Sherlock Holmes: Secret of the Silver Earring

I've played a lot of Sherlock Holmes games (from the first ones to the latest) and most of those I've enjoyed. But this one... well... no. To much pixelhunting. Evidence you need to gather just for the quizz at the end of the chapter (or day if you like) but with no whatsoever relation with evidence for the case. And than those timed puzzles. Each tilme you've got one of those, if your click is a bit out of the line, your personage stays standing there contemplating his own toes. Naah! This is crazy driving, this is only a way to make the game longer lasting before ending the game. If the dev's had not put al those - what I call - non-existential obsticals, I suppose one could get through this game in less than 8 hours Honestly there are better games to spend your money on; even Dherlock Holmes games developed by Frogwares.

Despite how janky it is, this is a surprisingly enjoyable game for the most part. I found myself getting into the gameplay loop and the mystery. Still, it's a difficult one to recommend and it has some serious issues working against it. This list may seem harsh, but... - The 3D characters are difficult to move around the environment, often not responding to mouse clicks until you manoeuvre them just right. - Awful pixel hunting for clues and hotspots that are very obscured. - Terrible voice acting for most of the characters. - No subtitles during cutscenes. - A lot of translation issues for the English version making some things difficult to understand, possibly unsolvable. - The interface can be unintuitive, especially when you are randomly expected to use items together with nothing to indicate that's needed. - Difficult to read documents due to the handwriting fonts used. - A couple of very difficult puzzles that defied reasonable explanation. - A very unenjoyable "quiz" needed to complete each day, which requires you to match up clues to statements. And you can't progress until you get everything exactly right. - A maze puzzle combined with a time limit. No, thank you! - Dialogue text font is Comic Sans 😮 You'd think with all that the game would be irredeemable, and yet I found an authentic Sherlock Holmes experience in here that I got caught up in. I enjoyed finding the clues and piecing things together. The game flows well enough and doesn't last too long, and personally I also feel some nostalgia for this era of PC gaming so I kind of warmed to it all. The game ends with a long (very long) cutscene that puts everything together, and it's very complicated. I don't think I followed it all that well, but the journey there was fun.

The game's plot was interesting. Hovewer there were some technological issues with controls, player camera, etc

The level of detail in the deductions is excellent, moreso than most games of the genre. I wasn't put off by anything else except the timed "puzzles" that can't be bypassed. They are contrary to the patient, deductive experience I expect from Sherlock Holmes and there is one (think paths) that is so tedious and annoying I gave up on the game.

Ce jeu fut mon introduction à l'univers de Sherlock Holmes (après avoir lu quelques romans) et il faut reconnaître que l'univers est respecté. J'aime énormément ce style victorien. Côté scénario, ça commence plutôt bien avec le classique meurtre à élucider. L'enquête se complique pour devenir quelque chose de vraiment difficile à comprendre en plus d'être invraisemblable. Pour résoudre les différents mystères, on a un "questionnaire" où il faut placer les preuves correspondantes pour les élucider. Le gameplay a des lacunes : nous avons du mal à faire aller le personnage où on veut, quand celui-ci ne refuse carrément pas de se déplacer ! Les animations sont rigides. Côté voix, elles sont très moyennes. Les enregistrement ne sont pas de bonne qualité : pour certains, on a vraiment l'impression que la voix a été enregistrée avec un micro au rabais. Défaut fatal pour un jeu d'enquête qui est très bavard ! Holmes est bien doublé cela dit. A tester !