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Frogwares' Sherlock Holmes games

Zed

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http://www.sherlockholmes-thegame.com/en/

I've played the Awakened and I must say I really liked it. Great atmosphere and decent puzzles, but mediocre story and quite buggy. It combined Holmes and the Cthulhu mythos, two of my favorite things.

Now I see they've made a Holmes vs Jack the Ripper adventure. Yet again, they combine two of my favorite things.

I wish to know if anyone on the codex have played any of these games, and how they compare to each other (and the Awakened)?
 

aries202

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I have (sadly :( ) only played the demo for both games (awakening and jack the ripper). The demo for Jack the Ripper convinced me to buy the game, though. The atmosphere in this game really shines. You don feel that you're in London at the end of the Victorian Age (1880-1890 or so). You'll have to solve puzzles, most of which whill help you further along in the story. There will be some blood, though (not as much as in DA: Origins....) but since this game deals with the ripper saga or myth, it is inevitable.

In the demo, at least, you will get very close to one or two women that's been killed. And Sherlock uses his deduction abilities. You'll also play as Dr. Watson sometimes.

I liked the demo a lot.

The Awakening and the game SH vs. Jack the Ripper both have darker, more mature tone than say SH vs. Arsene Lupin.

Edit:
Due to time constraints, I have only played the demo of both games, but I liked both demos very much :)
 

Chaotic Lulz3r

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Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper improved quite a bit on some points. One was the almost empty London streets in The Awakened. This time, the Whitechapel district is full of passersby strolling around. It can make the game more resource demanding than the average adventure game that can be played on rigs barely worthy of being called typewriters, but anything that can play Vampire Bloodlines is more than adequate.

It is a good adventure, and the gore is handled in a subdued manner, you mostly interact with chalk outlines and abstract representations instead of the actual victims' bodies. It works well.

It is not perfect. The pacing, I felt, could have been a bit tighter, as I sometimes felt the leads I was pursuing were too tangential to the case. And one puzzle requires knowledge not provided in the game (about dates concerning the American civil war), a puzzle design that Frogwares seems to be fond of and with which I completely disagree when it comes to single player games in general.
 

Vaarna_Aarne

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I loved The Awakened (honourable mention goes to puzzles, which were excellent), guess I'll have to check out Jack the Ripper.
 

ghostdog

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I played a bit the silver earring and I found it rather dull, is the awakened and the sherlock vs ripper better ? How do they compare to the "Lost files" games ?
 

Luzur

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last Sherlock Holmes game i played was in the multi-media era with CD-rom.

also have SH game for Apple II.
 

Zed

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@ghostdog
Try the demos. :U

@rest
I'm sold on the Ripper. Gonna give it a go during the weekend.
 

dipdipdip

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I just happened to play through an entire Sherlock Holmes marathon over the summer - starting with Silver Earring and working my way up to Ripper (played 'em a bit out of order, though).

I don't believe the Frogwares games are as good as the Lost Files games, but some of them are still worth checking out.

I thought Awakened was all right. I was just very disappointed by the Insane Asylum portion of the game, which had zero atmosphere and never felt tense or unnerving in the slightest. It feels like you're just among retarded people, instead of deranged threats to society. I do like the globe-hopping aspect, though, and thought New Orleans was very well done.

Nemesis/vs. Arsene Lupin started off interesting. You're up against a master thief who goes to various British landmarks and steals national treasures. He leaves clues about that Holmes follows, one leading to another leading to another leading to another, etc. Initially, it's pretty cool, because you almost feel like you're up against The Riddler, but it just drags on and on seemingly forever. Also, I prefer the more useful version of Watson found in Rose Tattoo. In this game, he's incompetent to the point where he's a detriment to Holmes, and you wonder why such a bright guy would keep a moron around.

Vs. The Ripper is my favorite of the Frogwares games. The puzzles are mostly light, and the game was obviously designed to be a little more inclusive (Read: dumbed down), but the experience is still interesting. The game actually uses historical facts and suspects, and by the time you do eventually deduce who Jack is (there's only one right answer in the game), the game does a pretty convincing job of making a sound case for the suspect having been the Whitechapel killer.
 

Zed

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Jack the Ripper was good. The only negative thing was some of the animations. Atmosphere, music, puzzles (although most of them very simple) and story were great.
 
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I'm pretty sure there was a Sherlock Holmes/Jack the Ripper adventure game on the 3DO. At least, I remember playing one back in the day.



Edit: Yup, 'Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes'.


Actually pretty fun.
 

Twinfalls

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I've been playing Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper and recommend it very highly. It's pretty terrific, enjoyable as an adventure with some novel puzzle mechanisms (deduction boards etc). Yes it's not super challenging but it's not a cakewalk either so far. It's the atmosphere that shines tremendously though. Victorian London is very nicely depicted, and Watson's voice actor is identical to the best filmed Sherlock treatment - the Granada UK television series from the 80s. In fact all the voice acting is top notch, as is the dialogue really.

Go get it now, punks, so they make more of them.
 

Topher

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Twinfalls said:
I've been playing Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper and recommend it very highly. It's pretty terrific, enjoyable as an adventure with some novel puzzle mechanisms (deduction boards etc). Yes it's not super challenging but it's not a cakewalk either so far. It's the atmosphere that shines tremendously though. Victorian London is very nicely depicted, and Watson's voice actor is identical to the best filmed Sherlock treatment - the Granada UK television series from the 80s. In fact all the voice acting is top notch, as is the dialogue really.

Go get it now, punks, so they make more of them.

I watching that show right now... I'm going to check these games out.
 

jazzotron

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Twinfalls said:
deduction boards

I really liked that mechanic - a good way to tie in all the clue-hunting/puzzle-solving.

And I second the opinions on the atmosphere for SH vs JtR - its bloody good! Definitely my fave of the series

Twinfalls said:
Go get it now, punks, so they make more of them.

Don't worry - I've purchased them all. Hopefully we'll see a return of Moriarty sometime in the future! (Going off memory here, but Moriarty had a cameo in The Awakened right?)
 

zeitgeist

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Far too many "oh, you need item X? do me favor Y first!" fetch quest puzzles in these new games. There are some neat mechanics in Jack the Ripper (deduction boards, rudimentary forensics, crime scene reconstruction), but overall the game is just too easy and it feels very mundane, no matter how much they obviously try to immerse you into the atmosphere.

Jack the Ripper is still the best one out of the new crop though. I'd definitely recommend playing both Lost Files games if you haven't yet. The second one is, at points, unintentionally hilarious in the visual sense, since they used actual actors for the character animations. I don't even think they were rotoscoped or changed much (if at all) from the video clips, I remember them looking just like live footage in a lower resolution.
 

Andyman Messiah

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Didn't like them at all. Horrible stories, horrible puzzles, horrible horribleness. Play the oldschool adventure games instead.
 

Twinfalls

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Andyman Messiah said:
Didn't like them at all. Horrible stories, horrible puzzles, horrible horribleness. Play the oldschool adventure games instead.

This is the type of glib and ignorant posturing that I most despise when it regularly pops up on the Codex. If you can't appreciate what's good about newer games (on the rare occasion they have strong good qualities) then you will get nothing.

If you are a fan of Conan Doyle's Sherlock and the Granada series, you will enjoy Sherlock v JTR a great deal. The writing standard is extraordinarily good, as is the voice acting. Yes, this stuff counts for a lot. And no, the puzzles are not 'horrible'. Did you even play Sherlock v JTR?
 

ghostdog

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Have you played the two "Lost Files" games, twinfalls ? How does Sherlock v JTR compares to them ?
 

Andyman Messiah

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Twinfalls said:
Andyman Messiah said:
Didn't like them at all. Horrible stories, horrible puzzles, horrible horribleness. Play the oldschool adventure games instead.

This is the type of glib and ignorant posturing that I most despise when it regularly pops up on the Codex. If you can't appreciate what's good about newer games (on the rare occasion they have strong good qualities) then you will get nothing.
You were always one of the cute ones, Twinny, and you're not exactly correct either. I am very much happy with the two games developed by Mythos. The Case of the Serrated Scalpel and The Case of the Rose Tattoo are two great point and click adventures with intelligent old-school puzzles and stories in spirit with Conan Doyle.

But hey, good on you for settling for sub-par entertainment. Now, if there are no other idiotic outbursts I'll be in my stable.

Also this is probably the third or fourth "SHERLOCK FROGWARES ADVENTURE GAMES" thread we've had. Don't feel like motivating n' stuff. Have a heart. Adventure games are dead.
 

Zed

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Andyman Messiah said:
Also this is probably the third or fourth "SHERLOCK FROGWARES ADVENTURE GAMES" thread we've had. Don't feel like motivating n' stuff. Have a heart. Adventure games are dead.
No you guys have just been bumping it a shitload of times.


Anyone played Sherlock Holmes vs Arsène Lupin? How is it compared to the Awakening and JTR?
 

Andyman Messiah

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No, I know for sure because this is the third or fourth time I've posted in a "HEY GUYS WHAT ABOUT THOSE FROGWARES ADVENTURE GAMES SHIT GAMES STARRING SHERLOCK HOLMES?!!"

Come the fifth thread I'm going to resort to violence.
 

Zed

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Okay, but I'll have you know this was the first thread created on the subject, as I always search before creating threads.
 

Twinfalls

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Andyman Messiah said:
You were always one of the cute ones, Twinny, and you're not exactly correct either. I am very much happy with the two games developed by Mythos. The Case of the Serrated Scalpel and The Case of the Rose Tattoo are two great point and click adventures with intelligent old-school puzzles and stories in spirit with Conan Doyle.

But hey, good on you for settling for sub-par entertainment. Now, if there are no other idiotic outbursts I'll be in my stable.

Also this is probably the third or fourth "SHERLOCK FROGWARES ADVENTURE GAMES" thread we've had. Don't feel like motivating n' stuff. Have a heart. Adventure games are dead.

Locue you have played Sherlock v JtR now, haven't you...? Here's a novel, wacky, random, straight-outta-left-field idea. One could play their game, and if disappointed, actually e-mail Frogwares and suggest the shape one might like the next game to take. Seeing as how they're the only ones making Sherlock games of any note now and all. Or one could make utterly useless single-line posts dismissing them completely out of hand. Ain't choice grand!

Also HALLO THAR MR BIG OWNER OF TEH CODEX
 

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