The thrill of personally solving a case helps make detective games popular.
The popularity of fictional detectives such as Sherlock Holmes, Lieutenant Columbo, Nancy Drew and others indicates a widespread interest in the entertaining lives these sleuths lead as well as the cases they take on. While detective fiction has historically been limited to film and literature, a variety of games, both commercially released and of the online variety, have entered the marketplace as well, giving fans of the genre an opportunity to take on the role of a virtual detective themselves.
"Sleuth: Shades of Mystery"
For those looking for the chance to play the part of a detective in virtual form for free, "Sleuth: Shades of Mystery" is an ideal solution. Begin by creating a character, either male or female, and then customizing things like appearance, skills and background story. Users then go on to accept a wide range of missions, starting with a tutorial that helps to introduce the player to how the game is played. Simply scroll the mouse while searching for clues, clicking to gather them as evidence, and visit suspects and locations that appear on the map. After obtaining the facts needed to solve the case, players make an accusation and then move on to the next case.
"Tex Murphy: The Pandora Directive"
The "Tex Murphy" series of point and click adventure games puts players in control of hard-boiled, cynical private detective Tex Murphy. As the story unfolds through a series of virtual locations and full motion video sequences, players gradually unravel a huge government conspiracy that dates back to the 1940s. Users guide Tex around a futuristic version of San Francisco as he hunts for clues in various locations, talks to a cast of characters and suspects to get information and hunts down a missing person who turns out to be in the center of it all. "The Pandora Directive" is available exclusively for PC and was awarded a 4.5 out of 5.0 rating by Adventure Gamers.
"Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Silver Earring"
This PC adaptation of perhaps the most famous detective in history gives players the chance to follow Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson on a mysterious murder mystery set in 1897 London. Players explore 40 different locations around the area in search of clues to crack the case, interrogating a wide cast of characters and solving challenging puzzles along the way. With five levels of play, over three hours of dialogue and roughly 30 hours of game play overall, "The Silver Earring" was praised as a "beautiful point and click adventure game" by GameSpy, who gave it 3.5 stars out of 5.0.
Tags: Sherlock Holmes, cast characters, click adventure, Pandora Directive, point click, point click adventure, Shades Mystery