Sherlock Holmes: The Secret of the Silver Earring Review

Melvyn Brombsy has invited you, the one and only Sherlock Holmes, to a grand celebration centered around the return of his daughter. Once you have arrived at the banquet you see Brombsy take the stage to give his opening remarks. As he starts in with his speech a side door opens and his daughter is about to make her entrance when a shot is fired, and Brombsy is dead. Seeing the intriguing mystery that has fallen into you lap you immediately take the case on. How curious that you should be invited to an event where the host was to be murdered.

You will be playing much of the game as Sherlock Holmes, but you will spend a little of time was Dr. Watson, just to spice things up a bit. You’ll have to go through several different areas with a fine-toothed comb, and try to discover all the evidence that will reveal what really occurred. There will be many twists and turns, and quite a few attempts of misdirection, but if you make it through the game you’re going to feel satisfied with the ending, at least I felt that way.

Alright so lets get down to it. This game is a bit dated, and by that I mean it was released in 2004, which I know, seems like a lifetime ago. I’m not going to lie, this game definitely shows its age, and not in a really good way. There are definitely some mechanics that have come FAR since 2004, but sadly this game was made then and not now.

The first hurdle you’re going to have to get over is the fact that you’re going to be dealing with a locked camera perspective. What this means is that all that you need to see in a room isn’t immediately present, you’ll have to go to corners of the screen to cause a camera change so that you can get the full effect of your environment. Unfortunately there were MANY times where I tried to “flip the camera” when already too close to the edge, and so the camera angle wouldn’t change. I had to go further back into the current camera angle and walk back to where I wanted the camera angle to occur. As you might imagine that means that there are times where you’re going through areas and miss entire sections of a room/area because you didn’t come at the correct angle to force a change (BEYOND FRUSTRATING).

Since we are going with the frustrations of the game lets talk about the clue collecting in the game. You are Sherlock Holmes so you’re going to pick up on MANY things that maybe others will miss. You will see that your cursor will change when you’re over something/someone that you need to interact with. Here’s the problem, though, there will be times when you are trying to interact with a potential clue when you will get this prompt “Hmm… I think I’m going to need something”. What this means is that you’re going to have to use your magnifying glass, your measuring tape, or your test tube. The frustrating thing is that you might use that item for a specific thing one time, and then later in the game you won’t have to use it to collect the same type of evidence, or visa versa.

The BIGGEST problem with the clue collecting that left me wanting to gouge out my eyes was when you picked up a picture, a note, a letter, something that would require further viewing or reading. You would assume that you would be able to read it or see it upon the initial pick up, but it goes into your inventory bar at the bottom of the screen. That’s not too bad right? You can just select the view/read action from your inventory bar… and now that item has completely disappeared out of your inventory bar, and you still haven’t looked at it. It turns out that those items are now in your investigation journal which you will have to select the correct tab to be able to access what you want to look at.

I’ve played many a point-and-click adventure game over my many years of gaming, but I have to say that this game drove me insane. You truly needed a sixth sense, or a walk-through, to get through parts of the game. There’s also the unfortunate obstacle of HAVING TO DO EVERYTHING IN A SPECIFIC ORDER. You’re not allowed to have intuition and try to interact with objects you will use moments later, you have to do the trigger action first. This of course could mean that you’ve got to go back several screens, cause several camera changes so that you can get that one item to then completely backtrack. Oh and speaking of backtracking, there is going to be one part in the game where you’re going to be timed, you have to get from point A to point B, and then back. You’ll have to remember what turns you made coming to and from your destinations, oh and you’re going to have to run most of the way. Fun fact, to run you have to double click on the screen, within the specific area where you can actually walk. If you accidentally do a triple click or click out of the specific area Sherlock will stop or start walking. There might also be times where you run into that wonderful issue of being too close to the edge and not able to change the camera angle. It only took me 4 or 5 times to BARELY beat out the timer.

I really wish that this was a game that I could sing praises to, I like my mysteries and I like Sherlock Holmes, but do not get this game. If you value your sanity, look elsewhere for a game. I don’t know how I would have taken this game in 2004, but I can tell you that in 2020, given the chance I would not have played this game.