Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 4.0 stars Excellent
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 8.3 (4.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Brett Todd
• Reviewed on: 03/27/2007
• Released on: 03/01/2007
• Originally published on GameSpot: Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened (PC) Review

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.

Yet simply observing everything and slapping together makeshift weapons won't prevent cultists from summoning Cthulhu. There are a lot of puzzles to solve during the course of the game, including a couple of combination door locks, a devilish clock conundrum that must be solved to open a safe, a few extraordinarily tough ciphers, and even one challenge to draw the bloody pentagram that serves as the sign of Lovecraft's Great Old Ones. Holmes must also take evidence back to labs (both in his famous flat at 221 B Baker St. and elsewhere) and examine it under a microscope or cook it up with other solvents in a mechanical contraption to separate the elements. Some of this can be a little finicky. Sometimes you have to use a scalpel or tweezers just right on a piece of evidence slabbed under the microscope. Hot spots in the game can occasionally be a touch tricky to activate as well. Still, the hands-on feel of these various challenges more than makes up for a few minor technical issues.

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