Corin Tucker's Stalker posted:

I've been playing Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments for review, and it's great.

The series has generally improved with each installment, and this is the first time it's firing on all cylinders. The game looks great (bordering on gorgeous at times), doesn't have any goofy low budget rough edges, and most importantly it feels like a proper detective game. You're doing legwork, taking in details about the people you talk to with a cool time-stop camera mode, and working out the case with a notebook that makes it easy to keep tabs on all sorts of little details.

There's less of a focus on puzzles. You're mostly just interacting with people and the world, and when an occasional puzzle does pop up it's usually straightforward and contextually appropriate. The environments are laid out in a smarter way than they've been in the past, so there's less running around. You also get very clear feedback when you have fully inspected an object or area.

Once you have all the evidence, you can examine deductions that have two possibilities and select the one that seems right, then get a graphic representation that shows whether that fits into your other conclusions. There are a lot of outcomes for each case, and by default you aren't told whether your accusation is right or wrong. You do have the option to check after the end has played out, though, and you can then jump back to a point where you can try accusing someone else. Either way, you get to decide whether to lay down the maximum punishment or go easy on the suspected culprit. So far as I can tell there is no right or wrong punishment. You just go with what seems right and get a little bit of follow-up flavor text in the paper during your next case.

If you're into detective games, I'd recommend giving this a shot. While Shadow of Mordor looks amazing and it's going to dominate sales+discussion, I hope this doesn't get completely buried.