Right then Murdered: Soul Suspect. I would jazz this up with some pics but due to technical difficulties (ie. I forgot) I didn't take any interesting ones so wall of text it is!
What kind of game is Murdered: Soul Suspect? Well it's a tricky one to nail down. I've seeing it compared to Heavy Rain, likened to Ghost Trick, in the same vain as L.A. Noire, share things with Alan Wake, play out like Telltale games, even talked in the same breath as Ace Attorney (which is really the most similar comparison here). In fairness it's an adventure game, not the modern take as in action adventure but back to the roots like text adventure, point and click adventure, FMV adventure. It reminded me more over of an old UK TV show, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) as well as sharing similarities with The Crow (very loose mind) and plays quite like Snatcher and Westwood's Bladrunner, even Harvester to an extent. If you're looking for action, diverging narrative or choice based gameplay you won't find it here but if you want a story the emerges with the characters and their world as you interact with it then Murdered: Soul Suspect might interest you.
You play as Ronan O'Connor. He's a detective with a less than stellar past, as the intro cinematic shows, but due to the murder of his wife some time previous to the events of the game he's looking to set things straight. This leads him to an apartment block where he feels his wife's murderer is and could be ready to strike again. Unfortunate for Ronan is that while trying to apprehend him his is swiftly overpowered and thrown out the window of the 4th floor apartment.
In true video game style he get's back on his feet, dusts himself off and goes to re-enter the building. Though something's amiss. When trying to turn the door handle to door won't budge. Then all of a sudden the door opens violently, striking Ronan to the floor. Standing in the now open doorway is one of the building's other tenants who looks somewhat shocked. As Ronan turns around he sees his own body behind him. Upon investigating he finds out he's not quite dead, maybe he's having an out of body experience? Thinking this he tries to climb back in his body but alas it's to no avail. In the mean time the killer has reached the street where Ronan's body lays. To one side of Ronan's body is his gun which the killer is reaching for. Try as he might in his panic and ghostly form, Ronan can't grab the weapon which the killer now has in his hands. Taking aim at his still body on the ground, the killer fires 7 shots into the body as Ronan helplessly looks on. As each shot goes into his now lifeless corpse they shoot through him before a final transformation rushes over him sucking all the colour from him. And so begins the game, you have be murdered and must try to find the sole suspect (see what they did there?).
The story plays out is a pretty linear fashion. Ronan is trying to find his killer which he hopes we lead him to his wife's murderer to gain some closure so he can move on. This is played out by putting his detective skills to use over various investigations, starting with the crime scene of his own death. Along the way you meet a young ghost who explains the confines of The Dusk, the plane you now inhabit and how you can interact with the world and how your skills in your previous life will relate to the ones in this existence, you just to to figure out how. This is a way to explain how you can't enter every building (if a door's closed you're not getting in) and how your abilities slowly unlock over time. At about the second investigation you meet what will be your sidekick for the game, well seeing as Ronan is a ghost and all he can't really touch anything.
One of the strong points of this game is the chemistry between the two leads. They're both looking for someone special but in slightly different circumstances and share a common goal in finding the killer will hopefully set things straight. Granted he's every gruff clichéd and stereotyped gumshoe from cinema and pulp novels you care to think of and at moments she's playing to the angsty teen archetype but there are some good human moments between them. Voice acting and animation are superb (well for a Unreal Engine 3 game) and brings Ronan and 'the girl' to life (I'm not going to use her name as it was a nice moment when Ronan finds out).
There is also a supporting cast and these consist of Ronan's murdered wife and 'the girl's' missing mother, both of whom are characterised through collectables relating to them (the mothers are really missable but there's a lot of collectables for Ronan's wife). There are also 2 cops that Ronan worked with who are part of the story and a few others along the way. Involvement is more focused on the two leads (Ronan's wife and the girls mother hardly, and I mean hardly get any screen time bar collectables) but the town of Salem plays just as big a character in the grand scheme of things.
I'll leave the rest of the story alone as it really is something worth experiencing first hand and no soundbite or quick summary can do it any justice. Gameplay elements though are quite accessible. Don't see that as a bad thing as they are used great with the game to make it so anyone can enjoy this story. The investigation segments involve you scouring the crime scene or environment for clues which your walk around like any 3rd person game, when found they will be highlighted and a press of the X button acquires them. These may be just items in plain sight or you might need to use you ghost abilities. These range from possession (which allows you to read the subjects mind), influence (this is used in context and sparingly to persuade the subject to perform an action relative to your choice), reveal (there are shimmers of the other world and the past that a become whole when you interact with them) and there's also an ability where you hear a sound which relates to a series of objects in front of you and you have to pick the corresponding choice.
You are given a counter at the bottom left telling you how many clues there are and how many you found but you can conclude the investigation once you have found the pertinent ones. This usually then asks you a question like "why was the murderer here?" and you have to pick the relevant clues, usually 3. Sometimes it's less clues and sometimes it auto resolves but it's quite easy to make the right selection, just take your time as you hover over the description and see if they sound right. Though really there is no penalty for making a wrong choice, just you won't get perfect rating. Each investigation is rated in 3 badges, perfect being 3 and you loose 1 for each mistake on the conclusion (and certain clues as well) but there's no leaderboards to compare other than one's own sense of accomplishment.
The only other gameplay mechanics are a bit of a mixed bag, demons. They come in 2 kinds, ones on the ground in place that serve to block your path and the other as prowling enemies in the traditional stealth gameplay kind of way. The later sections aren't many in volume but I see them as a bit of a missed opportunity. You normally have a section where you have to sneak around a prowling demon where you have remnants of ghost left behind to hide in. You can only take down the demon if you approach them from behind, pull on the right trigger and perform a button and stick QTE combo to finish it off. Failure or being spotted results in you having to escape via either the ghost portals or getting far away enough for the demon to reset to its patrol route. If you've ever played a stealth game before these are quite easy (well if your patient) but yet again the consequence for failure is restarting right before the encounter (if you get spotted it is sometimes quicker to reload from checkpoint).
After the first investigation you are free to wander around the town of Salem. It's not massive in size but has some key landmarks so know now where you are and part of the design is ghostly structures from Salem past block certain sections and create pathways that Ronan can't cross but a nice touch is that inhabitants of the real Salem phase through. Speaking of traversal and phasing, when in an enclosed area Ronan being a ghost can pass through solid walls (asides from those not blocked off due to being from The Dusk, where he is right now). You gain a further traversal mechanic later on you know because Ronan is just figuring out this ghosting lark.
Asides from the hub each investigation takes place in a self contained area. These are quite big and have a range of collectables as well. They're all unique and give a nice spread of the town but you can only visit them when the story allows you to.
Side content is quite vast and ranges from collectables that read like diary pages from you wife, bits of info about the killers motives and past crimes, narrated videos about the girls mother, the 2 cops backstory and Ronan's own backstory (each key moment in his life he has a tattoo on his body to remember it by and these tell the tale). There's also mysterious symbols to be found throughout the game that have an individual meaning as well as other collectables that tell the history of Salem and the history of The Witch Trials (no idea if these are accurate but did help flesh out the world quite a bit). Also in each self contained area as well as the town hub are a series of collectables tied to an item or an event that once you gain all of them plays a narrated tale related to them (they're not key to the plot in any way but also help with world building).
One of the best bits of side content though it the ghosts you can help. These lost souls need you to help them find closure in how they died so they can move on. These play out like mini investigation and are some nice little diversions. There aren't too many of them though there are other ghosts you can talk to who you can ask why they're are where they are or what they are doing. It servers at a bit more of world building but they range from really creepy to really bland.
Funnily it also has 3 of my most loathed effects used in gaming but pulled off quite well. There is a subtle vignette and fish eye distortion to the frame which helps create an other-worldly feel to the game. There is also use of chromatic aberration to the extremes of either side of the screen in well lit areas also helping with the aesthetics. Most light sources have flares to them but not over done and brings a warm or chilling feel depending on the environment and colour pallet used. Each area has some great use of colour with open areas and real world Salem basked in reds, oranges and yellows creating an open and warm environment. While sections more covered in The Dusk use greens and blues as well as the more confined areas creating a great sense of claustrophobia. Over all the art direction is really good for a game of this scale and the sound design, while more subtle is used to great effect too.
On a technical level didn't encounter any bugs, performance was rock solid and should run well on even old hardware, decent set of options though it does only support 64bit operating systems mind.
Right I think I've waffled on long enough. Did I like it? Yeah I really did. I'm a big adventure game fan and really liked the side stories presented through the collectables here as it encouraged me to methodical explore every inch of the town. The 'open world' nature is a bit rough by today's standards but seeing as this was announced as a PS3/360 and PC title only up until February of this year you can see why there are some limitations like prerendered cutscenes masking loading and smaller areas due to memory limitations of older consoles. It's not without its faults (I would touch on the problems I had with the ending and a few segments I felt rushed but that's spoiler territory) but for the 13 and half hours I played I got great enjoyment out of it. Though I didn't really ever feel bored or frustrated I will say that there is very little replay value to be had outside of mopping up missing collectables or a second playthrough if you were enamoured by the game.
It's a bit tricky as you can't rent PC games but I'd say if you like adventure games of old or like exploring and unravelling game worlds you'll more than likely enjoy Murdered: Soul Suspect. Family Sharing might be something to look into (the Steam variety of course) and there's always Square Enix's pricing to keep in mind too.
