Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper

Have to say this game is most consistent in story, compared to "Devil's Daughter" (where some cases does not make sense at all) and "Crimes and Punishments". Engine is a bit aged, but playability is solid. Good game if you are into adventures with mini-puzzles, this one can keep you occupied for a day.

My wife and I have been enjoying solving the puzzles. At times the mechanics of the game are not obvious and get in the way, but a quick trip to the universal hint system website usually provides what we need without giving too much away.

Very good story. However, the old mechanics are sometimes annoying. The voice acting is riddiculously bad.

Sadly to say this is an idea that probably looked good on paper but was undone by its own premise very early on. Set during the historical Ripper killings, Sherlock investigates the deaths of each of the canonical 5. The name given to the 5 victims police are certain were killed by the ripper. Given the historical nature of the Killings, you become aware that you are always going to be one step behind the killer and not be able to save any victims and of course the conclusions to the acutal identity of the killer is based on the acutal police suspects of the time. The game does make good use of the deduction board mechanic, but in this instance becomes a deduction on rails game. You can't really go wrong on this one at all. The game is then padded out with the usual pointless busy work and infuriating silly hard puzzles. One involves a bizarre moving block puzzle were Sherlock is trying to pry out a medallion from a floor board, which also has 2 planks, 2 bottles, 2 spoons, 1 comb, and a hand mirror to block progress - this had a 30 step solution to follow, and I had to google it. Puzzles were never Frogwares strength. No wonder then that they would go on to add a skip button to these puzzles in later entries. As an historical curio, it is superior to Nemesis as it tries to be a game of deduction not puzzle solving. Sadly its a case the Great Detective cannot really solve and feels very unsatisfactory in its conclusions.

I played this game long after it came out and chronicle it long after I played it... The big negative point of this game is that it was already technically dated for the time due to its lack of budget. The game is very monochrome in particular and the gameplay can be at least... Frustrating. But after a while it didn't prevent me from appreciating the quality of this game : an incredible writing job (the game is faithful to the elements of the investigation around Jack the ripper down to its smallest details). In the end an instructive game, captivating from beginning to end and my favorite in the series with Crimes & Punishments.