Download Size: 220 MB
Difficulty Level: Easy
Time Played: 3 hours
What I'd Pay: $10
Steam Price (4/24/12): $10
This game gets points just for throwing time travel at Sherlock Holmes without him batting an eye. Fantastic beasts, Satanic rituals, freeing ghosts... "There's a logical explanation for everything." I imagine Cthulhu himself could burst from the oceans and Holmes would go, "Hmm, that is fascinating. What do you make of it, Watson?" In fact, the whole appeal of this game rides on the sublime interactions of Holmes, Watson, and their client as they encounter magical oddity after magical oddity. That alone pulls it above most of the other hidden object games out there.
The gameplay itself is standard. You have a multitude of hidden object searches and puzzles to complete as you try to make your way further into the mansion. As you progress, you also unlock several powers accessible through a medallion you receive at the start; their applications are pretty obvious, though, and it doesn't add much aside from some backtracking to collect objects you previously couldn't. It also has a recharging hint system and an option to skip puzzles after some time has passed, both of which I used quite often to find that last object or bypass a hairpuller. (Even on Easy, I often had to guess what they wanted me to do on a puzzle, and on 2-3 of them I was simply going in circles before I gave up & moved on.)
The presentation, however, is very good. The graphics are more seamless than what I've expected of hidden object games; none of them really stuck out like a sore thumb, like some of the other hidden object games I've played. The background music is very good as well, which is a good thing because the same piece plays for the entire game.
The banter of the 3 protagonists is the best part of it, though. Although the writing is nothing special and the voice acting ranges from "okay" to "grating", their constant banter about the strange, magical happenings was always welcome as I played the game. There's a lot of it, too, usually several pieces of dialogue for any new room they enter. They're what really made this game enjoyable, and kept me playing until I finally beat it.