Sherlock Holmes chases Arsène Lupine

Meta-ratings
Metacritic	71

Original title

Sherlock Holmes Versus Arsène Lupine

Studio

Frogwares

Publisher

Focus Home Interactive

Erstveröffent-
lichung

2007

platform

Windows

genre

Point-and-click adventure

Game mode

Single player

control

Mouse , keyboard

language

German, English, French, Russian, Spanish

Age rating

USK

PEGI

Sherlock Holmes chases Arsène Lupine (in the English original Sherlock Holmes Versus Arsène Lupine ) is a point-and-click adventure released in 2007 . The game is the fourth part of the Sherlock Holmes computer game series brought out by Frogwares , which is based on the fictional character Sherlock Holmes .

action

The painting The Fighting Téméraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken is the first object that Arsène Lupine wants to steal.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson receive a letter from Arsène Lupine , who is planning various raids for the next five nights and challenges Holmes. From the poem written by Lupine, Holmes deduces that the first raid of the National Gallery and the painting The Fighting Temeraire on display is valid. Despite the security measures taken by the police, Lupine manages to break into the building and steal the picture. During the subsequent investigations by Holmes, a kind of scavenger hunt arises in the gallery, at the end of which it is found that the Tower Ravens in the Tower of London are Lupin's next target.

When Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson came to the Tower a little later, the ravens have already been stolen and replaced by six other birds. Since Holmes notices that obviously each of them brings with them part of a message from Lupine, all animals must be captured. To judge the message of Lupine you have to go back to the National Gallery to be able to use the pictures that the master thief describes in his message to discover your next destination. This is apparently the Rosette stone that is housed in the British Museum .

After Inspector Lestrade has been informed of this, the entire museum wing is immediately placed under police surveillance and examined for Lupine or ways in which Lupine could get into the museum. Once again, however, the French manage to leave Rosette together with the stone in a daring high-wire action.

He was able to penetrate by posing as a journalist with the name Piers U. Alenn (an anagram to Arsene Lupine), a pseudo-identity under which he had previously met Dr. Watson had contact and this unsuspecting let him into the museum. When he leaves, Lupine leaves one more message that leads Holmes to investigate the entire museum again, looking for clues in the extensive library and the large holdings of the exhibition. The next destination turns out to be Buckingham Palace and after a brief investigation in the vicinity of Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson there.

It is now a matter of doing some messenger services for the residents of the Palace at the same time as the investigation, while the Queen has withdrawn into her apartments and is not available to anyone. During the investigation, Holmes recognizes the connections: Lupine had himself smuggled into the Queen's room in the empty inner workings of a grandfather clock. Here he succeeds in lulling Queen Victoria through his talent for speech and thus "stealing a kiss" from her. Still enthusiastic about the apparent gentleman, she enables Lupine, again shortly before Holmes arrives, to escape through a secret passage.

Holmes only follows the trail laid out by Lupine and hardly does any criminalistic work in the classic sense. In the end, however, he saw through the plan: all the thefts only served to get Holmes used to the scavenger hunt. The last clue that led to Big Ben was just a distraction. In fact, Lupine is targeting the tower and the crown jewels there again. Holmes leaves Watson and the police to believe Lupine is with Big Ben and goes to the Tower alone. There he can finally forestall the thief and cut off his escape route. Lupine offers to return the previously stolen things if Holmes lets him go for it. In order not to let the matter become publicly known, which would mean a scandal, Holmes goes into it.

Game principle and technology

The player slips into the role of Sherlock Holmes, but occasionally also embodies Dr. Watson or Inspector Lestrade. The venue this time is exclusively London in the late 19th century, as Sherlock Holmes: The Trail of the Awakened has received heavy criticism because of the locations that were not typical of the Holmes period. The player now has to search for clues in a variety of world-famous locations such as the National Gallery, the Tower of London or Buckingham Palace, analyze evidence and interact with over 40 characters. The thinking of the player is also challenged by increased interim questions, which was clearly put in the background in the predecessors. Overall there is less action, the player spends most of the time looking for and analyzing clues.

Production notes

The version distributed in the US was titled Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis . A remastered edition has been available since the beginning of 2010. As with its predecessor, Sherlock Holmes: The Trace of the Awakened , this version is characterized by the implementation of the third-person perspective, where you can now freely choose between the views. A help system that, if requested, refers to hot spots in the active screen section, as well as all patches that have been released to date, have also been included.

reception

Sherlock Holmes Versus Arsène Lupine received mostly positive reviews. The review database Metacritic aggregates 20 reviews with an average value of 71. It is often praised that the game is finally back in London in the old Holmes manner, on the other hand, the graphics, the deserted places and the often wooden appearing are hardly improved compared to the predecessor Movements criticized. Furthermore, fans of the third-person perspective complain that you cannot switch between the views. Continuous is Sherlock Holmes versus Arsene Lupine , however, as significantly better than Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened considered, especially as is "anything coherent." Culture lovers in particular would "enjoy virtual sightseeing in London".

The game was voted “Best Adventure 2007” by Computer Bild.

useful information

Arsène Lupine is described by Leblanc as a master of transformation and disguise. This fact is also taken up several times in Sherlock Holmes Chasing Arsène Lupine, for example Lupine is encountered right at the beginning in the National Gallery, posing as a French painter. The name he gives here, Horace Velmont, has already been used in some of Leblanc's stories.
At some points in the course of the game, the humorous streak of the development team can be clearly seen, in that people are grotesquely exaggerated in a certain way or by openly showing sensational attitudes, especially for the time. Take the museum attendant, for example, who uses meaningful gestures during the conversations that can easily be associated with the clichéd peculiarities of a homosexual . He also finds it amusing "to watch all these pretty young men in uniforms" and replies to Holmes' question, which person is most important to him, with "You, you are the only one, the greatest". When Holmes photographed a bat in a crypt, the photo shows its shadow on the wall in the form of the Batman emblem.