Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments
Sherlock Holmes is the most famous detective in entertainment history, so it’s only natural that he’d appear on something like this. Frogwares has been creating Sherlock Holmes games for years, but Crimes and Punishments still remains their very best one, and one of the best detective games ever.
The game is split up into six different cases, all of which tie into an overarching plot of a terrorist cell called the Merry Men trying to overthrow the government. Using investigation mechanics you’ll need to study crime scenes and interrogate witnesses, and finding clues adds them to something called the “Deduction Board.”
Using the Deduction Board you can link pieces of info together and try to find the truth. However, there’s not just one solution to each case, as each one has 4-5 different ways it can be solved, and you can even fail to solve it, never finding the murderer.
If you do find the person, though, you then have a moral choice on if to forgive or punish them. The mechanics in Crimes and Punishments is really meant to make you feel like Sherlock Holmes, and the game takes some smart cues from other titles like Arkham Asylum for new mechanics.
The sheer number of options in each case, and the way they can turn out, makes this a great detective game, but the grittier take on Sherlock Holmes is also interesting.
