Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper

While this game's premise could be very interesting, and certainly the title excited me enough to purchase it, unfortunately it has little to recommend it. The atmosphere in first-person mode is good, particularly when wandering the streets of Whitechapel. You get a good sense of the squalor that many poor people lived in. I also applaud the use of stills and outlines to represent the women's bodies so that there isn't the opportunity to gawp at the horror - they are still people, after all. There are also some good dynamics such as having to use evidence collected to be able to solve puzzles, and assemble the case. And there are some believable characters, at least in their initial premise.

All of that said, I can't recommend the game as much fun to play. The movement in third-person is horrible, the mouse loses movement from time to time. The puzzles are also not much fun, either. There is some variety and some made me think, but a lot of the time it's a case of trying to work out what on earth Holmes just said as a clue to what you need to do, and working out what exactly the game requires of you. There is a help button most of the time (but not always) but the instructions don't always match what the puzzle actually is. And the deduction pages are terrible - some of the clues lead to reasonable deductions, but some you're left just trying all the different combinations to find the 'right' one. The final puzzle is also one where you could just click and drop to see what you get right, rather than requiring you to collect all of the facts. The ending video is also just bizarre - we are treated to a silent mime of the crimes with no real explanation (I checked on Youtube to see if something had gone wrong with my graphics or sound, but nope that's how it's meant to be). I did eventually complete the game, but it's not much fun. There are much better puzzle games out there.

Very nice. I don't have any words to describe it. Really enjoy the storyline and the puzzle.

cant open. game won't open. unplayable

Excellent if you liked point and click style puzzle games and a bargain on discount

Lovely game!

Great game

I'm playing Frogwares games in release order and this is the first game I can wholeheartedly recommend.

- Atmospheric, grim, gritty, exactly what is expected from Jack the Ripper story
- Puzzles mostly make sense and are just difficult enough, I've opened the guide only out of laziness
- Many features that make you feel like you truly do detective work

Also, interactable zones highlight is the best thing that happened to Point&Click genre since ever, but unfortunately, the button is not listed in controls. It's Space, use it, and good luck, detective.

If you're looking for a decent entry point to the Frogware Sherlock franchise, start here

It's the first game of the series that doesn't have a too outdated engine (although the framerate is choppy even on modern cards), and doesn't force you into tedious pixel hunting puzzles, or a really bad story with a random literary crossover that doesn't work.
Of course that doesn't mean the game is perfect. It has all the jank you can expect from a semi casual detective game from 2009.
Some of the puzzles don't make sense or are only solvable with a walkthrough. Although I must recognize I did manage to solve most of them by myself, which is a good thing.
There are a few annoyances like for example a certain door that will only be able to be opened after you've gone through a dialog with an unrelated character. But thankfully, this sort of problem only happened once at the begining of the game.
There is also a certain ellipse puzzle that seems to be broken on widescreen monitors, so you'll have to use the guide available here on Steam to know how to solve it.
Another problem is that the game doesn't display your current objective anywhere and you can feel lost, especially after you've loaded a save.
Globally, the QoL aspect is rather satisfying, with the option to use the space bar at any time to see the interactable objects, and the game was rather comfy to play.

The story is the best aspect, they made a torough serious work on the Ripper story, most of the documents are real documents from that era. The game leads you through several intertwined stories with just the right amount of complexity. I found it had a better story than most of the movies about Sherlock or the Ripper that I've seen so far.
The devs have chosen one of the theories about Jack as their one, and they were brave enough to notice the "coïncidences".
The puzzles are varied across the game which doesn't fall into a gameplay routine. The game sometimes makes you feell ike you're being led by the hand, but it works for the immersion.

The most annoying aspect of the game was the voice actor for Sherlock, who reads his lines like he doesn't care, in a very robotic way, and seems to suffer from a bad throat affliction. It was really hard to listen.

(follow my curator page GenXPlayers for more retro and indie reviews)

Great game. Need to use a walkthrough though

I played this when I was like 12, and remember enjoying it.
Just replayed it. 12 year old me was wrong. It's real bad.

A solid detective game with some very thought provoking puzzles, a fleshed out story and good mechanics.
It even ran flawlessly on a modern 2024 PC!

Keep in mind, this is a 2000s game. It has its 2000s jank.
The voice acting is a bit off sometimes, the subtitles don't always match the dialogue, the graphics have aged, etc.
But you know what? It's well worth picking up on sale for less than a cheeseburger.

Fun evolution of the Frogwares Sherlock Holmes games. The deduction board mini-game was quite enjoyable. My only complaint is that of Sherlock Holmes' voice. The voice acting in SH: The case of the silver earrings had far, far better voice acting, and it was released 5 years earlier (2004)... Non the less, I do recommend this entry.

As a point of advice, make sure to toggle to birds eye view when around NPCs of interest. It will make spotting objects of interest on the ground a lot easier.

Very good Point and Click Style of game. Good Riddles, good Story.
It feels sometimes just a little bit outdated, but that is really not a problem.

Scary ahh game haha... Outside of the mechanics, It is a classic game so don't expect 2024 movement or graphics on a 2009 PC game (which was on a CD)

Butttttt...... Tbh thats what makes it even scarier!! The ambiance, the real life autopsy photos with the women's real faces , the dingy town and clothes.. TBH I'm more than grateful to have not lived in this time period as I comfortably write this review from my modern and warm home lol. The story is better than the gameplay sadly but I am ready to catch this killer!!

Great game. Won't window though, so be prepared for the fact that it needs a whole monitor to itself.

❤️

I seriously can not see why this had so many positive reviews. I bought it as a bundle so at least I didn't lose a lot of money but sanity is another thing. This game dragged on, and on, and on and on..... with boring dialogue and poor game play. If I wasn't such a stubborn old cow I'd have bailed after the first session but meh I hate to be beat lol.
The game is nauseating to play in 1st POV which is why I spent as much time on it (I had to keep pausing), I finally gave up and changed camera. This didn't really help.
Controls were sad click to move and completely hopeless for finding most items as they wouldn't show up unless you were standing on top of them. Watson has my eternal contempt as he was a PITA for getting in the way when you had both characters together.
Puzzles, while simple, were ambiguous at best when trying to work out what you were aiming to achieve. There were no real guidelines to puzzles, you just swam or sank, explanations that were there were sketchy at best.
Really disappointed and can only hope the rest in the set I've bought shape up a little bit better, at least they can't get worse.
*Bet I've shot myself in the foot for saying that!

 

6/10

Damn, that Jack sure did rip.

9.5/10 Great puzzles, engaging story, very expertly walks the line between imagination and narrative realism. There were a few small bugs a quick google search and steam guides resolved- would've been much less frustrating having known I'd need to look something up eventually- but that didn't detract from the game overall. Without spoiling anything, the game takes pains to remind you that this was based on real murders and isn't just a fun story while still maintaining your engagement in the tale. I can't understate how effective, chilling, and thoughtful this game was. Wish it was nicer to Watson, but that's my molehill to die on.

This is my first of frogware's sherlock holmes games but I instantly a fan! It can be abit too hard times but that's what sherlock known for, And the horror atmosphere and accuracies of horrible and terrible living state of victorian england with the poor and desperate having to somehow live in the horrible enviorments even the children just a errie feel. Espically with the main villain being history most notorious serial killer

I liked it and thoroughly enjoyed the investigation, red herrings and logic puzzles. Didnt have trouble with any of them, I was only sad that the game was over.
I'm still not quite sure how I feel about this being based on real crimes, they were mostly respectful to the victims by not showing anything overly gorey though. I liked the alternative frogware favored for the last victim. Yeah that was a logic pull on photographic memory, but I appreciate using fantasy and suspension of disbelief for not teethering too close into uncharted territory.

Among all five classic Sherlock Holmes games, this one is by far the best so if you are looking to play the classic adventure, play this. Frogwares took all the good things from previous installments and made it even better. The best thing is the introduction of deduction board. It invites you to think along with Sherlock and sometimes like in the book, you are riddled with his thought as you see from Watson's perspective which is a really interesting dynamic. Also, once again, they played with the fact why there is no SH versus JTR irl :)

I have no idea how the reviews for this game are so high, it's the worst one of the franchise I have played so far. The puzzles don't have instructions, most of the game is pointless fetch quests, items are too hard to find, and the ending is disappointing and lackluster. Shouldn't have to look up a walk through to understand the puzzles.

This game is an absolute gem. It still looks good and the game mechanics work well. It does an excellent job at building the world and you get invested in it from the very start. London looks grime but that is exactly how it was meant to be.

While this game introduces some interesting and somewhat fun mechanics (I say mostly because in later parts of this series they’re present but much more polished) it doesn’t help the game because it fails to execute them well. So yeah, kinda dropped the ball there game.

The story is also much less interesting than the previous 2 games. Jack the Ripper is interesting when going against anything that isn’t a detective (at least that’s how I feel). The characters are fine, I liked the side characters much more in Nemesis. Also, I thought it was going to change somewhat but Holmes is just a cunt towards Watson. Not in a funny or interesting or whatever way, he’s just awful to him (especially in this game).
So, why is my game time so low? Well, there’s a puzzle I couldn’t solve. So, I looked (after a while) on the internet and a guide said to do the things I was doing. So, I watched a video. And what do you know when they press the button on the thing something happens, while with my game fuck all happens. So yeah, sorry but not finishing the game.

Also, I hate it when you have items in your inventory and you need to talk to people about it but the game won’t give you the option to talk about them when they’re in your inventory. No, you HAVE to equip the item and THEN talk to them. Rubbish, just rubbish!

good