Zomb's Lair

Who doesn't love a good mystery?

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Mythos Software's pair of point-and-click adventures based on the world's most famous detective are excellently crafted, thoroughly enjoyable murder mysteries that are overlooked far too often. It's a shame that Mythos weren't more successful as I can tell you I would've been an avid fan if they'd put out more titles like these - their only other game is an odd edutainment title named Bodyworks Voyager: Missions in Anatomy - but alas, this is all we've got.

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Both titles have wonderfully cluttered locations full of various things to investigate, as is fitting of Holmes stories, have nice music and graphics, and they do an admirable job of translating the spirit of Doyle's writings into video game form.

 

I think Serrated Scalpel is probably the better of the two, at least in part because the traditional sprite-work has aged better than the popular at the time but now extremely dated look of digitized actors-turned-sprites (ala Phantasmagoria, Dark Seed II, etc.) that's employed in Rose Tattoo. That's not to say that Rose Tattoo looks bad, it just isn't as appealing (to me anyway). Rose Tattoo is a full talkie and, thankfully, relatively well acted, whereas Serrated Scalpel just has brief moments of speech.

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The puzzles in both titles are often challenging, but we'd expect nothing less for Mr. Holmes. I'd say they're quite enjoyable overall and none of them are too ridiculous when it comes to adventure game puzzle logic.

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Overall, these are two great adventure titles that should not be forgotten and are absolutely worth your time if you're a fan of point-and-clicks or even just a fan of Sherlock Holmes stories in general.