Adventure lovers will enjoy a well-crafted challenge and great story, but a few hiccups keep it from being perfect.
One of the key features of a true adventure game is beautiful scenery, and The Awakened is no different. Rooms are richly colored, with beautiful textures and many of the "little" details that make a scene complete. The locations are also wonderfully planned, and lit to perfection. London's reputation for being drab and gray is perfectly communicated with desaturated colors. Louisiana, on the other hand, is brightly lit, and you can almost feel the warmth emanating from the streets. You get the feeling of expansive size, even if you are restricted from extensive wandering, as Holmes will declare "I have no reason to go there" or something similar. An area where adventure games often fall short is in the dialogue. Stilted voice acting and unrealistic scripts plague many games but The Awakened overcomes both. The acting is nearly flawless - possibly one of the best examples of how dialogue in games should be done, especially when it comes to the major characters in the game. While there are a few rather "cheesy" moments (especially involving people screaming), the voice talent in this game is superb. The accompanying animations are also excellent, with believable gestures, and minor details, such as Holmes looking at Watson when referring to him, give the game's conversation a rich, nuanced feel. Wonderfully evocative ambient music provides an excellent score and adds to the depth and immersive quality of the game.
Of course, the most important element of any adventure game is the puzzle play. Here is where The Awakened shines most brightly. Each puzzle is excellently integrated into the story, eliminating the "puzzle for puzzle's sake" feeling from the game. They are also sufficiently challenging, with a few downright hard ones to really give you the mental workout you'd expect from a Sherlock Holmes story. There is one "puzzle" in the game that is downright fun and comical, providing a nice moment of levity in a game that is otherwise a bit dark and foreboding. Clearly marked hotspots eliminate the need for pixel hunting, removing the drudgery from puzzle play, leaving you free to concentrate on the task at hand. Occasional "quizzes" keep you on your toes, and extend even further challenges, as you won't usually find the answer directly in the game, but will actually have to come up with it on your own based on information you've been given so far.
With all that's right with the game, the Awakened does have a few significant weaknesses. Gameplay is rigidly linear, often to a fault. If you haven't examined absolutely everything there is to see, you won't be able to progress in the game - and will often be left wondering exactly what there is left to do. While this makes sense in some cases - such as not discovering an important clue in a footprint that allows Holmes to make one of his trademark deductions - in others, it's simply infuriating. In one instance, I had picked up all the items, and interacted with everything except a single footprint. In the end, I had to turn to a walk through to see what I had missed.
The linear style of the game also means you'll often see items long before you can use them. Until you've done some action that "activates" them, they are simply items with hotspots that you can't yet interact with. A better solution would have been to allow you to take these objects when you find them, and allow you to realize when it was time to use them, rather than forcing you to speak with a specific person or visit a certain location before they can be picked up. There is also a level where you must travel back and forth between two locations an inordinate amount of times, which threatens to become a bit tedious, especially if you take a while to figure out exactly what you need to do.
These shortcomings aside, Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened is an evocative, engaging story. With some downright eerie scenes, unflinching gore and horror, and a well-crafted story, The Awakened is adventure gaming at its almost-best. Whether you're a fan of adventure games or Sherlock Holmes (or both), the Awakened won't disappoint.