One gameplay hook that has never been explored much outside the realm of point-and-click is the noire-drenched, mysterious and even romantic world of detective work. Murder mysteries, cold cases, and other crimes that aren’t sorted out by some brand of violence rarely get any shine from video game developers. After enjoying L.A. Noire as much as I did back in 2011, I was only made more aware of the detective genre’s absence from the console market. But let’s start with something positive. One thing about Soul Suspect that is most certainly not boring, though, is the plot. You take on the role of Ronan O’Connor, a hard-boiler, former miscreant turned detective. After his wife died, the detective started approaching cases with increased recklessness, his pursuit of the game’s antagonist – The Bell Killer – being no exception. When Ronan finally finds The Bell Killer, he loses his fight with the criminal and is killed. Once in the spirit world, he meets his deceased wife, who informs him that in order to “cross over,” he must sort out his unfinished earthly business, which, in this case, is catching The Bell Killer. During the short six-or-so-hour campaign, in his pursuit of the Killer, Ronan comes into contact with some interesting characters, most importantly a young medium named Joy, who helps you communicate and interact with the living world. Story-wise, I was quite satisfied with how things turned out; and this was my only real motivation for finishing the game, as the rest of it was a menagerie of squandered ideas and missed opportunities. Poltergeist powers allow Ronan to tinker with electronics in the real world – such as turning on a T.V. While I was under the impression that this may be a form of comedic relief, with me scaring the ever-living shit out of the living by making their electronics seemingly turn on by themselves, it was really nothing like that. Unless the power was required for one of the game’s easy puzzles, no human would bat an eyelid when their television turned on or off by itself, even if they were sitting there freaking watching it. Even when it was used to solve puzzles, it never felt satisfying because of just how apparent the solution always was. Speaking of solutions – the most grievous of all the game’s sins is that it doesn’t even make the act of solving mysteries (of which there are many throughout the campaign) entertaining. It consists of Ronan entering a crime scene, walking around until a button prompt indicates that a clue is there, collecting a set number of them, then drawing a painfully obvious conclusion from them. There was no real deduction done on my part – just mild guessing. Even when the answer wasn’t abundantly clear, getting to one wasn’t much of a challenge. Unlike L.A. Noire, which penalized you for incorrect deductions or poor lines of interrogation by leaving a case unsolved, there was no consequence for guessing wrong, unless you count getting a lower rating, of which there were three levels, and for which there was no reward for getting it right the first time. Heck, all of the incorrect clues used in a resolution were x’d out, so it was really just a process of elimination. Besides that, there are a variety of other mechanics that don’t feel at all satisfying to carry out at play. The demons that roam the spirit world, seeking to “kill” you, can be easily avoided and are just as easily dispatched with a few simple button presses by sneaking up behind them, which isn’t hard either because you are given a power that allows you to see through walls. Possession, another potentially cool mechanic that could have expanded on ideas classics such as Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy presented, is also wasted. Besides reading the almost always mundane thoughts of the characters (unless, of course, they are specifically needed to solve a crime, in which case they will reveal clues), the effect you have on their actions usually only amounts to getting them to move something out of the way so that you can, say, see a picture of someone vital to the case at hand. The ideas here are all great ones, but the rigid and half-baked execution undercuts all of them. Murdered: Soul Suspect is a game that is always telling you that you are a detective in the story, but never actually makes you feel like one during gameplay. Fortunately, it does a slightly better job at making you feel like a ghost, by allowing you to interact with other spirits and even help some of them cross over by helping them with the conundrums that have them trapped in this world. This, coupled with the story, help make the game fleetingly entertaining, but it never comes together or hits a stride. With that being said, Murdered: Soul Suspect can only really be recommended as a weekend rental, while the wait continues for those that yearn for a well-executed detective-gaming experience. +STORY -GAMEPLAY -SOUND Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for all news updates related to the world of geek. And Google+, if that’s your thing!
