This is the trailer shown at E3 for The Testament of Sherlock Holmes.

“Waitaminnit,” you begin your astute reply with, “I don’t remember seeing any trailer for this at E3.” Well, no shit, Sherl… hmmph.

I think the only site that even posted a blurb about it was Adventure Gamers, and even that seems to have been lost to the Hype Nothing, relegated to blogger table scraps (hi, hi Project P-100.) So in lieu of being tossed any morsels from your lunchtime blog staples, you’re going to have to make do with me for today.

Frogwares has had carte blanche with the Holmes license for quite a number of years, but most of their efforts have run with the traditional adventure-gaming mold with minor deviation. Most of these efforts were enjoyable if not great, but you kind of knew what to expect with every new title: you got your detective; you got your chronicler; you got your misdeeds, your evidence, your inventory that holds your evidence and wait, why is there a stealth section in here? And yet, this installment is calling itself an “open-world” adventure game, which leads one to assume that the narrative isn’t going to follow any familiar point-to-point momentum. Instead, the player will have free reign to form investigative strategies, hunting for leads and evidence and forging their own logistic pathways. Lofty goals, then: an open-world game of actual deduction. Didn’t it take Rockstar nearly half a decade with a staff of hundreds to manufacture a similar concept? 

And Atlus is the publisher. Interesting times.

Not really news that Nintendo has some exclusives to throw down on the table, but it is somewhat unusual that it scored a third-party IP.

A “Director’s Cut” of the fantasy eye-poke that is Trine 2 brings the puzzley-platformey along with five new levels, new skills for each character and a “Magic Mayhem” mode - which developer Frozenbyte isn’t offering many details about.

Trine 2: Director’s Cut (E3 2012)

(Source: viddler.com)