Time to exercise the 'little grey cells' Mon Ami....
Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders for X Box One
Fiction has a proliferation of famous detectives and arguably the two main 'rivals' have to be Sherlock Holmes and the astute Belgian Hercule Poirot. Both of these characters have now arrived on the console in interactive adventures, and chances are that this one has been overlooked as Sherlock Holmes could arguably be the most popular of the two.
So will this game help elevate Poirot's status? Well Mon Ami let's see....
STORY
Whilst the Sherlock Holmes game is an original set of cases, this, as you can tell by the title, is an adaptation of one of the classic Poirot cases, The ABC Murders.
A terrible crime has been perpetrated and a seemingly innocent young lady who owned a tobacconist's has been brutally murdered.
There are few clues but perhaps the most telling one is an ABC Guide to railway lines has been left on the scene. What can it all mean? The clues are there for you to discover, and at the end of the case, in the manner of the proper story, it's clear that there are more victims to come....indeed not long after, another victim is found on the shores of a charming coastal town.
Will there be another 24 victims? Perhaps, but only if Hercule cannot exercise his 'little grey cells' in time....
PLAY STYLE
Hercule is of course a detective and so too, obviously, is Sherlock Holmes, but that's not the only similarity, for the game seems to share the same player interface as the aforementioned Sherlock Holmes game.
Move a cursor over a crime scene or suspect and feel the controller vibrate as you get close to the clue you are searching for. However it lacks the L.A Noire style reading of facial expressions of the Sherlock Holmes title.
But whereas Holmes is easy to manoeuvre around the screen, the same alas cannot be said for Hercule. It's harder to access the case book and evidence and it all seems very particular and fiddly to control and interact with your environment.
Unlike the Sherlock game you have puzzles to solve as in cracking codes and manipulating puzzle boxes and the like, and it is perhaps the most intuitive aspect of the game, shame the pedantic placing of the cursor leads to much cussing and gritting of teeth, never mind the manipulation of the button and stick combinations needed to move said pieces of the puzzle.
VISUALS
Sherlock Holmes has a beautifully rendered environment, nicely detailed indeed. The ABC Murders has a distinctive cel shaded style of presentation as you can see by the screenshots here, and sadly compared to Holmes, comes across as looking somewhat pale in comparison. I don't dislike the style of this game, but it may not appeal to everyone.
VOICE ACTING
It isn't bad but it does not use the voices of anyone I could recognise. None of the TV cast is present here which is a shame, but the voice acting is adequate and suits the characters portrayed on screen.
THE POST MORTEM
What we have here is a game that is sadly, a let down for Agatha Christie fan's. A puzzling and confusing interface, controls that take some handling to say the least. And whilst I agree with folks saying that a game should not hold you by the hand, neither should it leave you hanging wondering just what in the name of heaven you are supposed to be doing next.
This game may well have slipped under the radar of some folks and it's not surprising as Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishment outshines this title in every aspect.
But even so I am not saying avoid and I am not saying it's a must buy either. It's OK, not brilliant but not totally dire. It's a rough diamond that could have done with considerably more polishing and refining before release.
In all (barring control issues) it should take around 6 hours to complete, but once you have done all three cases, then unless there are more cases coming via DLC then there isn't anything there to pull you back to play it again. It just smacks of being a somewhat wasted opportunity to give us a really good detective game.