Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express

Rating ESRB: Teen Genre adventure Publisher DreamCatcher Interactive External Links Official Murder on the Orient Express Website

Murder on the Orient Express is a follow-up to the previous game based on Agatha Christie's novel And Then There Were None. In Murder, you are placed in the role of Antoinette Marceau, employee of a train company and amateur sleuth. The game begins outside of a train station in Istanbul where you are informed that the world famous detective, Hercule Poirot, will be a passenger on the train to Paris and it is up to you to make sure his journey is as comfortable as possible.

As you try to catch up with Poirot around the train station, a few challengers are thrown at you as a tutorial to help you get used to the game's interface, which is a chore. There are passport screens, fingerprint screens, and a scrapbook screen that you need to constantly bounce between. A lot of time is spent gathering up all kinds of items that wind up in a pretty large inventory. The worst part though is when you need to use inventory items in combination, which requires another interface screen. You have to select one item, move to the combiner, drop it in, go back to inventory, get the next item, bring it to the combiner, and then hopefully combine them. It's tiresome.

The tasks are fairly simple, but it's a good way to get the players into the action and get them used to the series of mouse clicks and movements that will be necessary throughout the game. After this brief introduction, it's on to the Orient Express and into the meat of the mystery. From the very beginning, Murder on the Orient Express drops you into beautiful backgrounds that really help to immerse the player into the novel's atmosphere. The vocal work is excellent, being led by none other than David Suchet in the role of Poirot.

Early on, the game is very straightforward and has a pretty gentle learning curve. Once you get into the body of the game it plays out as your typical point and click adventure. Much of the time is spent moving from car to car, searching the various cabins, and gathering clues to help solve the mystery. As you progress, you occasionally meet with Poirot who will help sort out the evidence and point you in the next avenue of investigation.

Unfortunately, a good video game needs to be more than just a slightly interactive version of a book. All too often in this game you are given what appear to be many choices, but in the end it rarely seems to matter what you say or in what order you say it. Characters will give you information or talk about another conversation that you may not have had yet. It is obvious that the tasks in the game should be carried out in a specific order and if you don't follow that order, the game doesn't know any better. Combine that with the fact that the world is confined to just four train cars and a little bit of the outside of the train, and it all comes off as restrictive.

Murder on the Orient Express is a serviceable game if you're looking for a quick adventure fix, but it's far from a must play game. The story is a classic and the atmosphere is immersive enough to help bring the story to life. The problem is, if that's all I wanted I could just watch the movie. A little more to do, more space to do it in, some trickier puzzles, and more than just the one, linear way to go through the game would be welcome improvements.