Pretty to look at ... deadly dull to play
During the game, in which you are usually Sherlock Holmes and occasionally Dr. Watson, you search several locations for clues about a murder (and ultimately, several murders). This entails "painting the wallpaper" with your cursor, searching for hotspots that lead to things as minute as hairs and a feather. At times you (literally) need a magnifying glass to find them. It also includes reams of documents and transcripts of conversations, all of which are recorded in your notebook for future reference.
There are only three or four real "puzzles" in the game -- ranging from ludicrously simple (the box at the end of the game) to impossibly difficult (the safe 'combination,' which even most walkthrough authors say is nearly impossible to figure out).
To make things easier (or duller, depending on your point of view) the game is extremely linear. You can't leave a location unless you have found all the clues for that segment. Once you find the last clue, you are normally zapped to another scene.
Even the "crime laboratory" scenes at 221b Baker street do nothing to add interest to the game. You click on an item in your inventory and Holmes tells you what to do with it ("Hmmmm ... I wonder what heat will do to this item?")
The second worst feature of the game (I'll get the to worst feature in a minute) are the periodic "quizzes" that take place at the end of each "day" of investigation. You are forced to answer questions and even provide the "evidence" to justify your answer. If you're wrong, you have to just keep at it until you get them all right. Is this a game or a classroom?
To its credit, some the graphics are gorgeous, with incredible color and detail. Spend time really looking at the interior of Holmes' Baker street apartment, or even the cobblestone street. In addition, for the most part, the voice overs are good, with a real feel for the speech patterns of the old Holme's movies.
Yet, the navigation is awful. You're supposed to be able to click when you see the "footprints" icon, but half the time you have to click all over the screen to get Sherlock to move. To complicate matters, the perspective keeps shifting so you hardly know if you're coming or going! And when was the last time you had to work your way through a maze? Wasn't it back in the Zork I days?
The absolute worst feature, though, is the extended cutscene at the end, with Sherlock reviewing the entire case and explaining how everyone was killed, by whom, etc. Granted, I had guessed early on that it was ... oops, can't tell you! ... but the convoluted explanation at the end brought in facts that we never had throughout the game. If I wanted to watch a movie, I'd have rented a DVD rather than buy this game.
All in all, despite the few good features that kept me going until the end, I can't recommend this for anyone who wants more than a bit of eye candy for graphics design.