Have you even played Commandos? It's not an action game. It's a tactical game. I don't want an Assassin's Creed Holmes (that will probably be a shitty DLC to the new victorian AC anyway :D). And Holmes stories always had also an adventure aspect to them, it wasn't all Holmes sitting on his ass at home thinking. He's not Mycroft. There were chases, break ins, fights. I'm a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, and I think it would be no betrayal of the original to have him in a game that's all about logical thinking and tactical planning in foiling criminals and catching them.

Commandos is also about slitting throats and blowing up stuff. A big part of the game is avoiding being seen by enemies. I can't recall any such sneaking sequences in the SH stories. The adventures wouldn't translate well to the isometric tactical view since Holmes rarely does anything that is seen from afar, as opposed to setting traps, sneaking about and shooting like in Commandos. Most of his discoveries are simply verbal. Come to think of it, the most impressive feats are when Holmes can tell a person's age, social standing, profession, hobbies, marital status etc. just from personal effects. A point & click adventure would therefore be more suitable. Also, Holmes rarely catches criminals by himself; he prefers to leave it to the constabulary, after providing them with the names of the perpetrators.

We don't need t o follow the template to a T.

There already are pont & clicks, I wanted something new.

One could easily give similiar arguments to yours about Star Trek, and yet Away Team was a great game. Every one of those games that adapted Commandos style to a different setting (Away Team, Desperados, Robin Hood) changed thing to suit it's needs. In Robin Hood you had to limit killing for example, as it made you look bad and you had fewer people joining you. In a Sherlock Holmes game likewise, you'd be expected to not kill anyone in most missions, or limit it as much as possible. All we'd need is a good story that would account for the more active and more urgent nature of events. That's why I half jokingly mentioned Fu Manchu. Let's have a big conspiracy and a rising criminal army, that forces Holmes sneak into their hideouts to gather more information about their plans, set traps to catch some of Fu's lieutenants, infiltrate incognito events where an assasination attempt may be afoot, accompany Lestrade in raiding their werehouses to stop whatever end game Fu has in mind. Stuff like that

Sure, it's not 100 % by the books, but one does not have to be slavish to the stories to still stay true to the spirit and have some fun with it. It would still be game about thinking, logic and planning. There's nothing wrong with having a little fun and a fresh new approach,a s long as it's not dumbed down.

Hell, at least that's how I see it. The game isn't even real. No point in arguing over it :D If you don;t like the idea, there's nothing wrong with that.

It's just that I'm still sore over Guy Ritchie's treatment of Sherlock Holmes in the films. Pure hollywoodisation. And now the legacy of the books is diminished because the younger generations will think that S. H. from the films is the real deal. It's like what they did with Mary Shelley's original Frankenstein novel. Now everybody thinks of the growling, lumbering beast, whereas in the novel the creature is intelligent and eloquent, and the focus is on philosophical issues.

I still like the first Ritchie film. Yeah, it's a hollywood style action flick, but I still though it was fun, and actually wasn't entirely lacking in cleverness in how it used Holmes' character, skills and quirks to show him in a new light. Sure, not nearly as good as the original stories, or classic show with Brett, but I don't think we should deny ourselves fun with such characters as Holmes just because some people don't know the original.

Sure, some things may be crossing a line and bastardising the original work beyond any excuse. I just don't think a tactical adventure game like this would cross that line. Dune 2 isn't exactly a perfect representation of Herbert's books, but that didn't make it a bad game. Sherlock Holmes The Awakend may not be an action game, but it goes off the deep end and mixes Holmes with Cthulhu horror, and I don't think I've seen any hardcore Holmes fans crying "betreyal!" over that.

you ,mean the good commandos classic games i hope?
cause i am not charmed by that 3d shites they released, i think these are the worst, i loved the classic 2d games.
If it could be made like that, and it would get a gog release, i buy it.
but 3d? nah thanks i have to pass on any 3d game.

It does!? Holy crap, that sounds awesome, I've got to play that - and I'm a big SH fan.
...
Wait, did I interrupt some sort of discussion on purity?

At first I thought you were nuts, now I think you're a genius.

Yeah, I thought "Wtf?" when reading the thread title, but I can imagine it actually being a pretty damn sweet game. A small square somewhere in Victorian London, Watson small talking a guard and Sherlock, looking like a noble, walking past them unnoticed. Fiding some evidence that you could then combine and cross reference, like in some detective adventure games. There would obviously have to be a lot less wanton murder, but that would probably work to the game's benefit - keeping suspects "stunned" by keeping a revolver aimed at them as opposed to just shooting them, that kind of stuff

In Away Team, Star Trek version of Commandos, there were entire missions were killing anyone would fail you the mission outright, and other missions with the Borg, where they would adapt to your phasers, so after a couple of shots you were fucked. So yeah, there's ways to desing mission in such a game with anything but a killing spree in mind. I think there'd only be very few outright "fights", possibly in the final climactic mission or two. Other than that even Watson's gun would mostly be used to only keep someone at gunpoint untill Lestrade restrains them, or to set off a trap that Toby found to distract the guards, maybe fire it in the air in a crowd to cause panic and cover your retreat with some documents you just stole from the bad guys.

Watson didn't take good notes that day.

Great idea! But I'd rather have another commandos style commandos first :P Commandos 3 wasn't a great swan song for the series. Strike Force? Never heard of it

I tend to agree. Like many people, my idea of Holmes was built around the Rathbone image of a very static, cerebral character. When I read the original short stories, I was actually surprised by how pulp and "physical" these stories could get, especially the earlier ones. I mean, sure, Holmes will think a lot and gather information, but when he comes up with a plan for action, he acts himself, and decisively : He will chase criminals, break and enter into hideouts, use disguise to enter a place, setup scenes with hired actors, ask Watson to bring a gun, and, very occasionally, fight and restrain a criminal. And when the situation becomes desperate, he goes down fighting and takes Moriarty into the grave with him (well, until Conan Doyle retconned it and brought him back to life a few years later, anyway ^^)

And the stories are full of conspiracies, master criminals, secret societies, cults and flamboyant schemes. And Holmes himself is kinda a slob. I had a very "prim and proper" idea of the Sherlockverse, but it's very pulp/adventure when you scratch under the surface.

A. Conan Doyle sure knew how to write adventure stories (I LOVE his "White company"/"Sir Nigel" novels), and it bled into the more sedate Holmes stuff. I love it ^^