Adventure Gamers - Forums

All aboard the pun-infested review, and let’s see whether “Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express” by Microids Studio Lyon is a thrill ride or a train wreck.

Murder on the Orient Express is one of Agatha’s last and most successful stories, featuring one of the most original plot twists. It’s already been made into a game in 2006 by AWE Games, which was entertaining enough but had some flaws. So, what has 17 years of the adventure genre voyage brought new? Graphics-wise, not much. Backgrounds, animation, cutscenes, lip-sync… everything is on a level seen 10-15 years ago. That’s not to say it’s bad, the locations and train are rather nicely rendered, the atmosphere is there, and it’s done in full 3D. There’s a lot of details to see, and it’s visible they studied the exterior and interior of the famed train thoroughly. Sometimes while walking through it, I felt a striking resemblance to Jordan Mechner’s “The Last Express.”

Regarding the story, I think that everyone already knows it - an unpleasant American businessman who just hours previously sought Poirot’s services (“If you will forgive me for being personal—I do not like your face, M. Ratchett!”), is found stabbed in his cabin. The script mainly follows the original, taking few detours to keep the seasoned Agatha Christie aficionados on their toes. The main difference is that the game is set in 2023, with mobile phones and everything, though it doesn’t change the mood that much - character outfits, the train’s design, and the fact the phone signal is off at the mountain stop will transport you back to 1934. Another radical addition which is well-integrated is a new playable character next to Poirot - Joanna Locke, an American detective who will play the parallel “flashback” story regarding the kidnapping of the little girl Daisy Armstrong in the United States. Those who read the novel or seen the movies, know that it intersections with the main plot at Orient Express.

Voice-overs are bien, Poirot sounds cool and looks extra cool - Microids discarded David Suchet’s appearance and brought in the “Tom Selleck” macho type of a guy into the scene. We might argue that Agatha herself described Poirot as standing at “five foot five” tall, with an “egg-shaped” head, which implies at least some level of baldness, but here he is a stud. The gameplay is accompanied by a rather good jazzy music, ambient and with a meditative effect on your little grey cells, which are needed to solve the many “Mind” puzzles and logic games.

Speaking of puzzles, developers jumped on the bandwagon seen already in Frogwares and previous Poirot games, neglecting inventory puzzles in favor of “connecting dots” inside Poirot’s mind, analyzing characters, reenacting situations by putting the right order of things, etc. It’s fun and mostly they’re on track, even though you can brute force it (apart from few really tough ones), and the game is constantly railroading you to the next “stop” in Poirot’s mind, which becomes the current objective until you chug along to the next one. Also, there’s no “punishment” for wrong move - just try again and no train missed.

A couple of things bothered me - for starters, you can’t skip lines of dialogue, nor the constant small cutscenes like opening and closing doors. Add to this that Poirot refuses to run fast (“Shift” will make his locomotion only a tad faster), and impatient players like myself are in trouble. For that reason, I almost wished it’s been done in a more traditional 2.5D. There’s also the “Magnificient! aka Voila!” short cutscene with proud Poirot, after successfully solving every piece of evidence - it’s amusing the first or second time, but gets tiresome quickly and leaves a heavy “console game” vibe.

Still, good presentation and details, twists to accommodate both old-timers and newcomers to the story, and plenty of mind/logic puzzles and mini games, with somewhere between 10-15 hours makes this a more good than bad game, hindered only by a rather “caged,” casual premise and some technical drawbacks and cumbersome keyboard controls. I’ll wait impatiently for the next title in the series, wishing them to go full steam ahead and provide an even better game, perhaps bringing along our old friends Captain Hastings, Miss Lemon and Inspector Japp as well.

Score: 72

+ Attention to details
+ Solid secondary protagonist next to Poirot
+ Plenty of fun “mind” puzzles and deductions

- Dubious choice for Poirot’s appearance
- Limited exploration with hand-holding a player
- Lack of skipping the dialogue and animations

That’s a great review diego, thanks!

Having played this game fairly recently I agree with pretty much everything you say.

I enjoyed the game, thought it looked good and was generally well voice acted. I liked the connecting the dots puzzles for the most part, although they ranged from very simple to reasonably hard, and it was a little grating to make a really obvious connection and then to get the 5 second cutscene of Poirot telling me what a genius he was! Like you I mostly laughed though.

As you say, Poirot himself underwent a complete physical transformation from the books. Although it didn’t matter to me too much, it was slightly sad to miss the character of a huge macho ego in a diminutive ‘unattractive’ body.

Did some of the mini game puzzles feel forced and bolted on? Sure. Although I honestly didn’t mind too much. As silly as some of the situations were they were mostly pretty fun puzzles.

Ahoy! Very Slight Spoilers below

They took the decision to follow the story of the book pretty faithfully and then to add an extra bit on the end which (looking at a guide) appears to be maybe a third of the game. I didn’t play that bit and it’s not because I am an Agatha Christie purist and can’t bear seeing her work played with.

It’s because the arc of the original story feels complete to me. The ending is satisfying and ties everything else up so satisfactorily that I actually didn’t want to play on.

Some of the mini games felt a bit bolted on, but the Now let’s go to Venice! bit at the end is so nakedly artificial that it really put me off playing any further. It felt so different to the added bits before the ‘traditional’ ending, which I would say helped the game a lot and gave something new to those who know the story.

Did you play to the end and if so was it worth it?

Thanks!

Intense Degree - 05 January 2024 04:26 AM

it was slightly sad to miss the character of a huge macho ego in a diminutive ‘unattractive’ body.

Yeap, well said - that’s part of the TV show’s charm.

Intense Degree - 05 January 2024 04:26 AM

They took the decision to follow the story of the book pretty faithfully and then to add an extra bit on the end which (looking at a guide) appears to be maybe a third of the game.

It felt shorter to me - certainly not the length of one third, perhaps they explained a lot of things that happened previously in that guide rather than explaining what is needed to be done.

Intense Degree - 05 January 2024 04:26 AM

Did you play to the end and if so was it worth it?

Yes, the overlooked 13th wound is an ok addition, as it doesn’t change the structure, only adds something new connected to the story and provides few more puzzles. If I remember correctly, 2006. AWE Games version did a more drastic change with inserting a completely new third solution.