Sherlock Holmes: The Silver Earring

Please ignore that it says I've only played 50 minutes of gametime, i have played this game in it's entirety however it is best to run through DXWnd to avoid glitches and that is not tracked through Steam. I have very recently gone through the entirety of Frogwares Sherlock Holmes games in release order. In the grand scheme of the series I rank this as sixth (out of the ten main games) best in the series altogether. i do have a lot of affection for it however quite a few of the games released after this one are phenomenal 3d point and clicks in my opinion and it is not a discredit to this game that it does not rank as highly. I do think this would be a good starting point for a lot of people into the series considering I don't think anyone should play the previous game (Mystery of the Mummy) unless they can get it to run on old hardware and it does a good job of setting up gameplay expectations for the games after this. I will say as a caveat that this game is a bit dated however I personally enjoy old 3d Point and Click jank but I do acknowledge that not everyone will be willing to put up with that frustration. I however rank this higher than a lot of other 3d Point and clicks of the time. There is a bit of Pixel searching where you drag the mouse back and forth over the scene many times to ensure you didn't miss anything but in general it will not let you advance through the game unless you have everything. There is one exception to that rule however I feel like one moment of being able to softlock yourself isn't that bad considering this is very early into Frogwares repertoire and it is a problem you never see again after this. Just... don't forget to get the picture from sitting room on the first day. In terms of gameplay it is a typical point and click. There however is one sneak scene that I did find frustrating and you will probably have to redo the same thing multiple times before getting through, I highly recommend looking up a video guide at this point just to see where and when to click and then still try a few times before getting it. It does however do a good job at making you feel as if you are solving a mystery, clues are sprinkled throughout the story and I found myself pondering over motives and the evidence. You will look at and run chemical tests to discover what things are. It really feels like you're investigating. At the end of each day you have to put together evidence to support your answers to questions in a quiz so it does keep you from getting too far off-track as I feel you would without a bit of a guiding hand. It felt satisfying to get to the end and figure out the crime. It doesn't feel as if I had simply watched Sherlock solve it but rather as if I had actually assisted in the conclusion which I feel is a distinction that a lot of Detective point and clicks games tend to miss. I also feel like it would not be fair to mention that it did take a bit of effort to run without bugs, as I mentioned I ran through DXWnd to solve clicking glitches where it felt like my clicks did not register on the right space. It does run without it but it was with some frustration. For the best experience there is some troubleshooting required however it was considerably less than I had to do for the previous game and really, once I ran through DXWnd I had no problems. Just read through the discussions in the community tab and you should be able to fix any problems you have, In conclusion : decent 3d Point and Click for the time. Some PIxel Hunting but I personally didn't mind. Some troubleshooting needed but not as bad as some older games can have. Some frustrating gameplay mechanics but also some really good ones. If you can put up with some jank I feel like the story/deduction aspect makes up for the downsides. If you're a fan of Old Point and Clicks of the early 00's I would definitely recommend this one.