By Kieron Gillen on June 8th, 2010 at 10:31 am.
First thing of the day I saw was this video of Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis which Christopher Webb forwarded to us. It’s OLD! as people may say, but it started my day with a smile. Or a chill. This is a creepy Watson. A very creepy Watson.
He’s basically the Weeping Angels, isn’t he? Which would have been a splendid baddie to have in the Doctor Who Adventure Games. Assuming they’re not, of course.
08/06/2010 at 10:36 Tom OBedlam says:
Hahaha wow FUCK!
08/06/2010 at 10:40 Pod says:
“It’s OLD!”
Meh, ti was on the front page of reddit today so that means it’s BRAND NEW NEWS.
08/06/2010 at 12:30 Matt says:
Haha, it seems that RPS are getting a lot of their news from reddit these days.
08/06/2010 at 10:41 Nullh says:
I refer you to the case of many Watsons:
http://harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=264
08/06/2010 at 10:51 Daniel Rivas says:
Yes!
08/06/2010 at 10:42 Jake says:
Weeping Watson is hilarious.
08/06/2010 at 10:43 mechtroid says:
Remember, Watson will never threaten to stab you and, in fact, cannot think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56bFaHCbW0Y
08/06/2010 at 10:44 a.nye.123 says:
Oh wow, the bit about 0:50-ish where he suddenly appears up the stairs let out a genuine laugh/scream.
08/06/2010 at 10:44 Frenz0rz says:
Haha brilliant :)
08/06/2010 at 10:51 Sagan says:
This is awesome. Is this a feature in the game? Is he supposed to always follow you, except they couldn’t get pathfinding to work or what? Or is it designed to creep you out?
Other developers should definitely use this though.
08/06/2010 at 11:04 IdleHands says:
@Sagan
I thought the same too, the way he never takes a step indicates he’s programmed never to move but teleport around when the player looks away or his AI gained sentience and became lazy. Also I agree I want to see more games that use this.
And now of course I will always be wondering what Watson is doing anytime he is not onscreen in any movie / program I watch of Sherlock Holmes. This would explain so much of how sidekicks disappear and reappear randomly, I always put it down to lazt writing.
08/06/2010 at 17:55 bob_d says:
This would be so great in a horror game. I could see it being used to add menace even to (supposedly) inanimate objects…
08/06/2010 at 10:53 Freudian Trip says:
Consolevania did a bit on this years ago. I assume it’s the same game.
this one right;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsoIAq7gTf0&feature=PlayList&p=F61CD558D6858654&playnext_from=PL&index=2
08/06/2010 at 11:16 ShaunCG says:
You beat me to it – was just about to post the same thing!
08/06/2010 at 10:53 Five says:
That gave me some serious chills :(
08/06/2010 at 10:54 Reverend Speed says:
My word.
That actually seems worse than it was in Sherlock Holmes v. Cthulhu. Then Watson was just constantly STANDING BEHIND YOU each time you turned around. Creepy as fuck, but at least you could rationalise that he was somehow a soundless, swift NINJA… Some kinda 1800s SAS veteran, or some such.
Now he anticipates your EYE MOVEMENT?
I have Nemesis, I intend playing it sometime, but the evidence that Watson’s teleportation now converts each scene into a David Lynch dream sequence has me putting it on the long finger. The slightly longer finger.
08/06/2010 at 10:57 TheBlackBandit says:
I showed this to my family and the first thing they said before being slightly freaked out was ‘Oh, weeping angels!’ – good to see we’re all spotting it.
08/06/2010 at 11:05 LordUbiquitous says:
I played Sherlock Holmes: The Awakening recently. Noticed this peculiar behaviour, and instantly wanted to show everyone I knew.
The best demonstration of it is when there’s a particularly large area, where you can run – while constantly looking at Waston – backwards, leaving him hundreds of metres away, only to turn around and see him standing there, staring soundlessly into your very SOUL.
Always staring.
08/06/2010 at 11:35 destx says:
Never have I been so confused between laughter and fear. I think laughter won though :D
08/06/2010 at 11:39 yogSo says:
It sounded familiar: Third paragraph.
(Of course, a 1:43 minutes long video is more worthy than 108 John Walker’s words… ;) )
08/06/2010 at 11:56 Risingson says:
I just came by to say, again, that Frogwares is the worse thing that has happened to the Holmes franchise and adventure games in general. The worse. They write terribly, they make bad puzzles, the use badly their engines. They manage to make interesting plots the most boring and annoying thing ever, as they continuosly do since their first game.
08/06/2010 at 11:57 Supraliminal says:
Follow script gone bad.
In a different kind of game (horror) that might just make sense.
08/06/2010 at 12:21 JuJuCam says:
Could. Not. Stop. Laughing…
08/06/2010 at 12:28 Sigma Draconis says:
Watson IS the Nemesis!
08/06/2010 at 12:37 Krimson says:
“What do you make of this, Holmes?”, said while standing over a freshly mutilated corpse comes to mind.
Fortunately or unfortunately, they fixed Weeping Watson in the remastered version of the Awakened. Despite this, he remains an absolute loon. For instance, when encountering various macabre horrors, his expression never changes. Ever. Which, in retrospect, explains a lot: Watson is possessed by Nyarlathotep.
08/06/2010 at 13:11 dan says:
That’s my next nightmare sorted then. Thanks.
:(
08/06/2010 at 13:37 terry says:
Sherlock Holmes : Where’s Watson?
08/06/2010 at 14:48 Malagate says:
Just as I wrote last time this came up, Watson is the real eldritch horror that I would run away from and into the open arms/tentacles of Cthulhu whilst never once looking away from Watson.
Teleportation has never been so creepy, it’s such a reprieve in all the areas where Watson doesn’t follow you around. Even then however, every time you look around you fear seeing those dead eyes and gibbous moustache.
08/06/2010 at 14:49 panik says:
Would have been nice to have ended with an image of Watson in the eye of Sherlock.
08/06/2010 at 16:02 Goldstone Beads says:
Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly ever acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.
08/06/2010 at 16:15 Anal Beads says:
Only those who have the patience to use lube perfectly ever acquire the skill to do these difficult things easily.
08/06/2010 at 16:16 Vague-rant says:
Has anyone else played this?
I’m trying to recall one instance where anything other than the player moved. If i recall, doors and things just magicked open, or into your inventory.
I daresay we’re laughing at the game for its low budget, but I like to think its a rather elegant solution (elegant in that teleportation is THE FUTURE) without requiring any animation.
08/06/2010 at 16:56 Risingson says:
As usual, I tried to play this game. As with every frogwares one. But it is so clumpsy, so ridiculous, so inane that I couldn’t advance.
Really, those people are THE EVIL
08/06/2010 at 17:25 Vague-rant says:
Its been a while since I actually played it, but from what I recall it fulfilled its remit as an FP-point and click adventure game. I’m not trying to apologise for the game too much here, but, it had quite a few decent puzzles and from that perspective it was pretty good.
In the same way that an action-RPG has compromises in either Action, RPG or both, this suffered similarly. Probably because of this, I find myself forgiving this game much more than I should.
It just seems a shame that the only other game that did something similar (albeit much better) was/is Penumbra.
08/06/2010 at 17:31 Ricc says:
Wow, awesome! ^^
Reminds me of the Library section of Metro 2033, which worked a little bit like this – at least in theory, until you figured out that running and gunning was a viable option.
08/06/2010 at 17:50 Klaus says:
That last 15 seconds was amusing and frightening.
08/06/2010 at 18:46 Purple0limar says:
This happened often in ME2 as well.
08/06/2010 at 19:24 MWoody says:
Oh, this is nothing. Watson moved like this in that in another of their games, The Awakened, and that was a Lovecraft/Holmes crossover. Imagine you’re carefully, quietly exploring abandoned nighttime docks, the very real possibility of running into a shoggoth around every corner heavy on your mind, when you turn a corner and AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH godDAMN it Watson, don’t DO that!
08/06/2010 at 20:43 Bret says:
So, between Cthulhu and Watson, Watson is more terrifying?
Wow. Good show Watson.
08/06/2010 at 22:17 etho says:
I first encountered this in the Holmes/Lovecraft crossover game. At first I thought it was supposed to be there to creep you out, but I don’t think it is, I think it’s just a budget method of having a sidekick follow you around. But it works very well as spookification technique. The only problem is that it only really works when the player backs away, then turns around, which is not normal behavior for players of games. That’s why it can be used here to have Watson following you, it’s not something the player would normally do, so it’s not generally noticable.
08/06/2010 at 22:29 Vitamin Powered says:
The scariest part for me eventually became whenever Watson wasn’t on the screen. At least when he was on screen you could see where he was.
But when the camera turned away…. well, where was Watson? Was he behind you? To the side? *shivers*
08/06/2010 at 22:53 Davie says:
I jumped. Several times. Such a simple idea, and so disturbing in execution. Well played.
08/06/2010 at 23:49 malkav11 says:
I think I see how this is different than in the Awakened. In the Awakened, if you weren’t looking at Watson, he moved to directly behind you. In this, he appears to have predetermined locations which he chooses based on player proximity and then moves to when you aren’t looking.
09/06/2010 at 00:40 genhows says:
scared me at least once, kinda like that one part in condemned: criminal origins,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPP5Ja7YNas&feature=related
09/06/2010 at 18:59 KilgoreTrout XL says:
Shamelessly stolen from the kotaku thread on this, I present ninja cat
26/06/2010 at 01:22 Martha says:
I played this game and I was also shocked with the sudden appearance of Watson. I thin there is some mistake with the graphics or programming.
18/07/2010 at 17:49 Mary Robenson says:
It was really funny. First it was so irritating, but when you used to it then it will not be that bad……lolzzz
22/12/2011 at 21:02 Benedyct says:
I couldn’t agree more on that! Wherever I walked in the National Gallery, Watson was behind me all the time. And when I turned around his face was like SOO close! Whenever I clicked on his face he said: “What do you think, Holmes?” And I was like: WT* WATSON YOU’RE LOOKING AT ME AS IF YOU ALREADY KNOW!!!