Amateur Holmesian Scholarship

IGN have reported that the PC game ‘Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened’ has been remastered with a new 3rd person mode and other little tweaks. I’ve personally only ever played the old ‘Case Files of Sherlock Holmes’ games (which were awesome) and generally I’ve stayed away from the newer games (‘The Mystery of the Mummy’ was just awful) so I’ve never actually played this one.

Since its release in 2007, Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened has attracted a huge worldwide audience, earning high marks from reviewers and consumers alike. Regarded by many as one of the best uses of a license (earning GameSpot’s “Best Use of a License” award in 2007) – The Awakened is one of the key titles in the adventure genre is the past several years.

In the original game, players were immersed in the world of Sherlock Holmes through a first-person style of gameplay. While this was a seen by many as a fresh and new take on the genre, many fans felt the game could be improved by adding a more traditional and familiar third-person perspective. To better serve these fans of “classic” adventure games, Frogwares is now pleased to announce an updated version of The Awakened, offering a third-person gameplay mode.

To showcase this new version of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, Focus and Frogwares have today released a new video walkthrough of the game’s features. Narrated by Wael Amr, Director of Frogwares, this new video focuses on the game’s updates and changes, along with discussing the reasoning behind the gameplay changes.

Frogwares (their logo looks a lot like the Bullfrog [makers of 'Theme Hospital'] wonder if they’re connected), the company behind the game, did release my least favourite Holmes game but I have heard some good things about ‘The Awakened’ and ‘Sherlock Holmes vs Arsène Lupin’ (PC Gamer and PC Zone gave them reasonable marks, as did Gamespot). It seems they’ve also released one called ‘The Mystery of the Persian Carpet’, of which I’ve heard nothing about.

At some point I will review the Holmes games I’ve played, including the board game and card game.