Agatha Christie: ABC Murders – NDS – Review

Seeing as she’s one of the most
successful mystery writers ever, it was only a matter of time before some game
company acquired the Agatha Christie license and began turning her decades-old
novels into point-and-click adventures. Her mysteries were practically games in
and of themselves anyway, since half the fun of reading one is trying to figure
out the solution before the central characters do. At any rate, AWE Games has
had some success in translating Christie’s books into the interactive medium,
and their latest effort, The ABC Murders, is their first time bringing the
series to the DS.

ABC Murders is one of Christie’s
lesser known works, but it stars her most famous character, Detective Hercule
Poirot. The story begins with the murder of Andover citizen Alice Ascher,
followed shortly by Betty Barnard of Bexhill, then Carmichael Clarke of Churston.
Before each murder Poirot receives a letter taunting his deductive skills; the
letters and crime scenes are both signed “ABC”. Accompanied by his friend and
companion Captain Hastings, Hercule must catch the murderer before they kill
their way right through the alphabet.

Essentially, the game is a
point-and-click adventure, with puzzles thrown in from time to time, ala the
Professor Layton games. Technically the player controls Hastings, not Poirot
himself, but the gist is the same – you’ll navigate from one location to the
next, examining your surroundings and interviewing pertinent characters to
reveal clues, stopping occasionally to solve puzzles.

 
All investigating is performed on the
touch screen.

The writing is dated but solid and
the plot itself is excellent, so following Poirot on the case is almost as
enjoyable as reading the novel (a few questionable edits to the story aside).
Problems arise, though, in the concessions that were made bringing the story to
the interactive medium. Right off the bat you’ll notice a significant
difference, both in style and quality, between the stuff written by Christie
herself and the text written by the game’s development team. They’ve stuck to
the original written word as often as possible but large amounts of new written
material were still necessary, and the difference between the two can be
jarring.

The frequent puzzles present another
issue. While some puzzles were part of the original story (deciphering the
killer’s letters to deduce the next murder’s location, for example) and fit into
the story in a very natural way, many were created just for this game. Usually
these are presented by characters who feel the need to ‘test’ Poirot’s intellect
before sharing what they know about the case. Aside from being insulting to one
of the most brilliant fictional detectives of all time, this makes these puzzles
stick out like a sore thumb, as they’re obviously only included to pad the game
length.

One of the biggest problems with any
mystery game is replayability – once you know who did it and why, it’s tough to
get much more from the game. The developers have come up with a solution in the
game’s Free Story mode, essentially a remix of the plot – characters and events
are largely the same, but motivations and the killer’s identity are different
every playthrough. While they deserve credit for cleverness, the fact is the
plot was carefully constructed to support one specific ending, and when you
change things around it never works quite as well.

 
Innocent witnesses may be cold-blooded
murderers in subsequent playthroughs.

Other niggling issues crop up from
time to time – the cheap-o presentation features little to no music, voicework,
or even animation, for example. At the end of the day, this would be a great
game for a die-hard Christie fan who’d appreciate the authenticity to the
original novel, but most DS gamers looking for a mystery to puzzle their way
through would find their time better spent in the company of Professor Layton.

Gameplay: 6.5
Searching crime scenes and interviewing witnesses to find clues is Ok, but the
frequent puzzles break up the pacing in a bad way.

Graphics: 5.0
Environments and characters are presented in a decent hand-drawn style, but
variety is lacking, and the absence of any character animation makes each scene
feel flat and lifeless.

Sound: 5.5
Plinky piano tunes set the mood but aren’t very impressive or inspiring. What
voice work is included is limited to a simple word or two when a new character
speaks.

Difficulty: Medium
The plot’s linear and the game won’t let you advance until you’ve found the
pertinent clues or heard the important dialogue. Still, it’s all too easy to get
stuck on one of the game’s frequent puzzles, and the lack of any kind of hint
system doesn’t help matters.

Concept: 7.0
Turning a mystery novel into a point-and-click adventure is a no-brainer, but
making major deviations from the original plot wasn’t a great idea.

Overall: 6.0
ABC Murders is a great story, but it wasn’t meant to be a video game and it
shows. DS-owning Agatha Christie fans might get a kick out of it, but the game
just isn’t as engaging or fun as the other point-and-click puzzlers on the
system.