments for PC". GameRankings. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments for PlayStation 4". GameRankings. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments for Xbox One". GameRankings. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments for PC Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments for PlayStation 4 Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 "Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments for Xbox One Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
  11. ↑ Conditt, Jessica (14 June 2013). "Sherlock Holmes crime and Punishments' new mechanic inspired by BBC show". Joystiq. Retrieved 11 January 2013.
  12. ↑ Rea, Jasmine Maleficent (13 June 2013). "Sherlock Holmes is a shaggy, amoral superhero in Crimes & Punishments (preview)". VentureBeat. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
  13. ↑ Cromwell, Michael (19 February 2013). "Sherlock Holmes Crime & Punishments preview and Q&A". PCGMedia. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
  14. ↑ Charlotte (24 June 2013). "E3 2013: Best of the Show". Gamercast. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
  15. ↑ Unknown (16 June 2014). "Meilleur jeu d'aventure : Sherlock Holmes Crimes & Punishments / PC-PS4-One-PS3-360". JeuxVideo.com. Retrieved 10 July 2014.

External links