Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened An engaging story, logical puzzles, and nice visuals combine to make The Awakened a great adventure game.
If
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.P. Lovecraft had ever collaborated on a
novel, the duo might have come up with a spooky saga a lot like
Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened. This adventure, the third in Frogwares
Game Development Company's series featuring the protagonist of such
classic mysteries as The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Sign of
Four, pits the deerstalker-wearing detective against the horrors of the
Cthulhu mythos. While that combination may sound more like fan-fiction
cheese than a pulp-fiction dream team, the tale here is told
brilliantly, and the adventure mechanics are as faultlessly logical as
the legendary sleuth himself. That
doesn't mean that the game is easy. On the contrary, Holmes and his
sidekick, Dr. Watson, have to be extremely careful and observant to
stop cultists from setting off Cthulhu's alarm clock. The big
difference between The Awakened and the average adventure with its
walk-through-prompting leaps of stupidity is that you can figure out
all of the challenges that come your way if you approach them as Holmes
himself. This means that you need to closely examine your surroundings,
keeping an eye out for footprints, scraps of cloth, bits of fiber, and
other nearly imperceptible clues that can help you unravel the mystery.
In fact, this mystery begins with a missing servant and turns into a
globe-spanning investigation into (cue Lovecraftian purple prose)
indescribable eldritch horrors from beyond time and space!
However,
the game isn't a tedious pixel hunt. If you scan all of the backdrops
with Holmes' or Watson's practiced eyes, you'll spot important items
almost immediately. Such key areas as desks and shelves can also
usually be zoomed in on, so you know when something needs a look-see
with Holmes' trusty magnifying glass. There is a great sense of
consistency and internal logic at work here that keeps you on the right
path as long as you scrutinize everything in sight. You are also
presented with the odd bit of old-fashioned adventure-game goofiness.
At one point, you McGyver together a blowgun out of a pipe and a
hypodermic syringe, but much of the time, it feels like you're a real
detective running down leads and collecting clues.
