Review: Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis game

Sherlock Holmes is, in many ways, the perfect character for a point-and-click adventure game.

Clue-hunting, crime solving and general sleuthing all work very well within the style of the genre.

Less familiar is the character of Arsène Lupin, a Raffles-like French gentleman thief and literary contemporary of Holmes.

Lupin is the nemesis of the title (the game is actually known as Sherlock Holmes vs Arsène Lupin in other territories) and, in fact, he has a history of fictional run-ins with Holmes, who made several thinly disguised guest appearances in the original Lupin stories, by French author Maurice Leblanc.

The premise for Nemesis is that Lupin, having apparently decided that the arrogant British need to be taught a lesson, sets in motion a series of high-profile robberies, each involving a particular national treasure.

Unable to resist the temptation to go head-to-head with the greatest investigative mind in the world, Lupin sends a cryptic message to 221b Baker Street, goading his rival into a battle of wits that sees the player as Holmes (and, occasionally, Doctor Watson or Inspector Lestrade) attempting to foil the thief at every turn.

It’s a fun premise and one that’s executed in a pretty engaging manner. Unusually for a point-and-click adventure, the action all takes place in a 3D first-person point of view, which helps to make the game feel more involving.

Ironically, what lets Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis down is its attention to detail. Environments are beautifully designed (particularly if you’re a fan of late 19th Century furnishings), if a little sparsely populated. The voice-acting, on the other hand, will have you wincing, while the frequent misspellings and grammatical errors in the on-screen text are unforgivable.

Despite that, it can be very satisfying to unravel the twisting plot, though the inconsistent difficulty levels of the puzzles make Nemesis an oddly uneven and occasionally confounding experience.

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