The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel (1992)

The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel (1992), written by Eric Lindstrom, based on the characters created by Arthur Conan Doyle, developed by Mythos Software, published by Electronic Arts

Long before Frogwares Games started their own line of Sherlock Holmes titles, the great detective had either inspired or starred in several different games, ranging from text games to FMV adventures. One of the entries to sleuthing games was The Case of the Serrated Scalpel, published by Electronic Arts.

Like most detective stories, the Case of the Serrated Scalpel begins with a murder. A young actress is a victim of a brutal murder, reminiscent of the infamous Jack the Ripper. In fact, Lestrade of Scotland Yard is convinced that the Whitechapel slasher has expanded his territory and is ready to close the case, but still lets Holmes, who disagrees, dig deeper into the case.

The biggest clue Holmes finds to point to another culprit is the wounds found from the victim. While they are clearly made with a sharp knife, there is a noticeable serration in them as well, like if the scalpel had a serrated blade. After interviewing the witnesses and searching the crime scene, Holmes and Watson head out to the streets of London to track down a brutal killer, whose motives at this point are unclear.

Unlike many other adventure games from the early '90s, The Case of the Serrated Scalpel is refreshingly logical. All of the puzzles can be solved by exploring the scenes, investigating evidence and clues you find. Talking to people is important and at times, you have to examine the scenes thoroughly in order to unlock certain conversation options. In short, it does feel like you are on a genuine investigation.

The game plays very much like an early '90s Lucasfilm game. You control Holmes with a mouse and choose the desired verbs from a verb menu. From there you can also access the inventory, where you can examine or use items. There are no inventory combination puzzles, only looking, using or giving an item.

If there's one problem with the game, it is, that the UI does feel a bit clunky. Though this all might be down to ScummVM. This clunkiness manifests itself as unresponsiveness when performing an action or just plain badly done navigation. Swapping mouse buttons of the auto help from left to right does seem to help at least a bit. In some scenes, it is easy to miss that there are multiple pathways to other places. The issues with ScummVM might be chalked down to the fact, that the game isn't sold anywhere, which leads to a greatly diminished player base. Considering how much ScummVM has evolved during the years, it is possible, the game has suffered as there are no regular players to inform of possible issues with new releases.

Interestingly enough, the game does allow you to switch between mouse buttons on which you want to use as the verb quick choose function. There is also a possibility to change the game font between three different fonts, which is nice.

The background art is serviceable, but clearly not at the same level as Sierra or Lucasfilm games were at the time. The animation is poorer as well, but there is a nice amount of special animations, which has not always been given with older, or even newer, adventure games.

The music is a huge letdown and personally, I ended up switching it completely off. Depending on the version you play, there also is voice acting. The regular disk version has some voiced cutscenes, but apparently, there should be a CD version as well with full voices. A 3DO version has voices as well and also includes FMV bits of the characters talking.

In many ways, the way the game progresses and is played, tCofSS is a far better Holmes game than many of the earliest Frogwares attempts with the character. It constantly feels like a proper detective game with puzzles, which are a pleasure to solve. It isn't a perfect game, by any means, it has its problem, like pixel hunting and at times unintuitive responses on what you do, but overall, it is a pleasant game.

While it isn't graphically at the same level as some other companies were able to carry their games to, it is far from being the worst example of early '90s adventure games. Some might even say, it has stood the test of time better than some other better-known titles.

The Case of the Serrated Scalpel is not sadly sold anywhere digitally, so your only choice is to locate it from other sources. But if you do end up finding it, you could play worse as far adventure games go.