Rated 3+ for content... but don't let yourself think this is a game for little kids! It's puzzling, tricky and slightly frustrating throughout!

A classic adventure of the first person point and click variety, this has a lot of good things going for it. The storyline has great potential - you play Holmes (or occasionally others on the side of "good") pitting wits against French thief Arsene Lupin, in a race to stop him stealing priceless artefacts from around London. The graphics, even on my now somewhat dated Pentium 4, are excellent - even when left at default settings. The music score is ok, not overly annoying, and well suited to the mood of the game, adding to rather than detracting from the atmosphere. And the format is so familiar that it was extremely easy to slide into playing.

So far so good...

Unfortunately I did have some problems with the interface, I'm not sure if these were in part down to my mouse (a Logitech G7 cordless) but I often struggled to be able to orientate the first person view at times. I also wasn't overly enamoured with using both keyboard and mouse for movement control, but it worked, and I soon got used to it.

However where it lets itself down is the extremely linear game play. Now, it's an adventure, so I accept I'm going to have to achieve A, B & C before I can do D... but I become easily frustrated when I have to do A, then B, then C in an exact order before I can continue, which this game forces you to do endlessly. Luckily, the story was enough to keep me going forward, I actually did want to know what Arsene Lupin would go for next.

But the complexity of some of the puzzles! I regularly found myself scratching my head as the clues I'd collected didn't seem to add up to quite the answer I needed - you know you have all the clues, because the linearity means you don't get the chance to answer the puzzle 'til you do! And I found myself reaching for an online walkthrough just to get the exact answer needed for them.

So, would I recommend it?

Overall it was a good game, with a good few hours of entertaining play, so I'd probably give it a 6/10, definitely fun and worth a look if adventures are your thing, but the frustration of the linear nature, pedantic puzzle answers ("ship" not "ships" or "a ship" for example) and finickity movement control made for a less than 100% satisfying experience.

Visit the Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis website for more information.