![]() As a matter of fact, one of the environments goes for light and vibrant colours, and the contrast between that seemingly-reassuring luminosity and the dark events you're investigating there is far more effective than any length of greenish docks or greyish corridors the game uses at other points. I understand that this may have been meant to convey the darkness of the plot, but most of the time you see perfectly around you, and the feeling is not that of dark shadows concealing untold secrets but just of greyish dullness. The lack of light and colour also reinforces that impression. This is made all the more noticeable by the general lack of life in them most areas are completely still, without characters or little animations that would make them come alive. As a consequence, however, the game's vast environments tend to feel very empty. It's certainly a bit disappointing at first, but you quickly come to accept that it's how The Awakened works and that you're not playing one of the Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes games. Hotspots are limited to the bare minimum, namely clues you have to find and items you have to use. Unfortunately, simplifying the onscreen interface carried over into the game's interaction density. ![]() One might have wished for a functional "always run" system (the current implementation resets to walking every time you do something), but holding the Shift key to run manually isn't much of a problem if you're using the keyboard. ![]() All in all, I found the interface to work surprisingly well. Little icons (an eye, hand, etc.) appear on the screen to indicate that something can be interacted with, and a quick keystroke makes Holmes do so. Right-clicking brings up your inventory, where you can combine items or make one active. It's also possible to control everything with the mouse (holding the left button to move forward), but I found this option far less intuitive and practical than the mouse/keyboard combination. You move Holmes' head and turn him around by moving the mouse, and the usual WASD keys (or others of your choosing) make him move forward, backward or sidestep. The interface is also somewhat unexpected at first. When you're going to spend so much time investigating and searching environments, the last thing you want is to miss clues because of wrong camera angles or because your character is in the way. As a matter of fact, based on my previous experience with real-time 3D adventures, I'd say the move to first-person was a good choice. You see Holmes very frequently, in the many conversations and cutscenes, and you won't be spending your time flipping levers or adjusting weird pieces of machinery. Don't worry, though, as that doesn't mean it has been turned into The Adventure of the Missing Linking-Book. What you can't deduce, however, is that the game also uses a first-person perspective. From which we can infer firstly that the game is in real-time 3D, and secondly that you shouldn't expect the eye-candy level of big-budget action titles. ![]() Since this is a Sherlock Holmes game, let's get in the mood and do some reasoning: what can be deduced from that detail? Well, it obviously means that it was technically too difficult to have realistic blankets or even sheets. Despite the blur of mysterious faces and creepy incantations that haunt his dreams, the most striking detail of this introduction is that the poor man's bed only has a bare mattress. Watson having a nightmare about a previous case and his reminiscences will be the basis for the game. The result of this strange association is Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, and whether it manages to combine the strengths of both franchises or ends up being a monstrosity even Lovecraft wouldn't have dreamt of is what we'll now have to determine. Having done two previous Holmes games themselves, the people at Frogwares have decided to put Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective on the trail of a cult of Cthulhu worshippers who have kidnapped various people for use in one of their dark rituals. Predator, it was really just a question of time before someone contemplated doing Holmes vs. After a dozen Sherlock Holmes adventure games and about as many Lovecraft-themed ones, after Freddy vs. There are some things which are just bound to happen. This review is based on the original version. Since this review was first published, the game has been re-released as a "Remastered Edition" which offers a third-person, point-and-click control option, aloing with improved graphical effects and an updated help system. ![]()
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