Murdered: Soul Suspect Reviews
Murdered: Soul Suspect is what you get when you create a point-and-click adventure game through the lens of a modern console game. It's not perfect, but it's a mystery worth solving.
For a game, Murdered: Soul Suspect feels far too simplistic. There's not much of a challenge as far as puzzles go in both the investigations and in the demon stalking sections. The look and feel of the game was the stand out for me, and the story and characters were where I got my enjoyment. It's a great story with mysteries, ghost tales, and thoughts of the afterlife.
The story and acting holds up, even if it's monotonous to plod through, so when you inevitably find this in your local bargain bin it's still worth a play through.
Murdered: Soul Suspect has some neat concepts, but it is not a success. A few elements of its supernatural murder mystery may hold your interest, but it ultimately feels hollow because it lacks any real challenge or entertainment in solving that mystery.
Murdered: Soul Suspect is a game full of missed opportunities. The concept is great and some of the ideas are clever, but it doesn't use them in an interesting or satisfying way.
Murdered: Soul Suspect is a title with many great ideas, but not great execution. Its intriguing story had me hooked from beginning to end and the town of Salam brought much history to its troubled past.The idea of being a ghost was presented well, it's execution was hindered by too much hand holding and no penalties to the choices and deductions the player makes.
Less game and more interactive story, your enjoyment of Murdered: Soul Suspect will be directly proportional to how much you buy into the tale that it tells. Those looking for a title with engaging gameplay will be sorely disappointed by the lack of challenge, boring stealth, and hunt the clue investigations. But if you can overlook its shortcomings and throw yourself headlong into the fiction, you might just find a detective yarn with a supernatural twist that'll keep you engaged until justice is done.
We're meant to believe that solving the mystery of the Bell Killer would redeem Ronan and allow him the peace to move on, but nothing about the game gives the impression that he deserves it.
Judging by the screens, people may think that Murdered: Soul Suspects is a survival horror title, especially with the pics of the demons. It is far from that, as it tells a solid story and is more categorized as a suspenseful thriller. The lack of challenge in the game and the redundancy really hurt the title in the long run. The game is more similar to the likes of Heavy Rain, as it seems like more of an interactive movie. While the game looks and runs great, it certainly will not be for everyone.
There's nothing like a good murder mystery - and Murdered: Soul Suspect is nothing like a good murder mystery. It's a decent enough tale, punctuated by half-baked sleuthing, underused supernatural powers and forced stealth.
Though it isn't the flashiest game in the market, I enjoyed Murdered: Soul Suspect for what it had to offer. I could have done without the demons and some of the mechanics were hit and miss. However, the detective aspect worked nicely and I did feel like a bonafide gumshoe while working on cases. I fear that this game will get lost in the shuffle, especially considering its price and format, but it's certainly a title that more people should be made aware of, even if it doesn't make headlines.
For me, the best part of Murdered: Soul Suspect was the series of ghost stories you could listen to after collecting certain items. They provided just enough spookiness to entertain me for minutes at a time while I wound down from Ronan's less-than-thrilling adventures through Salem. I tried really hard to get into Murdered: Soul Suspect, but unfortunately, it just didn't have much spirit.
Generally underwhelming and far too simple, Murdered would have been better as a cat simulator.
Murdered: Soul Suspect takes the clever premise of a ghost detective, and sabotages it with a protagonist as thin and dull as his ethereal specter.
Murdered: Soul Suspect isn't revolutionary and the core gameplay doesn't offer much of note, but fans of supernatural stories and mystery-solving games will probably enjoy most of what they find in this title.
While a welcome break from the tired retreadings that define most games, Murdered: Soul Suspect finds itself in a precarious place where narrative value, above all else, is of chief importance. But while the deadlike denizens of Salem might sound right for this sort of game, the absence of compelling characters keeps what's otherwise an interesting idea from landing any staying power.
Murdered: Soul Suspect is a flawed interactive crime drama, which will only appeal to a certain audience. Gamers who like narrative-focused titles should give it a chance, while those who usually avoid linear experiences should save their time and money.
Murdered: Soul Suspect is a really great idea for a game. It could have been really high quality all around, but maybe certain things were overlooked while focusing on the story rather than getting feedback about gameplay during development. This title feels like a tween game (to use Dan's term). It's in between console generations, where it could have been a lot more but still had some good points. I feel like I could have bought this game in 2011 just the way it is, But now it's 2014, and I expected a lot more. So, if you are usually interested in the stories that games have to tell more than anything else, go ahead and try this game out (maybe once it goes on sale), but if you don't think you can overlook somewhat boring gameplay just for an intriguing mystery, you might want to move on to the next game and leave Murdered an enigma.
Murdered does its best to suffocate some great ideas while its investigative gameplay has its flaws. Yet there's something refreshing about this spooky detective story, and if you can live with some cardboard characters and scenery then the engaging narrative will pull you through. There's potential here for something smart, unusual and compelling, even if this first instalment doesn't quite make it happen.
It's not without its flaws to be sure, some of which are patchable, but Murdered Soul Suspect offers an interesting mystery and enough other positives to make it well worth playing.