Lost files of Sherlock Holmes: review by William Garrett


Text by William Garrett <garrett@gte.com>

Introduction :

I've been playing around with this for a bit know and have a preliminary review.

The Game :

Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes is an interactive mystery. You are Sherlock Holmes, and a vicious murder has just been committed. The police believe that it's the work of Jack the Ripper. It's up to you to visit the crime scene and other locations. To interact with 60 different characters (in full motion video and audio). And to generally do whatever it takes to solve the murder mystery.

The game is an interesting blend of the traditional Sierra type adventure (i.e. King's Quest, ...) and the more non-interactive CD based movies that we all know and hate.

The interface is fairly unique. The game drops you into a typical Sierra type screen where the room is full of objects that you can examine and do typical adventure game things to. You can unlock thinks, open items, use items on other items and so on. The bottom half of the screen is what seperates this game from the typical sierra adventure game. Instead of moving around with the cursor pad, you move and examine objects using a bunch of buttons at the bottom of the screen. To move sherlock from the door to his desk you move the mouse to his desk and press the C button (alternately you could press A to switch to the button window, click on the move button with 'B', and then click on the desk). Its a bit convoluted but you quickly get used to it. You get around town using a map screen to click on the locations you want to visit (theres a cute inlay over the map of a horse and carriage taking you to your destination). Once at a destination you point and click to examine various items and to talk to the other characters. When talking to other characters you're given a small list of possible things to say, Sherlock than pops up in FMV and asks the question, the response also comes in FMV.

The review :

First, let me start by detailing some problems with the game:

This isn't a very innovative game, it's a port after all. It's also not the type of game that's good enough to atract people to the genre who don't typically like games of this type. It's not a system seller and it doesn't use the 3do to its fullest.

If you do like this type of game, than this is well worth getting. The mystery is good, the voice acting is great, it isn't a fast paced game so the few pauses that exist aren't distracting. The graphics are better than decent and the fmv is a nice touch. I've been playing this with my wife -- it's slow, requires real thought, and doesn't require over developed reflexes, she loves it.

-- 
Bill Garrett			INTERNET:  garrett@gte.com
GTE Laboratories Incorporated	UUCP:      garrett@bunny.UUCP
40 Sylvan Road			PHONE:     617-466-2283
Waltham, MA  02254		FAX:       617-466-2677

michel.buffa@cmu.edu