Have You Played... Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.

A thing an awful lot people are wrong about is the recent Frogwares Sherlock Holmes games. Some people, for some reason, think they're not an actual dog poo. They are an actual dog poo. However, in 1991 there was a Sherlock Holmes game that wasn't actual dog poo - Consulting Detective.

I said that with a lot of authority, didn't I? I mean, I'm right about the recent Sherlock Holmes games - they're bloody terrible. But my opinion of Consulting Detective is deeply conflated with my 14 year old brain, and ho ho, 14 year old me was a fucking idiot.

I remember loving them. I remember enjoying clicking through all the notebooks, reading all the newspaper articles, and most of all, watching the stunningly hammy FMV. It was a treat! A silly, enjoyable treat. And then came the Steam releases in 2012, despite a failed Kickstarter to fund such an endeavour. As I discovered back then, it's more than just nostalgia, although it turned out nostalgia was covering a lot of acting crimes.

They also massively messed up the interface in the remake, for absolutely no good reason, which is such a shame. Because these are well written original Holmes stories, delivered in a really interesting fashion. Just without the aid of professional actors.