Sherlock Holmes: the Awakened
The Detective of Baker Street Meets Lovecraft's Cthulhu Cultists
Gamespot's 2007 Game of the Year featured Doyle's detective tracking down a Cthulhu cult. The game offers an exciting combination of horror and mystery.
Sherlock Holmes and the Cthulhu mythos have long been popular. Cthulhu and the elder gods of the New England writer H.P. Lovecraft have gotten attention from game designers in the tabletop RPG world, but Arthur Conan Doyle's detective that epitomizes the powers of the rational mind has been ignored by video game designers. A recent release, Sherlock Homes: the Awakened changes this by combining mystery elements from Doyle's fiction with horror elements from Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos in an interesting manner
Fortunately, a new title features both. Sherlock Holmes: the Awakened, may not be the latest, most popular title, but the game's intriguing concept deserves a second look. It is also important for another reason: Focus Home Entertainment is one of the few companies reviving to bring back the graphical adventure game genre.
Sherlock Holmes Meets Cthulhu
There is a certain degree of overlap between the works of Arthur Conan Doyle and H.P. Lovecraft. Sherlock Holmes: the Awakened pits Doyle's detective who represents the powers of the rational mind against an entire mythos that represents the irrational fear of humanity. Only the player of Sherlock Holmes: the Awakened will determine whether the detective at 221B Baker Street stops the Cthulhu cultists or not.
Sherlock Holmes: the Awakened Furthers the Return of the Graphical Adventure Game
The graphical adventure game died out shortly after the release of Grim Fandango, but LucasArts continues its efforts to revive it in Sam and Max, Season One. LucasArts may wish that Sherlock Holmes: the Awakened and its 3 predecessors were never released, but the return of the point and click adventure game is good news for fans who missed the adventure game genre. This game and others like it signal the return of the adventure game.
Focus Homes Interactive, the designers of Sherlock Holmes: the Awakened and its predecessors, made one improvement over many of the adventure games of the past. The engine for this game is 3 dimensional, enabling richer backgrounds and greater game complexity.
Gamespot's 2007 Game of the Year: Sherlock Holmes: the Awakened
Gamers who spend their money on a bad game now how frustrating wasting money on a game that is not enjoyable can be. Gamespot enjoyed Sherlock Holmes: the Awakened enough to to give it the game of the year award for 2007. If a player wants to spend money on a new game, they do not need to worry about wasting money if they purchase Focus Home Entertainment's latest title set in Victorian London.
A Few Design Flaws
Sherlock Holmes: the Awakened does have a few design flaws. The first is that the characters bounce around too much, resulting in a condition that affects some gamers known as simulator sickness. The second is while the graphics have been drawn nicely, the designers could have taken better advantage of the graphics cababilities of modern computers to better simulate the buildings of Victorian London.
Let the people of Victorian London hope that Shelock Holmes and Doctor Watson can keep their wits about them as they unravel this mystery and attempt to prevent the Cthulhu cultists from unleashing their diabolical plan. The player can help by going out and experiencing Sherlock Holmes: the Awakened for himself.
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