Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is easily the most famous fictional detective ever. From his humble beginnings as a short story in The Strand newspaper to the current day films, TV shows and the rest, his exceptional powers of deduction and observation have captured the imaginations of many. It comes as no surprise then, that the great detective has featured in many games over the years too, with the point-and-click story-driven adventure games from the folks at Frogwares being the most well known. With the next instalment due out later this year and sporting a number of tweaks, improvements, and of course, a brand new story, we recently got a behind-closed-doors sneak peak at how the Crimes & Punishments: Sherlock Holmes is coming along.
Much like the previous games, Crime & Punishments: Sherlock Holmes is played from a sort of over-the-shoulder third-person point of view, as you control the aloof Holmes and his erstwhile assistant Watson as they investigate the dark, dank cobbled streets of Victorian London. With a nose for mystery, Holmes always ends up slap-bang in the middle of trouble, often being forced to rely on his detective nous to get him out of any potential bother. Packed full of the sorts of brain teasers that would be right at home in your average Professor Layton game, with plenty of codes to crack, riddles to solve and deductions galore, it's certainly a game that intends to keep you thinking.
Also, Sherlock gets a fetching new pointy hat.
The case we saw began with Holmes visiting the shack of an old sailor by the name of Peter Carey. When the great detective arrived on the scene he found the aforementioned seaman pinned to the wall, right through the chest, by one of his harpoons, surrounded by a huge puddle of blood. Navigating Holmes around the scene, we zoomed in for a closer look to spot three pieces of evidence - a blood-stained knife, a gold ring and a notebook with the initials J.H.N scribbled on the cover. Obviously whoever it was hadn't gone to great lengths to clear the scene of any evidence - but we couldn't exactly pinpoint the murderer from what we'd found. Luckily, Sherlock has the ability to further inspect the items he's picked up by having a flick through his inventory. Selecting the ring brought up a highly detailed 3D model on the screen, while rotating it revealed an engraving around the inside. Another clue to pin down the potential perpetrator.
Moving away from the crime scene, one of Sherlock's other skills comes into play, with the ability to examine the environment and spot things that other, lesser detectives wouldn't. In this particular case, your attention is drawn to a shelf in the room, which initially appears to be nothing unusual - but upon activating Sherlock's "detective vision" (our name, not theirs), you'll notice a glowing silhouette of an object that appears to be moved. Without your detective vision, all you'll see is a square mark in the dust on the shelf - but with your special powers activated, Sherlock deduces that a chest has been taken - potentially giving you a motive for the murder.
I think he did it.
Fast-forwarding a bit, we arrive at the police station, where a young scallywag by the name of Neligan is in for questioning. Apparently the ring found at the scene of the crime belongs to him, making him murder suspect number one as far as the Victorian police are concerned - but Holmes remains unconvinced. Being the perceptive man he is, Holmes now has the ability to pick up on various aspects of the characters he's interviewing and use them to his advantage. Picking up on things by simply pointing and clicking at anything you think could be useful, Holmes deduces that Neligan's expensive jacket seems a bit out of place amongst the rest of his shabby, patchy clothes, while the scars on his hands might set off some alarm bells. With your new knowledge in mind, we allow Neligan to begin his testimony, but interrupt when we spot that he seems to be straying somewhat from the truth, and present him with some evidence to counter his fictitious story - in the demo we saw, this meant holding up Neligan's ring and asking him what the 'from R. Dawson' engraving meant. Of course Neligan had no idea what to say, thus proving he has something to hide...
Perhaps the most intriguing feature for the new Sherlock Holmes game is that, dependant on the choices you make during the game, each of the game's eight cases can end differently with a total of twelve different endings possible across the whole game. If there's one thing the Sherlock Holmes games of recent years have been good at, it's creating a grisly, gripping story that makes you want to see things through to the end - and Crime and Punishments is certainly shaping up to be another stellar entry in the series. When we'll get to try it out for ourselves though remains a mystery, as there's no concrete release date announced so far - all we know is that it'll be hitting the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 sometime before the year is out. Until then, we have a short trailer introducing you to our mate Neligan as well as what seems to be a bizarre blood-thirsty dragon tattoo cult:
