I drunkenly pre-ordered Murdered: Soul Suspect a few months back when it was 25% off on Gamersgate. It was released for N. America yesterday and I've put a few hours in so far.
It's got some neat ideas (many of which I suspect were borrowed from the movie The Frighteners) but the gameplay is rather shallow and its console roots show through in all their ugliness.
The basic premise of the game is that you're a typical hard-boiled, go-in-guns-blazing detective with a questionable past. Your rash attitude gets you killed and you become a ghost and must solve your own murder using your ghostly powers.
The game is set in present day Salem, Mass but in your ghost form you are able to see residual images of times in the past in areas where there is a distressed spirit. An apartment building has old bric-a-brac from the 1920s. A beachfront has old fishery shacks and canneries from the 1880s, etc. It looks cool and the designers obviously put a lot of work into the atmospheric elements of the game.
The gameplay itself isn't too good though. It is a direct port from a console so you're looking at no quick saves and the timing between autosaves is far too infrequent. You're looking at redoing a good 15-20 minutes of gameplay if you quit before reaching the next save zone.
The game is designed for a console controller and yet again, these lazy prick designers have neglected to include a way to re-map keyboard controls which means lefties like me are in for an uncomfortable time of it.
It also includes the obligatory console mini-game collectable nonsense. Find 15 oil tanks to solve the Mystery of the exploding BBQ! Peek up 6 cat's anuses to solve The Case of the Missing Bubble Gum!
The story seems completely linear so far. You go to a specific location and engage in a 3rd person exploration of the area in order to find clues. You can also enter the bodies of the living in order to read their surface thoughts and occasionally try and manipulate them to move physical objects. Being a ghost you can't move anything. You are able to pass through solid objects like walls and furniture on the horizontal plane, but not the vertical one. Probably for the best as it can be easy to get lost if you just start blitzing through walls or hanging around inside refrigerators.
Once you've gathered enough clues, you can attempt to solve whatever the task is that's been assigned to that particular location. The game will ask you a question and they pop up a menu showing all the clues and evidence you've found and you have to select one to three of the most pertinent clues. You have a 3 strikes system set up for this so if you select the wrong clues 3 times, you get to start again. The clue selection is somewhat arbitrary and it can be very frustrating at times as there isn't much logic behind it and you need less deduction skills than you need the ability to think the same way the game designers do. For example, in one part of the game, you need to track down a witness who fled a crime scene but you're not sure where she went. After gathering clues, it's very easy to determine that she went to a local church. The game prompts you to give evidence proving this fact. Amongst the clues you gathered are a photo of the witness with a priest in front of a sign for a local church and a pamphlet from said church. Either one should be fine as an answer but only one of the two is correct according to the game. Pick the wrong one and you get dinged.
It's mostly a slow paced game but they do through in some irritating action sequences. Spirits who have lingered too long turn into crazed demon type ghosts who sustain themselves by vampirically sucking out your soul. You have to engage in a sort of hide-and-seek game where you flit from body to body or ectoplasm cloud while they chase you. Kind of reminds be a bit of Thief once the guards have been alerted and you've got to go hide until they give up at which time you can emerge from the shadows and bop them from behind. (I don't know why demonic ghosts are susceptible to back-stabbing but they are.)
I don't hate it but I am disappointed that the sleuthing stuff isn't more fleshed out. It doesn't even offer as much depth as LA Noire in that department and that's a let down. Still, I'm intrigued enough by the story to keep at it.
Very timely post...I have the opportunity to get this for free...but most reviews I have seen of it seems blah.....not sure if I want to use one of my free game slots for it:)
I'd say no. Wait for it to go on sale in 6 months for $5 or so.
RPS had a pretty funny and wholly negative review on it today.
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on June 04, 2014, 05:54:32 PM
I'd say no. Wait for it to go on sale in 6 months for $5 or so.
RPS had a pretty funny and wholly negative review on it today.
Thanks for the heads up....helps save me on it.
With the popularity of Goat Simulator, can Cat Anus Simulator be far behind? :2funny:
I've been playing the game for about 2 days now (it was only release on Friday for everyone outside the States), and am nearing the end.
And I've got one critical thing to say about this game. The main character is a bit of a thicky (as they say).
Policemen are unfortunately not always the best and the brightest, but this game is really way over it.
He's always 100 steps behind the player in solving the investigation. And seems to have hard time grasping who is the killer and what are his motives and M.O despite them
being thrown at his face repeatedly for hours on and on...
Now I realize letting us play BBC's modern styled Sherlock might be a bit annoying (having the PC be so way ahead of the player himself), but they shouldn't have gone the extreme
of the other way.