A group of children play in the attic and stumble upon a journal written by Dr Watson. Intrigued, the kids begin to read the old pages only to find a story, where Watson's faith in his brilliant friend, Sherlock Holmes, is put to the test when everything begins to point to a direction of the great detective having fallen in the life of crime.
The winding tale begins at the mansion of Maquis of Coningham, where a precious necklace has been stolen. While this part of the game is merely a tutorial, it does tie to the larger whole. With his powers of deduction, Holmes has to comb the scene of the crime and find the necklace. We are also introduced to a Scotland Yard inspector, Baynes, who is also on the case. After finding the necklace, Holmes and Watson rush to an important meeting with the bishop of Knightsbridge. To their shock, they find the man tortured to death.
After examining the ample evidence found from the scene of the murder, Holmes concludes two possibilities for the investigations: firstly, the bishop was poisoned in a manner, that reminded him of the most notorious poisoner of England, who is at the moment in jail. The other traces point towards Whitechapel, from where the executioners of the murder seem to have originated.
The duo visits the Schielman in the prison, but the ordeal ends with him escaping the jail. Here Watson realizes, that he has helped, albeit involuntarily, Holmes aid Schielman to escape. At Whitechapel, where they find the murderers, Watson prevents Holmes from killing the men just before the arrival of the Yard.
Puzzled by the events, Watson follows Holmes to see the nephew of the bishop, but they find out, that the young man has been missing for a while now. They follow his trials, but the case ends with a disaster and the nephew dies. The next goal is the office of a reporter O'Farley, who has written slanderous articles of the detective. Clues gained there take them to the office of well-respected judge Beckett. They head there, with Holmes carrying a parcel with him. To Watson's shock, Beckett's house blows up in the air just after they have managed to examine it and this time it definitely looks like Holme's did it with a bomb hidden inside the parcel he carried with him.
Scotland Yard and Baynes are now forced to seek Holmes for an arrest, but the detective has now gone into hiding. Watson is arrested and questioned, but he knows, unsurprisingly, nothing. He does know, however, Holme's methods and manages to deduce where he has gone and follows him to Whitechapel. Holmes is impressed by Watson finding him and together they continue to a sawmill, where three Russian anarchists are hiding. The plot thickens, when it seems like Holmes murders Baynes in cold blood after which he commits suicide.
Watson, now utterly confused, decides to pick up the case after Holmes' funeral. He follows the clues to a sewer, from where he finds Holmes, quite alive, being beaten up by thugs. He rescues him and after this, Holmes finally reveals all: it has been Moriarty, his nemesis, all along. The master criminal has been framing him all the way, working with people of influence, like Baynes, to do so. Some have been willing partners, some, like the judge, were duped. What remains now, is to find the lair of Moriarty and that Holmes has tracked into an abandoned carnival at the outskirts of London.
At the abandoned fair, Holmes proceeds to find a way to Moriarty while Watson needs to check out an old factory nearby. To the horror of the doctor, he finds out that the mad scientist Schielman is cooking his poisons there. These poisons, capable of controlling people, are to be used as a condiment with soup distributed for the poor. From the fairground, they find the Russian anarchists, who Moriarty has used to build bombs meant to shake the whole core of the British empire. Holmes and Watson take care of both things and after defeating Moriarty, they find a young girl, the daughter of the late professor, whom Sherlock adopts as his daughter.
Technically, The Testament of Sherlock Holmes is more or less more of the same as the previous Frogware's 3D Holmes games. The one big change is the possibility to play the game from a 3rd person direct control mode. Other than that, you mostly run around the game world, in either 1st or 3rd person mode, looking for hotspots, puzzles and clues.
The deduction board is again an important element, but not as prevalent as it was in Jack The Ripper. You get to make deductions on the crime scenes, but overall there's more emphasis on exploration, finding clues and solving some puzzles. So, all in all, if you've played the previous games, the gameplay should be pretty familiar. The puzzles are, as expected, mostly logic puzzles, which are pretty fair and something to be expected from Sherlock titles.
The biggest change has happened in the graphics, as this time around, the 3D models are far more detailed than in the previous games. This goes with the settings as well. The previous games were all things considered, somewhat flat in what came to modelling and texturing and while The Testament isn't necessarily the prettiest game, it is a huge leap from what came before it.
If you are a fan of Frogwares Sherlock Holmes games, you'll probably like The Testament of Sherlock Holmes as well. It's not as good as Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper, but it's somewhere up there with it.
The story is perhaps a bit too twisty for its own good. You don't even have to think too hard for it to fall apart. Basically, it all hangs with Holmes being aware of everything, but not telling a thing to Watson, so nothing much on how Holmes knew is explained. Basically, we only know that he knew all along and in this case, it's not a really satisfying way of building a narrative.
The Testament of Sherlock Holmes is available from the usual digital outlets, so GOG and Steam. I'm sure it is on other platforms as well. And if you look hard enough, and really want it, you might find it for PS3 and Xbox360 as well.
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