It was only a matter of time before Frogwares decided to introduce Jack the Ripper to their excellent Sherlock Holmes series. Holmes’s previous nemesis in the series, Arsène Lupin, didn’t quite do him justice. The incorporation of the Ripper promises more of the gothic horror which made the Lovecraft-inspired precursor Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened so enjoyable.
Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper recreates a dark, atmospheric Whitechapel, full of beggars, prostitutes, drunks and criminals, and with a growing Jewish community. While Holmes and Watson, a pair of Victorian moralists, discuss the topic of women working on the streets with some circumspection, the game can also be surprisingly gory, especially when reconstructing the Ripper’s crimes. However, the bodies of the victims are never displayed. Instead, we examine schematic drawings of them at the scenes of the murders. The details are astonishing though, and for a connoisseur of the case it’s fascinating to be able to step into the sleuth’s shoes and revisit the events as they happened. The level of detail and documentation is the game’s strongest feature; it’s also very well written, and full of winks to aficionados, such as mentions of Spring-heeled Jack, the presence of a certain Walter Sickert or Holmes’s views on his iconic deerstalker.
Even though the game engine still feels slightly dated, there are new improvements to the series. To begin with, you can choose to skip from fixed camera third person (point and click style) to first person perspective. Puzzles are better and more abundant than in previous outings. The game flows more naturally this time around, and there’s far less chance of getting hopelessly stuck looking for an object or person. The main innovations, though, are the deduction board and the timelines, which will delight Holmes fans as they are inspired by the detective’s own methods of deduction.
On the downside, our heroes are dragged to several mundane tasks in between solving the murders. This can undermine the story’s dramatic effect at times, but it also gives the adventure some dirty realism that previous episodes lacked. While one sometimes misses the pop-culture Victoriana of previous instalments – the Royal family, Joseph Merrick, Masonic conspiracies – there’s a real thrill to be had wandering the nighttime streets of Whitechapel in search of clues, and in discovering the Ripper’s identity at the end of the adventure. Once more, the game is afoot!
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