Spoiler Warning would like to extend to all of you our warmest holiday greetings. We wanted to play a game that really captured the wonder and mirth of the season, so we’re playing a game about an opium addict who chases a guy that stabs prostitutes.
Link (YouTube) |
This tale will end tomorrow, on Christmas Eve.
Programming Vexations

Here is a 13 part series where I talk about programming games, programming languages, and programming problems.
Playstation 3

What was the problem with the Playstation 3 hardware and why did Sony build it that way?
Autoblography

The story of me. If you're looking for a picture of what it was like growing up in the seventies, then this is for you.
The Mistakes DOOM Didn't Make

How did this game avoid all the usual stupidity that ruins remakes of classic titles?
Netscape 1997

What did web browsers look like 20 years ago, and what kind of crazy features did they have?
Coincidence that I was watching Sherlock Homes 5 minutes ago? No they were spying on me.
I am the best detective.
I was waiting for you to finally unlock the cape,but I guess you are doing that tomorrow.
Nah, they need to unlock the pointy-eared mask first. Also called a “top hat” by some, but those are the crazies. :-P
I… i am not sure i can watch this. I love Sherlock Holmes too much. Not that i can’t take a deconstruction of the game, but i don’t think i can take the game itself… I guess perhaps the makers loved Sherlock Holmes, too? But… this is painful…
(Edit: the dancing men! They do love Sherlock Holmes…)
The game is very faithful to Sherlock Holmes lore. At one point you have to assemble a bunch of outfits, and Holmes goes “oh, and Watson, please fetch that deer-stalker hat that I never ever wear even though everybody seems to think I do all the time”.
It’s also very faithful to our real-life knowledge of Jack the Ripper: pretty much every hint and every suspect you’ll meet was part of the real investigations on the case.
With all that said, it’s not as good a game as SH & The Awakened or SH vs. Arséne Lupin; the rails feel much tighter, and the deduction minigame is very broken since there’s nothing preventing you from bruteforcing it. But I still enjoyed it.
Really? Because the dialogue in the opening scene is insultingly bad, not to mention feels completely out of character. Since when was Sherlock Holmes a goddamn emo druggie obsessed with death? Yeah, Watson is fine, but Watson has no real character (no, backstory is not character) so he’s hard to mess up.
Actually from what I recall of it, that is fairly accurate for the original source material.
Actually in the original A.C. Doyle books SH WAS an emo druggie obsessed with death. Much like the character House from the modern tv show. Only coming out of his funk for interesting cases that stumped everyone else.
I’ve read all the original shorts and novels (even the shitty ones after Doyle jumped the shark). Perhaps I phrased myself poorly, but Holmes’ attitude there is just completely off. The way he speaks seems far too contemporary and brooding. There was always that side to his character but it was never that… mallgothy.
He was very much a manic-depressive, and Watson remarks multiple times about how he would fall into a deep brooding inbetween his bouts of strenuous activity. I do agree that the style is a bit off, since Holmes was no lover of metaphors, but moroseness definitely fits him.
Two and a half minutes in… Is this entire episode devoted to trolling Mumbles?
I know. Terrible, isn’t it?
I mean implying that Sherlock and Batman can be compared to be eachother? The nerve.
One is an intelligent character who dresses like a civilized human being and who has an equal as a main enemy.
The other is emo bitch who dresses like a gimp with an animal motive and has a clown as main enemy.
Anyone can see the two clearly do not compare.
you do know she’s going to kill you, don’t you. we’ll have to hide you, somewhere, maby Korea she wont find you there.
Anyone who would rather watch two well-dressed men engage in a battle of wits when they could very well be watching a clown beat the crap out of another, more orthodox clown needs to take a good, hard look at their priorities.
Since I already follow politics for work reasons, I’d rather reserve the other one for my entertainment.
Brilliant sir.
If anyone loves Sherlock Holmes but wishes he was actually a modern day crazy detective then you should find the BBC 3 part series called Sherlock. Watson is played by the guy who is going to be Bilbo Baggins and he writes a blog about Holmes.
And the guy playing Sherlock will be the voice of Smaug.
Smaug is a toff eh? My life is complete.
And a new episode is due on the 1 January. Yay!
Wait,moriarty is a clown?When was that established,I dont remember that.
He’s a Professor of Clowning. It helps him run his evil empire by letting him know what the most humourous thing to do in any given situation is, thus letting him put people at their ease before he stabs them
Oh, come on!
A deerstalker is hardly an “animal motive”, and, even though I admit that Moriarty’s character has been watered down in many adaptations, it’s hardly fair to call him a clown.
I believe Sherlock Holmes was addicted to cocaine. :)
You are correct. And depending on when in the Holmes canon this exactly takes place he may have broke the addiction. (Although, of course, they just had to refer to his coke habit in the intro.)
morphine, too, which is an opiate.
i believe holmes expressed disgust about the opium dens of back then, though.
So I think this is relevant to the Watson discussion. Also this.
Anyway, this is one of the worst Sherlock Holmes adaptions I’ve ever seen – we haven’t even spotted his arch nemesis The Master, or had anyone exterminated by the Daleks yet.
“Holmes is basically the Gregory House of crime.”
It’s more like House is the Holmes of medicine.
And Batman is the Holmes of Mary Sues.
“It's more like House is the Holmes of medicine.”
Indeed, if you watch the commentaries on the first episode, they talk about all the ways they intentionally derived House from Holmes.
3:30 You might even call them – hobros? Eh? Eh? Amirite?
“doesn’t look like Holmes” – the deerstalker cap and pipe wasn’t something Mr Doyle ever portrayed in the original stories. It started because that was the (at the time) mostly arbitrary costume used in a early stage production based on the works. But now it seems like an inescapable part of the character and gives him his distinctive profile that everyone recognizes. Life is weird like that. I don’t think Mr Doyle was ever particularly specific about Holmes’ clothes or facial hair, either.
Well he did wear the cap in the countryside in some of the illustrations of the original stories. But not in the middle of London, no.
I imagine no facial hair is pretty much expected from a master of disguise.
merely because that’s WHERE people wore deer-stalker caps. Civilization means people can afford situationally-appropriate clothing, and no one would shop in pajamas or wear basketball shoes without the rest of their P.E. uniform.
I don’t know what 21st century you’re living in, but around here pajamas are among the dressier public outerwear options and many people do not own shoes that would not qualify as basketball shoes.
Unless you’re implying that civilization is a thing of the past. A point which I can offer no valid counter to.
So I totally watched this on Chocolate Hammer before it went Twenty Sided >.>
Oh yeah, well I watched it back in beta.
I wrote the original version of Sherlock Holmes, but it was so good that I burned half the pages and let Doyle steal what was left.
I watched it on Ruts’ livestream channel on Thursday. Before it was all mainstream.
Without watching the video I have to say I love the still screen image.
‘I used to be a detective like you, until I took a harpoon through the head.’
Dude, did you not watch the Spoiler Warning Fallout episodes? You do NOT just walk up to a baby carriage in a video game. Those things explode.
And yes, if you saw in on the History Channel in the last couple years, it was definitely aliens. It’s always aliens.
“And yes, if you saw in on the History Channel in the last couple years, it was definitely aliens. It's always aliens.”
Your comment makes me sad, because it is so true. What the heck happened to the History Channel I loved in my youth?
“And yes, if you saw in on the History Channel in its first couple years, it was definitely Hitler. It's always Hitler.”
Other games where baby carriages explode: Bioshock, Gears of War 3
Clearly — never trust a baby carriage in a video game. If you are armed, all baby carriages shoot be shot from a safe distance as soon as you see them.
On the Holmes going to get the police report thing, in the stories he did normally talk to the police right off the bat before going off on his own path.
Rutskarn is driving and we’re already jumping on urchins and chatting up prostitutes for freebies.
Fun.
It sounds a bit like he practiced some lines before getting into it with the rest of the crew, which I’m not entirely keen on. I feel that pre-planning is only important to Spoiler Warning when it lets someone break the game even further (see: Josh’s Fallout 3 character build). Or, of course, for the player to troll the commentators.
That was our first exposure to the game, all of us. We talked about what game to do, then Ruts saw Sherlock cheap on Steam, bought it, and downloaded it right then.
(Or maybe he already owned it, but had never installed it? I forget. I do remember we had to wait 45 mins for the game to download over his slow-ass connection.)
Yeah, no, there was no “practice” here. There wasn’t any actual *room* for practice. I purchased the game right before recording it, and we started recording as soon as we’d made sure our setup worked.
Mr. Pants: You’ve really worked out your banter, haven’t you?
Blackadder: No, not really. This is a different thing, it’s spontaneous and it’s called wit.
I see. The only other let’s play with Rutskarn at the helm that I’ve seen is the Hitman stuff, but I guess there’s more scope for things to spiral out of control in Blood Money than in this game.
And I still thought it was funny, but then again you guys could probably watch a video of insects* flying around together and make it hilarious.
*Namely, BEEEEEEEEEES!
A shame he went away from the prostitute in front of the police station, I was curious to see what would happen.
Not really. Bob Kane was kind of an art-criminal.
Also, every time I hear “White Chapel” in this, I almost think I’m hearing “White Castle“. How’s THAT for a modern take on Holmes and Watson?
Sherlock Holmes always reminds me of this.
Sherlock Holmes always reminds me of Johnny Turbo going super-saiyan while screaming “SHEERRRLLLOOOOOCK HOOOOOOOOOLLLLLMMMEEEES!!!“
Okay bob kane was without argument from anyone who knows batman, the guy who came up with the idea fir batman. Thus he was the creator. Did he sign some artwork that wasn’t his? Yes.yes he did. But give credit where it’s due, bro
The “talk” boxes all look like weird-ass pipes hanging out of people’s mouths. Cannot unsee.
Also, I can’t believe that Rutskarn didn’t point out the BONNET in this episode (see newspaper article).
Hey! I was promised a flame war! Where are all of the intertubers comparing the Jude Law movie Watson with the Martin Freeman TV show Watson! Also, the Bruce Wayne comic book Watson!
Bah,kids today.Everyone knows that david burke is the first and only watson.
I vaguely remember skimming an article with no pictures claiming Watson was actually a woman. But it just kind of rambled on and didn’t really emphasize the written parts that supposedly out him. Or I’m too stupid to comprehend the examples of Arthur Conan Doyle’s work.
I’d go look it up, but I’m afraid to Google “Female Watson”, for reasons I’m sure we all understand.
Why?Youd just get a bunch of articles and pictures of emma watson.But though thats safe,it wouldnt really be helpful.
Watson was a Woman by Rex Stout (author of the Nero Wolfe books, by the way). AFAIK, it was just a silly (albeit entertaining) essay/speech that was never meant to be taken seriously. Still, it’s an interesting thought, isn’t it?
Mumbles, Mumbles, Mumbles. I’m so disappointed in you. You should love a hero for his character, not for his being Batma-
Yeah, I couldn’t say it with a straight face either.
Welcome back, SW crew. We were starting to miss you.
At right around the 3:50 mark, why on earth did the designers decide to pop up a subtitle saying that its 3:20 AM _and then immediately pan the camera up to a close-up of a clock, showing that its 2:30?_ Is there some deep significance to the fact that the clock is wrong, or are they just really really lazy?
Maybe they mistyped. After all, the difference between 3:20 and 2:30 is a number swap.
Probably a mistake…2:30 was the time Nichols was last seen alive.
“Hoes are people too.” I love Rutskarns urban paraphrasing
…
“The [Juwes] are the men that will not be blamed for nothing” was the message Jack left…
…
The fun thing about Ripper majors (Ripperologists) is that theyre incredible hostile to each other whenever one comes out and says something definitive about Jack-such as how they tore into Patricia Cornwell for her book.
This is unwatchable (or un-listen-to-able, rather) for me because the volume varies greatly depending on who’s speaking. Shamus is way too loud, someone else (I don’t know names) is way too quiet.
Wow… I forgot just how funny trolling Mumbles could be. Very. Very funny.
As an Arkansan I am offended by your comments about my state. On the other hand, I’m an avid shooter, so… you win this round, college-boy.
You guys should do LA Noire for the next Spoiler Warning. I wanna see how much Josh can mess around in it.
Sherlock Holmes is the result of a rouge cell that kidnapped Watson at a young age in order to make him the world’s most perfect person. They tested stuff on other children and whatever worked on them they did to Watson. The original Watson personality manifests every once in a while as his conscience, but the new personality (Holmes) is now dominant.