Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘consulting detective’ pitches up on DS in this port of a seven-year-old PC point ’n’ click adventure. Though calling it an adventure is a bit of a stretch, as that implies excitement, of which there isn’t much here.

Summoned to a country house, Holmes must work out what’s happened to its Egyptologist owner, who’s gone missing. Rather than relying on Holmesian Deduction, this is achieved by sweeping rooms with the stylus to see what items you can pick up, then applying the minimum of knowledge to use them to progress. The ‘challenge’ is in finding items on the murky touch screen rather than working out what to do with them, so most of your time will be spent exercising your eyes rather than your brain.

Appalling voice acting makes this feel very shoddy, though with the sound turned down it’s a passable ‘entry level’ point ’n’ clicker if you can find it cheap.

Jun 18, 2009