Getting pushed out of a 3rd story window is bad enough. Getting shot to death, 7 times, with your own gun is much, much worse. That’s how Airtight Games’ swan song, Murdered: Soul Suspect begins, setting you on a path to discover the identity of your killer and solve your own murder. As a light adventure game, Murdered: Soul Suspect tells a good, if ultimately predictable story with an interesting and likeable lead character, solid supporting characters and some truly interesting and fun game mechanics. While that should sound like a recipe for a great game, what came out of the oven will have to settle for being merely “decent.” For whatever reason – lack of ambition or lack of budget, Murdered: Soul Suspect – is simply a charming, interesting game that ultimately suffers for not taking its ideas far enough to move from niche curiosity to must play title.
Murdered: Soul Suspect tells the tale Ronan O’Connor, recipient of the titular crime, from the moment of his death onward as he walks between the corporeal and spirit worlds of Salem, Massachusetts in search of clues to solve his own murder. It turns out that his death was caused by the serial killer that put him in the position to get killed in the first place, The Bell Killer. Ronan had been following up a lead when he crossed paths with the killer and well, he ended up dead and wakes up as a ghost. This sets him on a path to not only solve his own, but all of the Bell Killer murders and reconcile his past.
Ronan is an interesting, flawed character voiced with a knowing wink to the genre by Jason Brookes. He brings Ronan to life by walking a fine line between cliched, hardbitten detective, and genuinely sympathetic character. In fact all of the voice work is solid and well performed. No one feels like they’re in a different game and the result is quite convincing. Even if the story is ultimately undone by turning out to be fairly predictable by mystery standards. It helps not one bit that when finally confronted, the culprit goes into an expository monologue revealing the details for their nefarious plan.
As a ghost, Ronan discovers that he has certain abilities, like he can posses people and peek through their eyes to see obstructed clues, hear their thoughts and even influence them to do….well, it’s not really clear what he can influence to do, but it has to do with talking and revealing more clues. He can also pass through walls, unless it’s into a building (the door must be open) or if the walls have been “consecrated” against ghosts. Later in the game, Ronan gets the ability to teleport short distances, which is handy for reaching areas previously inaccessible due to gaps or obstructions. Inexplicably, he can also posses cats (which seem to be the only animals in the town) and control them to reach higher areas he can’t simply teleport to.
Using his powers, Ronan picks up the trail of the Bell Killer and it brings him to Joy, the daughter of a local medium and potential victim of the Bell Killer. As it turns out, Joy can see Ronan and the two begin investigating together, going from location to location in Salem, finding more clues along the way. While the basic plot threads may not seem all that compelling collectively, it’s how their sewn together that works best.
The mystery is compelling enough and remind me quite a bit of the storytelling in Indigo Prophecy (Farenheit for the rest of the world) where the story leading up the resolution is far more interesting and better handled than the resolution itself. Unfortunately the final moments of the narrative devolve into the typical info dump when the culprit stands around and explains their nefarious plan in detail to the protagonist. It would be nice if one day writers would allow the player to put the pieces together themselves but until then, it only hurts the games because it feels like we’re just following a trail of bread crumbs and any investigating is purely incidental.
That being said, the investigating is actually quite enjoyable. Arriving at a scene will prompt you to find a certain amount of clues. At any time you can attempt to end the investigation but you must first piece together the right clues that will trigger a cut scene and point you in the next direction you need to take Ronan. Clues can simply be items strewn about the scene, information characters in the area know, or spectral memories of events that transpired.
Salem is a character in and of itself, with its own history, citizens and stories. It’s a relatively open map with sections closed off because the story demands it. While exploring, Ronan will encounter other ghosts that need to figure out what caused their death or tie up some loose ends caused by residual guilt under their current circumstances. These little side missions are usually pretty interesting and fun to solve but can be avoided altogether should you choose.
Beyond the investigating, exploring Salem and assisting the town’s wayward spectral citizen’s there are a few “action” moments in the game. These involve demons who want to pull you into Hell and they’re generally unpleasant. While besting them is a rather simple affair – you can sneak up behind that and perform a quick, erm, quicktime event to execute them – I would be lying if I said getting spotted by them wasn’t nerve racking. Once spotted, you basically have 3 options; hide, run or die. Ronan can hide inside spectral residue but he can’t hide in one spot for too long because upon closer inspection, the demon’s can see him, let out a blood curdling scream, and promptly try to suck his soul into hell. Thankfully, clicking the R2 while facing another hiding spot will allow him to telephoto across into another residual hiding spot. Doing this quickly for long enough, the demon will resume their patrols at which time you can walk up and execute them again.
These demonic encounters are really the only way you can “fail” in the game which means the game itself offers little to no challenge. The more powers Ronan gets, the easier the game is, leaving only the story and the characters to pick up the slack left by the overall gameplay. Still though, Murdered: Soul Suspect‘s story is pretty damned good. $60 good? Nah. But this game probably will do well once the price drops and it starts receiving discounts on digital stores, which I’m sure is no consolation for Airtight Games.
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