The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes - Murder on the 9:10 Express to Bedford

Written by Joe Pranevich

Welcome back! Last time out, we arrived at what I think will be the meat of the case: adultery. An aristocrat named Lord Brumwell had an affair, and a child, with a servant (and eventual opera singer), Anne Carroway. He accepted the child as his own but hid her parentage even as he kept his former lover on as a nanny. Years later, she was let go and was only permitted to see her son on brief visits outside his private school. Lord Brumwell caught wind that she was going to try to claim paternity-- she had a letter which proved that Paul was her son-- and so he hired a small-time crook to try to steal it from her. The robbery was double-botched both because he killed his victim and because he targeted the wrong sister, but completely by accident he got away with the letter anyway, only to pawn it off thinking that it was just a pendant. He tried to make the whole mess look like a Jack the Ripper crime, but we managed to pin it on him. Anne is now in hiding somewhere and we have to try to find her and prove that Lord Brumwell is the “real” murderer. It feels like we are nearing the end.

I ended last time having just visited Lady Brumwell, but while she knows about Paul, she doesn’t want to admit to anything. I had a lead of some foul-smelling and specialized tobacco that we found in her house, but the tobacco shop surprisingly didn’t have anything to say about it. Without leads, I checked and re-checked every location until I found something new: this time when I visit the murderer, Mr. Blackthown, in jail, Holmes taunts him that he had the letter all along and didn’t know it. Somehow this convinces him to tell Holmes where be pawned it. We run off to the pawn shop and the owner is reluctant to talk, but Holmes manages to convince him as well. He’s a very convincing detective! And I just have to keep hitting the “Talk” button! The shop owner provides us the address of the man, Mr. Moorehead, that he sold it to, but also a warning: another man, Robert Hunt, is searching for the same pendant. That name isn’t familiar, but the pawn shop owners tells us that he is “rough trade” and implies he is someone not to trifle with. Is he on Anna’s trail as well? A second criminal hired by Lord Brumwell or someone involved for some other reason?

Quest for Glory I - Final Rating

Time to rate the game!

I had a bit more to think about when rating this game as opposed to others. In particular, I compared it with the original Hero's Quest, other Sierra VGA remakes and my own previous ratings to ensure the rating is somewhat consistent.

Which version will score better?

I also asked for my fellow reviewers’ help when my first ratings came out a lot lower than I’d expected. They’d pointed out a few things I hadn’t considered and as a consequence the final score ended up a little higher… still nowhere near as high as everyone anticipated (Sorry, Corey.) I largely put this down to my total lack of nostalgia when it comes to this game and series. The last few months have been my first interaction with Quest for Glory and it shows in the way I haven’t been as blown away by this game as most people who played the series in the 80s and 90s were.

So let's see what I came up with...

The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes - Lady in a Blue Dress

Written by Joe Pranevich

Happy new year! I hope you all had an enjoyable year and enjoyed our Christmas and New Years bonus posts. The good news is that I was able to make significant progress in Sherlock Holmes while relaxing near (but not on) a beach, so that’s something. Just a reminder that last time out, I had finally tracked down Sarah Carroway’s rugby-playing boyfriend, but he wasn't cooperative. At first he refused to admit that he was seeing her at all-- instead suggesting that his bookworm roommate was her real beau-- but once we talked to him enough he agreed that he was really her boyfriend, but he didn’t want his coach to find out. He then refused to admit that she was dead unless we brought him her death certificate. We found said certificate at the morgue, but the rule-following guys at Scotland Yard didn’t want to lend it to me. I was stuck.

I remained stuck for a while, but while I was waiting for Florida to realize that it’s not supposed to be 40 degrees Fahrenheit, I discovered that I was going about it all wrong. I asked the newspaperman back at Baker Street, the one that sells back issues as well as current papers, if he has the edition that announced Sarah’s death. He doesn’t, but he sends me off to Fleet Street to see if they have that edition. (Watson had this paper at the beginning of the game; I suppose he must have tossed it since then.) I head there, except that there’s no new location on my map! I head back to Baker Street and this time talk to Wiggins who agrees to go to Fleet Street for me. In the process, we discover that he actually has that paper already as he’s been using it as insulation in his coat. We take the paper and Holmes hands Wiggins some cash for a new coat.

Is there a way to nick the death certificate from the morgue? It seems more than suspicious that the coroner just left it out for us to see but not take. Is this one of the “alternate solutions” that I’ve heard so much about from the comments?

Quest for Glory I - WON!

Written by TBD.

When we last met our Quest for Glory characters before our Christmas detour, I'd asked for assistance.

I had help from Ilmari who told me that, as I had feared, I was dead-ended! Of the games I've played for the blog so far, I've hit a dead end in King's Quest V (which I got out of on my own after wasting an hour or so) and I've hit a dead end in Martian Memorandum (where I didn't pick up a newspaper buried in a jungle before going to Mars.) The only game I haven't been dead-ended in was the game with very few puzzles at all – Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2.

Corey Cole mentioned in the comments of my introduction post that there should be very few if any walking-dead situations. I should have known then that if there was a single dead-end situation, I'd find it and I'd be annoyed by it! It's kind of my thing - I'm the one who's bad at adventure games!

Anyway, with the bad news sinking in, I went back to the saved game that took place before I was dead-ended after finding out to my dismay that that saved game was in fact no longer on my save game list! The game allows only 20 saved games and all 20 of them were from after that point.

This is the moment the game becomes unfinishable. Seems innocuous enough.

Fortunately, my obsessive personality has me backing up my QFG folder every time I finish up my 20 allotted saves. So I reloaded a save from 4.5 hours earlier, and proceeded to continue the game. Phew!

Missed Classic: Return to Eden - Won! (With Final Rating)

By Ilmari

The most important thing in flying