There's always a choice . Personally , I avoid Steam like the plague , unless I have no other option . I will wait until , hopefully , this and Crimes & Punishments come to GOG , or some other drm free avenue.

Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter review: A dreadful case

I merged your post, Donald, with the existing Sherlock Holmes thread.

Wow !! That's a pretty scathing review, Donald !!

Hello.
I am also not a very big fan of steam. I always have trouble getting into their website. so I also have a long wait for this game.
kathy

That is true.
You can wait.
You can decide not to buy or play the game at all.
Or you can watch someone else play it on YouTube.

Considering all the dexterity requirements for this particular Sherlock game, I'd much rather watch someone else play it on YouTube and let them wrestle with the "action" parts. You may be able to "skip" dexterity sequences, but if you do that you miss seeing what happened during the dexterity sequence. As the PCWorld reviewer pointed out, using skips makes an already short game even shorter.

Metacritic scores are around 80%, but those reviews are from console reviewers.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/sherlock-holmes-the-devils-daughter
I have no doubt console gamers were the target audience -- probably considered to be where the money is.

The game is currently $50 at Steam -- not an inexpensive game.
Consider how much of the gameplay is something you'd enjoy and how much you'd have to "skip" before purchasing.

"Consider how much of the gameplay is something you'd enjoy and how much you'd have to "skip" before purchasing."

That's definitely what I'm doing, Jenny100.
I was very disappointed to read about all the action parts. I'm not that good with "action" in Adventures

I have just finished playing this game and it is a very hard game & certainly not your typical sherlock holmes. The pc spec are also very high. I does have skips in some parts but in 2 different sections of this game you cannot skip so you are dead in the water if you cannot get through it.

maybe watch a bit of a playthrough on youtube before you buy this. if I could describe this game in 2 words I would say "Indiana Jones"

If anyone's looking for a good YouTube playthrough to see if this is a game that you might like to play yourself, I'd recommend DanQ8000's; it's a lot of fun.

SH: Devil's Daughter playthrough

Edit: I just noticed that UruKat posted an alternative playthrough earlier in this thread. That one is without player commentary, whereas Dan's is with, so go with your preference. I know that some folks dislike commentary.

Thanks for the links, UruKat and Rushes, and thanks for the review, Donald. Wow, I think I'm definitely going to go with Jenny's suggestion and just watch a YouTube playthrough. I may get it eventually when the price goes down drastically, but as of now, I think it's overpriced for such a short game loaded with action segments. I don't like action segments. TellTale's are fine, but that's about as much as I'd prefer to handle. Much as I'm enjoying it, even the new King's Quest takes them too far for my tastes sometimes, particularly at the end of the last episode.

For now, I think I'm going to go with UruKat's link to just watch the story without commentary. Then, maybe I'll watch Rushes' link later as well, as it's always fun to see others' perspectives on games.

I watched DanQ8000 play through and he did a great job, totally recommend watching him for a few hints.

Thanks, plumgas!

Thanks, BrownEyedTigre. The trailer is interesting and makes me want to play the game. I look forward to playing it once I get a better graphic card to support it.

Hi,

I'm quite surprised how many negative comments there are written, especially from those of you who have not played the game at all.

I played the game one case a day and liked it. Interesting cases and surroundings, several different types of puzzles with various difficulty. In total I would say that it was easier than many previous SH games.

Most of you have complained about how expensive the game is and how much there are action sequences.

What it comes to price, in last couple of years the price of new games has almost doubled. I guess it's due to them being released on multiple platforms including consoles and it's certainly much more tempting to rise the price for PC players than to lower it for console players. But I agree with you that it is not a fair tendency. But if you are willing to wait a bit longer and keep your eyes open you most propably find new games with less than half the original price within a year from their release.

From my opinion action is not a bad element in adventure games. It is a compromise to tempt new audience from other genres to make the games more profitable. Otherwise there would be far less new games. There has been action elements in SH games for ages already. But in earlier games the were designed to be played using mouse and keyboard mostly. The console era games are designed to be played totally using a gamepad. I understand it may feel a massive change for many to try a gamepad instead of keyboard and mouse. But believe me it's not that difficult. Once you get used to it you won't even consider using keyboard and mouse if there is gamepad support available in the game like there usually is nowadays. Don't spoil your game experience with 'wrong' equipment. A wired Microsoft XBox 360 Controller for Windows (which is probably best supported) is not an expensive investment, only about half the price of a new best seller game. Learning to use the gamepad is best done playing some easy game that uses it in comprehensive ways, one that comes to my mind is Brothers - a Tale of two Sons.

But I wish game developers would offer us more options for tuning the game difficulty, except from skipping something totally. Three or more would be fine in most cases.

The only thing that's permanent is change!

Timo

Timo, I played with a gamepad long before keyboards and computers became a household thing. Never liked them, never felt comfortable with them. I also do not like keyboard controlled games. Having been a DarkSide game player for many years, I have to accept that fact that it will be controlled that way. On the other hand, I do not like my adventure games with anything but a mouse. I also don't like action in them. I play different things when I am in the mood, and when I want an adventure, I want to stroll through enjoying all it has to offer. I do not enjoy it when I have to have fast reflexes. If I want the stress of that, I will load a FPS and blow up some monsters or enemies.

Ana

Hi Ana, nice to hear your opinion. Hope to hear others too!

I personally have nothing against mixing adventure and action, vice versa. Especially to gain wider audience (for 'adventure' games).

Many new games have plenty of opportunities to adjust gamepad controls. For example this particular game has options to invert X- and Y-axis and adjust their sensitivity individually through in-game menu. Those will help many gamers to change the controls for their liking.

Keyboard and mouse controls together are horrible! Always get sore fingers!

Timo

I have kids so I have access to all the consoles, controllers and latest gadgets. I have really given it my all to like it especially since they have asked me to play with them. I just can't.

I agree with so many of the points BrownEyedTigre has made

And too much merging of genres won't have a happy ending, in my opinion

People should vote with their wallets.
If you want more QTE-heavy Sherlock games, go ahead and buy it.

Otherwise, don't waste money on something you won't enjoy.

It's not up to Gameboomers members to subsidize Frogwares.

I also do not want action/dexterity sequences in my adventure games. Its one of the reasons I have never purchased a telltale game. Im not really sure what they are...

I hear heavy opinions here!

By my opinion the newest SH game was not so different than previous ones and the amount of action has been too underlined in comments. Danger and action are part of SH world in books. So why should they be forgotten in games? Well, at least I liked it.

It is unfortunate that there are players who can't handle the QTE sequences, at least not with adjustment options provided. But giving more options from watching a cutscene up to full action could change the thing?

Because of ever increasing multi-platform releases the gamepad controls are here to stay as the only common way covering all platforms. And that's where they put their effort. It's better to try to adapt than strictly hold on to the past if you want to play multi-platform games in the future. One good way to ruin your experience is to use 'wrong' equipment. This concerns all game genres, solid and hybrids.

What I wish is that be open to new ideas and technology in games and do not pre-judge anything so easily without trying yourself. And keep in mind that what once was is not necessarily true today, both games and equipment develop by time.

What it comes to TellTale games, I found those I'we played (Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us) quite easy on QTE. But the story adapting to your acts and decisions is what makes them special. You deeply immerse to the story and start to really care about the characters. Life Is Strange is a good comparison. In general I'm not a big fan of cartoonish games but especially The Walking Dead has a style that pleases my eyes one great thing being characters narural facial expressions.

I'll leave this subject to this posting.

Timo

For 50 dollars, I can buy 6 games like Leaves: The Journey and Tormentum that are absolutely brilliant and play exactly like I want them to. There is a lot I can do with that amount of money. I also did not pre-judge it, I just decided to pass on it.

As always, it boils down to a personel preference.
So some people will agree with you, TJL and some people won't.
And I am one of the latter.

Although rather sad at the prospect, I doubt I'll be buying any future Sherlock Holmes games from Frogware.
Not only have they now become extemely expensive and and inclusive of difficult "can't skip" action sequences - but they have also become tied to Steam !!
And Steam is another "No No" as far as I'm concerned

I agree with all the comments against this game especially the price, requirements, action sequences and the fact that you can't play using just the Mouse.

I really liked Jenny100’s quote:


And it's not so much the price itself, if too expensive, wait and the price will come down but it is Not only the price of the game one has to take into consideration, I have a 4 year old laptop which can still play almost every Adv. game out there and I am not ready to buy a New Laptop just for the sake of playing one game, and I know I am not the only one that would need to buy a New Laptop or *Upgrade their Desktop PCs to play this game.

*IF that is, the old desktop is capable of being upgraded and then one must ADD the cost of the upgrade with the game "Wow, expensive game right?" and if not capable of an upgrade to play the game then you are in the same boat as Laptop owners, Buy a New PC just to play a game, a Short one at that.