Preview Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Silver Earring Developer: Frogwares Publisher: Ubisoft Release Date: September 2004 Platform: Preview by Randy Sluganski July 19, 2004

All screenshots accompanying this preview were taken from actual gameplay.

Hold onto your deerstalkers, for it appears as though adventure gamers will finally get a Sherlock Holmes game as good as, if not better, than those time-honored classics from the mid 1990’s - Sherlock Holmes & the Rose Tattoo and Sherlock Holmes and the Serrated Scalpel.

Unlike Frogwares’ previous Sherlock Holmes effort – The Mystery of the Mummy - that focused more on the puzzles and less on the characters, Silver Earring seems to have achieved that fine balance between spotlighting the idiosyncrasies and cognitive processes of both Holmes and Watson along with inserting puzzles whose solutions are meant to move the case forward by imparting new clues rather than just providing a key to open a door or secret entrance.

Frogwares was gracious enough to provide us with a 128MB demo and we were floored not only by its authenticity but also by its devotion to the subject matter. This, my friends, is Sherlock Holmes as he should be: inquisitive, persistent and slightly sardonic! The voice of Sherlock Holmes brings to mind the black-and-white Basil Rathbone movies we’ve all seen on late night television and the supporting cast is tinged with enough British accents to make the gamer believe he has been transported to a Victorian London one hundred years in the past.

Our demo commenced at the beginning of the game immediately after the opening movie. A party at Sherringford Hall to welcome home Sir Melvyn Bromsby’s daughter Lavinia has turned tragic. As the host delivers his welcoming speech at the head of the ballroom, he suddenly collapses to the floor; a darkening red stain spreading visibly through the chest of his tuxedo. After the initial brouhaha - and Sir Bromsby – has died down, we are then free as Sherlock, to begin questioning the suspects – and they are many!

Your control for this part of the game is twofold as you can act as either Sherlock inside Sherringford Hall or Watson, outside Sherringford Hall waiting for the local constables to appear and ensuring that no one leaves the hall. All gameplay is mouse-controlled. A left-click activates the on-screen icons – a meerschaum pipe ingeniously serves as a non-active icon until you cross a hot-spot - and a right-click opens the inventory bar at the bottom of the screen.

The inventory bar, besides storing the items found in our search of Sherringford – a photo, a button, hair strands and a suspicious white powder – always contains a magnifying glass that can be used to study objects more closely, a tape measure and a test tube to collect powders and ashes - sort of a Victorian CSI if you will. It seems as though certain items will need to be examined more closely back at Holmes' quarters, an off-limit area in the demo.

To the left of the Inventory Bar is a book that is crucial to playing the game. The book is divided into four distinct sections: two maps, one that outlines your progress in Sherringford Hall and another that notates the locations you have visited in London and which will also allow you to move quickly between locales; a section to read any newspaper clippings, postcards, etc. that have been uncovered; a timetable that lists any clues you have found and, most importantly, an exhaustive list of any character in the game you have spoken to along with a list of the questions you have asked and their responses.

Each character had a different dialogue tree from which to choose questions and from what I’ve seen so far, great care has been taken to ensure that responses don’t seem jarringly out of order or precognitive as is too often the case in computer mystery games.

This first level alone had almost ten areas – the ballroom, a kitchen, a den, the outside grounds and so on - to explore and collect evidence that could provide clues to the guilty party. Secondary characters alone numbered around twenty just in the first level demo. You can speak to anyone inside or outside the Hall and their responses will change over time depending on what new information you have unearthed. If there was one thing that most impressed me, it was the overload of information so early in the game. This is clearly not a case for gamers who have been spoiled by the easiness of modern adventure games like Syberia. Silver Earring is, from what I have seen so far, more a throwback to games that kept the gamer chewing on one puzzle for days on end without resorting to a walkthrough for fear of ruining the fun.

The graphics simply could not be any more detailed – if you need convincing, just examine the in-game screenshots accompanying this preview. The music for this first level is an absolutely splendid accompaniment of violin and piano and I will go out on a limb and claim that it is the singular most impressive piece of music I think I have yet to enjoy in an adventure game (Isn’t it great how wonderful the music has been in a lot of recent adventure games).

As I’ve yet to actually solve any puzzles or progress past the first level, I can’t comment on the game’s ability to build suspense or deepen the mystery. But, what I’ve seen so far is absolutely thrilling and gives hope that Sliver Earring could be the game that rejuvenates an interest in developing adventure games as complicated and wonderful as they were in the ‘good old days.’ I admit upfront that this preview is almost too glowing, almost too good to be true – and I will be crestfallen if the rest of the game does not live up to my expectations.

But, Frogwares has me convinced that they have learned from their earlier mistakes and have taken to heart gamer feedback. Their devotion to recreating Conan Doyle’s creation is evident and serves to successfully draw the gamer into the world they have created. The movie that concludes the first level alone is as long as and more interesting than almost any endgame movie I’ve ever seen and Frogwares is promising a real whopper of an endgame movie as a reward to the dedicated computer detective.

If you would like to read more about Sherlock Holmes & The Silver Earring, visit the official site for more screenshots, character studies and wallpaper.