2014.23: Murdered: Soul Suspect

 

Time Took To Complete: 5.8hours - Times Walkthrough Used: 0

This game starts with a very interesting concept of a man chasing his own killer, and through that, keeps you hooked for the first couple or so hours. After that you kind of realise, it's a mindless marker chaser with very little being left up to the player. Rest assured the times walkthrough used count is of no greatness of mine, it's just the game is very easy and guides you through things very clearly and obviously.

It's a shame too as it has some nice mechanics that give more choice to player than usual adventure games, like after an investigation, the game will ask you "how do you think this or that happened?" and you put the pieces together yourself through the clues you've found. But again, it's pretty damn obvious which clues go with which questions.

The characters are all OK here. The lead detective (Ronan) is the usual grumpy cop kind and the game does a good job balancing his harsh side with his professional detective side. He is mostly tested with his partner acquired during the game, a bitchy young girl, ironically called, Joy. Their relationship is nothing to write home about, it's the usual she doesn't listen to him but they get along type of deal. But it's there and works to add another layer to the game.

The story has a couple of high moments but is not paced particularly well. You tend to 'just find things' and make great progress in the investigation that way. There was no "A-HA!" moments on finding these key clues. There are also a lot of obvious clues that lead to key findings that cops for unexplained reason never seem to find which took a lot of immersion away from the game to be honest. I don't want to give it away but there is especially one item that is at a very obvious place, in an area police set up as a crime scene that will lead them to a very important place - Yet it's just sitting there with no cop noticing it. It's not marked as evidence or anything in the crime scene either. Very odd.

So really it's not dong anything bad, it's just a bit of a mindless wonder. Actually I say it's not doing anything bad, there are these sections where you have to kill demons and this is a very tedious 'stealth' game. Where you jump between hiding spots and try to get behind the demons to take them out. The game uses this a lot in later game, because you gotta get that play time up right! Gets very tedious and feels lazy.

So overall, if you are looking for an adventure game, there are indeed better ones but I don't think you'll full on regret going through this adventure - It's an OK one;

5/10.