I thought things could only get better... And they did!

Well, after a particularly underwhelming play-through of Sherlock Holmes & The Case of the Silver Earring I was very much in the mood for some more of the great detective so I dived right in and started Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened [Remastered Edition] and I have to say after just completing it tonight, I was very impressed. Now before I go on I should mention that I'm a bit of a fan of H.P. Lovecraft's works so instantly for me there is an improvement over the pretty boring story of the silver earring as this game is all about uncovering and stopping a Cthulhu worshipping cult. The whole supernatural element is handle excellently for a Holmes game as throughout the game there is never anything explicitly supernatural happening. We never actually see anything that couldn't possibly happen in real life and anything strange that does happened could be passed off as coincidental (such as the tidal wave, the snakes in the corpse). So anyone who thinks they would be put off by these supernatural elements need not worry, its all good old fashioned sleuthing here. :-)

Now as I mentioned I played the remastered version of the game which I'm lead to believe includes a few minor graphical improvements and the ability to play in 3rd person perspective which, as a person who much prefers 3rd person adventures has to admit isn't that great, the game is infinitely better played in its intended 1st person view. This allows for much smoother controls and for a more absorbing experience, not to mention the 3rd person seems glaringly tacked on anyway. This game addresses a lot of my complaints about the previous game starting with the games interactivity, where as the last game had very few hotspots and not a lot of interesting dialogue this one is all about checking your surroundings speaking with people and just seems a lot more fun and less like a casual hidden item adventure game. The inclusion of the close up examination with the magnifying glass and tape-measure is really quite fun too.

If you remember my other gripe with Silver Earring was Holmes himself seemed very unlikeble and kinda aloof at times. He never seemed puzzled and always acted as though he was simply going through the motions for the benefit of the other characters. In The Awakened we really get the feeling of Holmes learning as we are (well OK, maybe he's a bit sharper than us but come on he is Sherlock Holmes!) and we are able to see him get excited as he solves a riddle or frustrated as he cant find a valuable clue. This really gives him some character which is also aided by his much improved interactions with Watson although I would still have like to see a bit more optional dialogue with Watson as he is by your side through most of the game with nothing but stoic phrases to say ("What do you make of this, Holmes?").

I think all in all It was a fun games to play and despite is flaws it really managed to suck me in and keep me playing till the end which a lot of games seem to fail these days. I think I'm all Sleuthed out for now though and might leave the next two games for a while so I can play something a bit different. I'm on a play-through of Tex Murphy: The Pandora Directive which I may finish... Who knows guess we'll just have to see.