If you think I'm writing about Crimes and Punishments (opens in new tab) just so I can link to the best Sherlock Holmes song ever written, My Dear Watson (opens in new tab) by Thee Headcoats, then you're half-right. I'm also writing about it because a massive new trailer has just released. In its 23 minutes of footage, Holmes doesn't say the word "elementary" once, but he does look a bit like a Victorian Matthew Mcconaughey, so that's something I suppose. This latest 'narrated gameplay trailer' contains commentary by the guy what did that Styx: Master of Shadows one (opens in new tab) , which makes sense as both games share a publisher.
Watson-based cover mechanics! Sorry, had to get that out of the way. It's a fun start for a series that's occasionally seemed a bit po-faced from the entries I've played, so that's a good sign. There are other signs that Frogwares might finally be making a Sherlock Holmes simulator, and not just an adventure game featuring Sherlock Holmes. You can now create and wear disguises before setting out on a case, and do that super-fast cross examination thing he does on everyone he meets - with time slowed down for us mere mortals, naturally.
I'm still waiting on the great detective game that the laughably hysterical LA Noire promised several years ago, and so I'm putting a lot of hope in Crimes and Punishments, perhaps to my peril - the Sherlock Holmesy stuff is also right up my alley, obviously. It does seem eerily reminiscent of LA Noire here, only without that game's distractingly excellent facial capture animation that made the rest of the world look awfully cheap by comparison. Moral choices are promised in Crimes and Punishments' sextet of cases, and we'll discover what that entails at the end of September.
