A
fter the honking awfulness
of The Quiet Man, it seems
sensible to revisit Square
Enix’s second most famous misstep.
It starts well enough. A tidy montage
during the intro tells you everything
you need to know about spookcop
protagonist Ronan O’Connor—he did
Bad Crimes when he was younger,
but reformed and became a police
officer. He dresses like he browses
YouTube offering unsolicited
critiques on bean roasting videos, and
his wife is already dead, which saves
everyone the trouble of her almost
certainly getting fridged later on.
Murdered: Soul Suspect is a very
serious game, then, and it’s
determined to show us at every
opportunity. Despite this, I don’t hate
it. Salem is the ideal location for a
spooky detective story (let’s be
honest, it was there or New Orleans).
And there’s something engrossing
Ghostocop stars in MURDERED: SOUL SUSPECT
EXPECT TO PAY
$30DEVELOPER
Airtight GamesPUBLISHER
Square EnixNEED TO KNOW
Nothing better than subtle
environmental storytelling.If haunting this dumpster is
FEDORA EX wrong, I refuse (ha!) to be right.56
I
f Crimes and Punishments is ‘cosy’,
The ABC Murders is like sitting
beside a wood burning stove wearing
a merino wool cardigan, surrounded
by pine-scented tea lights. Think
hygge with bludgeoning. It’s simple
but engaging. You’ll want to know
exactly how each crime was
committed, even if you’re never
shocked by the revelations. And the
character profiling doesn’t so much
say ‘consulting detective’, as it does
‘functioning human being’. But
there’s still something plump and
satisfying about gradually uncovering
the truth behind each crime. It’s also
the uncoolest game I’ve ever
played, which I absolutely
mean as a compliment.
THE ABC MURDERS
65
M
ost murder mysteries start
with a death, and leave you to
discover the guilty party. The Sexy
Brutale, by contrast, shows you
precisely who’s to blame, and lets you
bend time to prevent the death in the
first place. It’s a smart concept that
feels more cerebral than the temporal
hi-jinks we’re used to in games. And
the cleverest thing here is you always
feel you’re fighting against the clock
despite having infinite time, making
the ability to rewind things and try
again seem valuable. It’s also more
stylish than a whale in a Savile Row
suit—a game where every room feels
like the sort of place Poirot
would gather posh people to
explain a murder.THE SEXY BRUTALE
83
R
ounding off the detective
theme is Observer, rain-slicked,
gloomy, and surprisingly compelling.
I expected it to be eight hours of
Rutger Hauer grumbling into his
trench coat, but there’s a decent,
surrealist detective game here. I
especially love the mix of decaying
Polish cityscape and clean, digitized
interfaces. It’s also a nice departure
from trad horror—bleak futuristic
tenements replacing gusty haunted
houses, and Hauer’s creaking
performance only adds more
to the uneasiness.OBSERVER
70
Poirot has worked out
this person’s a smoker.Now this is the sort of room I
would gladly get strangled in.Wizard of Oz: Kansasmancer Bastard
Overdrive is looking dope.about strolling through the afterlife,
gathering clues while nobody can see
you. But the actual act of interacting
with stuff as a ghost is
underwhelming. Special haunting
rules mean you can only pass through
certain objects, which is a restrictive,
gamey way of limiting the only fun
thing about being dead. And while
Ronan can possess people, the
choices are light. You’re limited to
things like looking through their eyes
or hearing their thoughts, which are
usually brick-obvious hunks of
exposition rather than salacious
buried secrets. It’s a missed
opportunity for displaying some
much needed humor and humanity.
Murdered: Soul Suspect isn’t
calamitous though. The lead
performances are decent
especially given the
clammy script, and there
are some surprisingly
creepy moments.REVIEW