Preview - Hands on with Murdered: Soul Suspect

The last time we sat down with Murdered: Soul Suspect we were investigating the scene of our own murder by sniffing around the top floor of an apartment building we'd just been thrown out of. Ronan O'Connor was now a detective-turned-ghost, intent on revealing the identity of his killer so that he could move on to the afterlife and join his deceased wife. It was fun for the little while we played but it was short, and we wanted to see how the story panned out.

Recently we picked up the controller again and this time we were in a section around four hours in, plodding around a graveyard and once again attempting to find clues and piece together some more vital details.

What we found was more of the same, and that was both good and bad.

First we'll start with the good. Murdered: Soul Suspect is definitely a change from the norm. At a time when the majority of games encourage shooting first and thinking later, it's heartening when you get to try out something a little bit different. There are no weapons, instead you use Ronan's detective skills to piece together clues and form an assessment of what happened at different locations.

You can put your new ghostly abilities to good use, getting inside the head of witnesses and other living humans to read minds and generate leads, or even influence them yourself and try to jog their memory. I found that possessing different people was one of the most fun parts of the game, as even hearing useless thoughts that have no significance can still be fairly entertaining.

Another fun part is running from one end of the building to another by going through the walls as a ghostly spirit. Call us childish, but it never gets old. There are rules to the ghost world, though. For example, there are certain objects you can't go through, and you can't just walk into any building. You have to enter through the front door, and you'll probably need a real-life human to open that door for you, but once inside the fun can commence. There's a danger these rules could become too restrictive if you play for too long (afterall, what's the point of being a ghost if you don't have the freedom to go where you want?) but in the sections we played they don't hinder things too much.

Speaking to random ghosts dotted around the levels is also a fun little activity, as you can find out how they came to be dead, why they're still here and why they take such pleasure in haunting particular people. You even get the chance to help some other ghosts during side-quests if you're that way inclined.

This game is all about the story, and as far as setting things up for an engrossing ride, Airtight Games has done quite a good job. You do really want to find out the identity of your murderer, and as things unfold and you uncover further secrets you only find yourself getting more involved. On your journey you'll be accompanied by a girl called Joy who can see and speak to you because of her gift of talking to dead, and this means you'll be telling her to do things that you can't, like finding out where a patient is located in a hospital. This works quite well and the relationship between Joy and Ronan has some good potential for some good entertainment.

But now for the not-so-good. Murdered: Soul Suspect is a detective game where you can't really go wrong. You arrive at a crime scene, you find all the clues and then you have to select a handful of them that are most relevant to your investigation. If you choose the wrong ones you just try again, and again, and again until you get it right. When you get it right you're greeted with a little cut scene as Ronan can picture exactly what occurred earlier on.

This means there's little impact in your choices, and you feel like you can't really fail at the game at all. Telltale's The Walking Dead is cited as an influence, but that series is so good because you feel like every decision matters. When you say the wrong thing you're given a little reminder that the person you've offended will remember that later, and you often have to make game-altering choices like which route to take or who to save. There's nothing like that here, and there are times when you feel your hand is being held as you get to the end of every chapter, being shown the right things to do.

And the combat - if you can call it that - just involves avoiding or attacking demons from behind. Demons are spirits that have been wandering Earth aimlessly for a little bit too long, and now they exist to suck the souls from other spirits like Ronan. These sections succeed in upping the pace a little bit, and they even give you little puzzles to figure out as you decide the best way to get across a corridor while three demons are on patrol. But at times they do feel a bit forced, as if the developers knew they couldn't make a game solely about investigating, and as a result they can feel out of place.

There's a lot to enjoy, however you get the feeling Murdered: Soul Suspect is more about experiencing what happens rather than actually playing it. There's a good story here, but it's buried beneath some repetitive gameplay and the sense that your decision-making doesn't really matter. Piecing the wrong clues together in an investigation is no problem as you can simply try again to come up with the correct answer. Hopefully the rest of the game has some weight behind the choices you make, otherwise this could play out more like an interactive movie.