09 June 2014

Murdered: Soul Suspect (no spoilers)

A noir-style mystery set in Salem, where you set out to solve your own murder and stop a serial killer.


Graphics and world
Reasonable, not brilliant, with some suitably spooky touches, especially with the ghosty people that flicker out of existence if you try to get closer to look at them.


Extremely lazy execution, with the same few models used over and over and over again for the people.  Salem Police Force is apparently all-male, and for a while there I thought Salem was an all-white environment as well, but a handful of POC showed up about halfway through the game.


Gameplay
Play-style wise, collecting clues and picking the most relevant ones to solve your mystery of the moment is reasonably entertaining, if very forgiving.  Walking through (some) walls is amusing, and possessing people and reading their thoughts fun enough the first few times.  But it never really built to something compelling, and was remarkable for the number of people who have the exact same thought when you possess them.  It's a very half-assed game, taking you through the main story with a few minor sidequests, with very little option for variation.  It's also very short.  Very very short.


Story
Fedora-wearing ex-con cop is murdered by masked serial killer, runs around as a ghost trying to solve own murder.  His wife redeems him and is fridged in the first flashback.  Most of the people he helps as a ghost are young girls and women apparently incapable of keeping it together as well as ex-con cop ghosts.


I won't spoil the story, other than to note that I give the identity of the killer extreme side-eye given the historical rather than fictional story, and rather wonder why all mediums are women (almost all of them young).


Anyways, it's light entertainment, not very well executed, tolerable if you feel the need for more drawling tough-guy in your gaming life, and absolutely not worth the premium game price it's being sold at.

1 comment:

  1. My dad and I playing this right now - we were hoping something akin to Heavy Rain, or that at least wasn't Beyond Two Souls (wherein Ellen Page ruined that game for us. Plus no one, least of all the main characters, were sympathetic.), but its just...meh. The demons have been the trickiest part for me (since I don't do complicated multi-button combos) but without them it would take us four hours TOPS to complete. Its so disappointing :/

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