Developer Frogwares has revealed the latest entry in their long-running series of Sherlock Holmes-based adventure games, one of which resulted in the most terrifying video on YouTube. While their previous games haven’t strayed too far from the Jeremy Brett school of Holmes, there are changes afoot for The Great Detective’s latest mystery, a couple of which appear more than elementary. This new game comes with a new Sherlock, who publisher Focus Home describe as a “more modern character perfectly matching the new artistic ambitions of the title.” The released screenshots suggest that statement can be translated as ‘Sherlock’s not wearing a coat’, an act which was close to scandalous in Victorian times. But the greatest change in Crimes & Punishments: Sherlock Holmes promises to be the new engine; Frogwares have pushed their own from the Reichenbach Falls in favour of the ubiquitous Unreal Engine 3. As for the mystery itself, well it turns out there will be eight whole cases for Sherlock to set his mind to, including “murders, disappearances” and “spectacular thefts”. However, the most interesting part is the addition of Mass Effect-style moralising, which Focus Home elaborate on below. “Each case offers real freedom to players, who will have to make important moral choices instead of simply enforcing justice by the book. All decisions have an influence in the game and affect your character’s reputation in addition to having realistic, sometimes unexpected, consequences. You will have to bear the weight of your choices, as Crimes and Punishments offers an exciting system of actions/consequences that forces players to think before acting by giving true depth to every decision they make.”

Cast your mind back to November, and you may recall that Double Fine were asking you to judge which game ideas they would turn into their Amnesia Fortnight prototypes, to be created during their traditional two-week brainstorming session. You chose the winners and, well, that was that – until now. Double Fine have gathered up the prototypes in a luxury special edition, available in both digital and physical form. The boxset/download features the five finished prototypes, plus a host of extra gubbins, including even more prototypes, the game’s respective soundtracks, and the documentaries.
The $30 two-disc box set – and indeed the $9.99 download version – features all five finished prototypes: Autonomous, Black Lake, Hack ‘n’ Slash, Spacebase DF-9 and The White Birch. But you’ll also get the original prototypes for Brazen, Costume Quest and Happy Song thrown in too, in addition to the aforementioned documentary and soundtracks. There doesn’t appear to be any difference in content between the digital and physical box sets – well, apart from the price.
If you donated money to the Amnesia Fortnight humble bundle last year, you’ll have already been given access to the finished prototypes, but it’s now time for the rest of us to get our dirty hands on the games. If, by the way, you’ve forgotten what those games were, the following Special Edition trailer should clue you in.
Thanks to Eurogamer.