Murdered: Soul Suspect

By: Robert Murphy

As a gamer, I am always looking for some new and interesting game that I can get my hands on and share with you all and this past week a new game caught my eye that completely flew under my radar called Murdered: Soul Suspect. Somehow I had heard nothing about this game whatsoever and apparently it had a lot of people interested in it and it did me as well. The game takes place in good old Salem, Massachusetts which has it's fair share of rich history as all of you may very well know and now it adds a little more to it with ghosts. You play Ronan O'Conner, a man with a troubled past but who has turned things around and become a detective who we meet working on his last case (while you're alive that is) chasing down a deadly murderer known as the Bell Killer who takes his life. Things do not end hear though as you are a man with unfinished business and you work the ghostly plans trying to put an end to the Bell Killer, bringing you justice and peace.

Frankly, from the get go I found the ideas behind Murdered: Soul Suspect to be very cool and interesting to see. As a ghost you have many of the standard cliche moves that you see in movies such as messing with electronics or possessing animals but a host of new ones as well do to your life as a detective. Ghosts in the game can adopt unique powers that come from the various aspects of the lives they use to live and Ronan is no different, his abilities as a detective are improved by allowing him to relive memories of those around him or objects which help him in figuring out a crime scene that comes up frequently in the game. But a ghost can only do so much, luckily as part of your last case you meet a young girl named Joy who just so happens to be a medium, she can see and talk to you and she helps you along the way do to her missing mother who was helping the police in the Bell Killer case. It's almost really too cliche to ignore in the style in which the game is set up especially when you take a look and think about how the fedora wearing Ronan makes you think 90's crime show paired with his spiritually linked side kick. It inspires a laugh when you think about it but the games darker tones really keep the game from drifting into the similarity too much.

Once you get past your first initial introductions, you will see that Murdered: Soul Suspect revolves vastly around exploration. The in-game Salem isn't quite so large and is fairly easy to get around and it has so many things for you as a detective to get your hands on once you're set lose from the story for however long of a period. There are a large amount of items to be found throughout the world and they all serve there own purpose such as news clippings or information on the Bell Killer or less important but still very enjoyable items such as clues to a previously famous murder in Salem's history. My personal favorite was finding the hidden water heaters throughout one of the first levels which led to the story called "A Watery Grave" which greatly disturbed me. Now while I do love searching for game collectibles, Murdered: Soul Suspect's were almost painfully obvious to miss. All the collectibles for the game are not so much hidden as they can be seen in plane view when walking through an area. I don't know why the game makes it so easy for you but it really dumbed down the entire experience for me which was bad since almost 90% of the game is collecting clues and in-game items.

The other vary dumbed down feature in the game is the crime scene investigations which usually occurs when you reach a games main objective. At certain points you'll find yourself searching an area for clues much like the rest of the games collectibles, these are just as easy to find throughout the search area. Once you find a solid chunk of the clues you can solve the case by choosing the correct clues that will lead you on the right path in the story, the correct clues being the painfully obvious choices. In the event that you get a guess wrong however you will be allowed as many chances as you need to solve the crime, this makes sense since there is no punishment for guessing wrong in a real life situation but come on make it challenging or make some risk of failure for the player.

Finally, we have whay Murdered: Soul Suspect offers a tiny amount of combat to be had for you in your journey to find your killer. As you can guess combat isn't something of major importance to this heavily story based game but it does offer up an enemy for you to face, demons. These creatures were like you but lost their way and now feast on ghosts like you however they only appear from time to time and mainly serve little more than a nuisance. In order to defeat them you must get around behind them and preform a short take down experience, if you do manage to get sighted by a demon though you simply can run away and hide until they give up and return to their original spot. As I said, little more than a nuisance and I may get shlack for complaining about it in a story driven game but it was just too poor of an experience not to mention.

All in all, Murdered: Soul Suspect has it's ideas and to me they were really good but ultimately there just isn't anything to write home about with just how easy the experience you will have with it. Solving crimes doesn't involve too much mental activity and when you're searching for clues that are right out in the open it makes things even easier and the rest of the collectibles in the game are found just as quick. The whole experience goes along so quick that if I had the time I could have finished the game within a day of buying it. If you're a story kind of gamer you will definitely enjoy the central story of Murdered: Soul Suspect but I can't say much else for this game.

Good:

- Solid main story

- Being a ghost and solving crimes was all presented well and enjoyable while the appeal lasts

Bad:

- Crime solving is very dumbed down 

- Collectibles are unbelievably easy to find

- Combat is pointless and shouldn't have even been included 

Scully Rating: 5.8 out of 10