The Testament of Sherlock Holmes

pro

The story starts out dark and morbid, which fits the game perfectly. A badly mutilated body sets up what appears to be a long road ahead of conspiracies, secrets and lies. The adventure is set in beautifully made locations where it seems a lot of work as gone into making them as detailed and living as possible.

pro

The game boasts some truly fun and interesting puzzles. Where a lot adventure games have a tendency to stray into bizarro land, Sherlock Holmes stays grounded most of the time. Old fashioned logic and reading comprehension will get you through all of them, but the game requires you to pay a bit of attention to both what's happening and your notebook. The intricate puzzle boxes and locks feel like something you should be able to create yourself. You have the option of actually skipping puzzles, but I wouldn't recommend it.

pro

As a long time fan of the classical adventure games I appreciate the effort made to have this game on a console and keep the genre somewhat relevant.

con

If piloting a tank on two legs is your thing, this game is brilliant. The simple act of walking around is a chore, and just aligning yourself to activate a hotspot can often be a hassle. The controls and movement is actually so bad it makes it really hard to want to keep playing it at times. Small things that should only take a second to do becomes a source of annoyance. The implementation of a first person view doesn't really help, and the time spent to implement it could really have been used to polish controls and mechanics further.

con

It is really sad that it only takes an hour or two for the story to slowly start losing focus. End goals becomes irrelevant and the travel there becomes less interesting. The voice acting ranges from good to lifeless. Already hampered by controls that will drive you nuts, the game ultimately fails to do what an adventure game is set out to do: Immerse you in a well crafted journey. All these faults overshadow the great puzzles and semi-interesting story.