Ratings by diego

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, 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 research, 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.

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

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

Was it a success?

Let’s start with the graphics. It’s not what I hoped for, but it hasn’t been since Monkey Island 3. It feels too new-agey, edgy, and, on occasions, cheap. Still, it has a distinctive paper doll or children’s drawing, highly stylized look, and it’s far from being bad. When the game was announced, I criticized the art direction, but after finishing the game, I cannot criticize it because it’s very unique. When you think about it, every MI game (apart from the first two games) had its own unique and different graphics style. Furthermore, it even resembles the canceled infamous MI movie style, with sharp edges and a hint of cubism.

However, what I CAN criticize is that they haven’t reached the full potential of the style they chose. At places, the colors are bland without too much shading or a rich palette, resembling a Flash game, and the character models could use more details and polish.

As for the voices, Armato did a fantastic job once again as the voice of Guybrush. He even sounds better to me than in the Special Editions, as he doesn’t talk so fast, and every pronunciation and joke is spot on. The rest of the crew is fine; it’s not Earl Boen for LeChuck’s voice, but the actor in place of him also sounded good. The music brings Caribbean happy vibes and a smile to your face once again, though the new themes are nothing to write home about, and it’s still old themes in new variations that will make your heart dance.

The story is told through an older Guybrush telling the story to his son about the search for the Secret of Monkey Island, similar to the search for Big Whoop in Monkey Island 2. Actually, the whole game is very, very similar to Monkey Island 2 in combination with the elements of the first game, both in terms of story and design. You start on Melee Island, “Secret” is the big word on the street just like Big Whoop was on Scabb Island, you need to obtain a ship in this way or another to reach Monkey Island, and later more twists and turns ensue as we travel between multiple islands at our own leisure. Only this time it’s Terror (similar to Blood Island with volcanic eruptions), Scurvy (green, more cheerful place), and Brrr Muda Island (touch of Norse mythology) instead of Phatt and Booty. When that happens, the game takes you to golden age times where you can visit dozens of places at once, with total freedom and increased difficulty.

Speaking of difficulty, the puzzles are mostly very good inventory fare, and I haven’t been reminded of Day of the Tentacle inventory madness like this for a long time. It’s not that you can hold a crazy amount of stuff at once, but still, you will spend plenty of time rummaging through your stuff, inspecting it again and again, and thinking about it in the context of the game world until the green light switches inside your head. Only the best games in the genre succeed at that. Even mazes are done in the original way. On top of that, “Return” has one of the best hint systems in the history of the genre, that can be compared to that of Keepsake, which feels very organic, just like a good friend of yours who already finished the game is sitting beside you and giving you a drop of hints or nudges in the right direction whenever you need it. It’s not an overly hard game, but I dare anyone to finish it without calling for hints. Some of the puzzles, especially the last one, are deviant that much that I was imagining Ron smiling at the poor souls who need to solve it. Only one time I felt I haven’t been given enough clues, which is acceptable for this sort of twisted-logic game.

The recognizable Monkey Island humor is there and seems like a mix of comedy from all previous parts. I chuckled along the way, asking myself where they’re finding inspiration for all that crazy stuff (ghost chickens and ghost chicken food on board the Ghost ship, skulls that play notes of the musical scale, island covered in limes to fight scurvy, etc.). At some points, I was in hysterical laughter and applauding the writers.

Still, the game fires blanks at a few other areas. Elaine’s character is there, and while it’s true that she’s not exactly in the spotlight compared to a new villain, Captain Madison, with more screen time, or even Carla as the new governor, she felt somehow unnatural—almost too agreeable without the right character dynamic, a strange feeling that can be only explained by the game’s controversial ending. Indeed, she does pursue her mission of battling scurvy, but it’s like she’s different compared to previous parts. The same can be said for Murray. It wasn’t easy for Ron to make the game with the vision he had after his two original games, while in the meantime, three games followed without him, and he still chose to incorporate characters and events from those games in one way or another. That earns respect, but still—Murray is criminally underused. A character that has become sort of an icon among the fans, he’s here on “autopilot,” only briefly as an item in the inventory, and 95% of the time as the ship’s ornament, never even commenting on the progress or game world, other than making funny threats to Guybrush. It feels like he’s there only to “be there,” while the Hint System is more of an “alive and context-interactive” game character than he is. As for LeChuck, only at the 5th chapter did I feel like he’s that untouchable, eponymous villain from the previous game, while the rest of the game, he felt less scary than usual. The rest of the characters are mostly hit and miss with the character development. It also feels less “piratey” compared to, say, the first and second game (though it’s not without its buccaneers merit) and mostly reminds me of “Escape” in terms of game lore.

Another problem is that some islands feel unfinished in terms of locations to visit—Scurvy and Terror, in particular, where you can only see hotspots for various places like Waterfall, Rock, without the possibility to visit them other than to get a comment when you click on them and with fewer characters to interact with compared to a rich social life on Mêlée Island.

Now, cut to the ending. It didn’t surprise me or bother me, as I can see it was the issue for many players. Actually, I would be surprised to know that it surprised anyone who already finished “Revenge.” It’s a great little philosophical aspect of the game that we adventure gamers can sit by the campfire (on Scabb Island preferably) and discuss. You have elements of perspective, passage of time, and nostalgia intertwining with each other. And life is also a big intersection of those things in many aspects. In that regard, let me quote what Ron and Dave said themselves in the Scrapbook:

“The game is a goofy pirate adventure, the same as always, but also it’s a story about trying to recapture the past, with all its alleged youthful strength and glory. Guybrush will both succeed and fail at this. He will sort of get what he wants, but it won’t be what he expected.

I predict the same for us.”

However, BS3 is quite a treat. Stick long enough with it, and you’ll be rewarded once again with a globe-trotting adventure, carefully written story and the usual George/Nico cooperation with a clever touches of humor. The game starts in the vein of a quality thriller films, and it doesn’t stop from there - ending with a controversial and a spectacular climax.

It’s not without its problems. For example, the interface needs some time to get the hang on, and even when you master it, you’ll still make occasional “unwanted” actions. Likewise, the story is quite complex and cleverly done, but by the end it feels as some of the aspects are kept “secret”, like the whole deal with the Voynich manuscript.

On the other hand, the dialogs are (minus couple of instances) neat and usually do not drag too much. As for the puzzles, the 3D gameworld and “unique” interface will get you stuck more than one time, where you’ll wonder not only “what to do”, but also “where to go” - some locations are huge, like the castle, or a deviously-confusing theatre underground.

And beside some boring sneaking, or a little too-comical side-characters (I knew Lobineau is a “jerk”, but they made him a real jerk in this one) and undeveloped bits (for example, the 3D had a potential for quite more of a Paris streets roaming), BS3 should stand as a prime example of “how not to spoil the classic by switching to 3D”

I couldn’t shake the feeling that Sam Peters might be a good representative of those games we “feared” might come out of casual invasion as a “cross-product” - it’s too short, but more than it, the way it presents a back story (apart from total of 30 seconds of FULL video animation) is in a classic casual game style, with a static screen and text.

The main heroine didn’t smell with originality even with the name of “Sam Peters”, but she really makes even Nicole Bonet from Art of Murder a most lively hero - it’s not the voice, or script, which is a problem, but rather lack of any kind of character development.

However, the game does conceal some strong sides - locales are pleasing to eyes and music sounds like something from an adventure movie. Also, it’s quite a playable game, and perfect for a good, sunny day to forget all of your worries, and being able to finish it one sitting, because the game DOES hold the attention. There’re no long or boring dialogs - if we need to go to Africa, the game will present you with a basic info, along with a Indiana Jones-map style animation, and here we are in front of the jungle. In all of the game’s simplicity, however, there’re some clever Sam’s comments. The game’s interface is rather convenient, apart from occasional bugs with Sam’s running, pathfinding and object inspection. Also, don’t forget to scroll inventory objects with your mouse wheel, because most of the time you’ll be carrying 20-30 objects and “manual” scrolling can be quite tiresome.

As for the puzzles, they’re sort of a mixed bag - the first time I had to do a jigsaw, I had fun, but authors repeated it for 3-4 times, like assembling letters, maps, machines… Still, there’re some very nice inventory puzzles and also, those examples that require you to pay attention to the surroundings. However, the last logic puzzle in the game with cave symbols seemed to have much bigger potential, but it’s just like the casual lovers within the development team beat those who prefer Myst.

The story itself is intriguing, and provides enough interest with some sci-fi thrown in, but even then there’s no a hint of “intensity”.

All those negative things might be partially forgotten with the fact that the game is some sort of spin-off, and as long as this style doesn’t become the standard for Animation Arts. In that regard, and even though it seemed there’s a bigger potential here (for some puzzle variety and/or longer story) I can still recommend it.

The finale could have used more challenge, as they decided to put the hardest puzzle right before it - which is a brilliant logic puzzle (there could have been more of these) with a well-thought red herrings.

I’ve found voices to be pretty good - Geron does sound like a complete idiot with a missed voice dynamic on couple of occasions, but overall - Geron’s and other voices are done with great care. Music needs no praise, as it would be welcomed in any fantasy movie blockbuster.

All in all, the game lacks a bit here and there and it’s hard to call it an instant classic, and is probably slightly weaker than The Whispered World, but it has SOUL! Can’t wait to see Geron again in action and what they’ll make of Memoria.

Another glaring feature are cutscenes and the overall graphic design, with a “comic art” and almost poetic beauty to it.

IMO the best thing about the game, even though it’s a bit on the short side, is that it maintains the same level of quality from the beginning to end, with a two distinctly different parts. One being inside the castle, which is less “open”, but still nicely designed and oozing with Gothic/romantic atmosphere, and the second one in the city with some calm outdoor scenes, where you have more freedom and which is reminiscent of Monkey Island series and such.

And there’s no question the highlight of the game is the duo of protagonists - Mona/Froderick, and I think that’s exactly the reason why the game succeeds in keeping with the nice pace throughout - I agree the writing doesn’t hit the jackpot each time, but the constant banter/remarks is exactly what’s keeping you on the edge of your seat. Even when it’s not funny, it’s still in keeping with the spirit of the game, relaxed… with some interesting pop-references, and makes you focused on the gameworld. That’s why the fact that even though A Vampyre Story might not be as “funny” as some other comedy titles, it doesn’t hurt the game at all - because it has style, which is evident from the first screen, and which is maintained over the entire course of the game.

Froderick is IMO one of the best sidekicks I’ve seen - it’s interesting that in the last 5 years we’ve got two very strong contenders in that department with Froderick and Spot from The Whispered World, and they’re totally different - Spot is sweet and doesn’t talk, while Froderick is the direct opposite - he’s chatty, sleazy, perverted , but in a likeable sort of way. The genre has a long history of strong sidekicks, and I think AVS really places itself high in continuing with that tradition, and that’s also one of the reason why this franchise shouldn’t be left unfinished. Not to mention that the actor who did Froderick could have easily got the role in any Pixar/Disney film,  resembling Woody Allen, or a typical New Yorker, and reminiscent of some other sidekicks, like Arhtur from Journeyman Project, Dalboz from The Grand Inquisitor and Flux from Toonstruck, even though he still posses a style of its own.
I guess, the best thing about it, even though he might be considered the “wisecracking” sidekick, I couldn’t imagine exploring every new scene, every new object, or a character, without Froderick having to say something about it, no matter if that would make me laugh out loud, or not. That’s quite similar to my experience with narrator in Al Emmo, for example, with designers really nailing the reach interaction with the gameworld.

Mona is not without her merits either - and I wasn’t bothered by the high-pitched voice at all. Also, I suspect there was a women (Bill’s wife?) heavily involved in bringing the character to life, because one can sense feminine sensibility

The story and puzzles are sort of a mixed bag, but still on the “good” side. I’ve found the story actually to be better conveyed in the first part, because the second part is one big “trial” for “ingredients” and stretches a bit. That’s not to say the story is bad, or that it completely loses the pace, but it hangs a bit, and then suddenly rushes to the cliffhanger. As for puzzles, they’re pretty solid throughout, and gradually increase in difficulty in the second part (like getting the cloth). The “fly” option is also cleverly used. I needed hint on several occasions in the second part, but realized that not a single puzzle is unfair once I learned the solution.

Final verdict: 4/5

I agree the game falls somewhere in the 3.5-4 stars range, with the well-known ending “problem”, or rather - lack of some more gameplay in the finale, along with the fact that there could be perhaps some more puzzle variety and more side characters, but I’d still give it a straight 4, especially because of a distinct atmosphere and interaction not seen that often.

As for puzzles, they’re sort of a mixed bag - some, like riddles on altars, couple of mini-games and the usual inventory fare are very well done, but there’re also bunch of mundane tasks and fetch quests. Couple of them really test the common sense logic, and are obvious only after you’re done with them (boots anyone?). Another drawback is the general “slowness” typical for Future Games, but fortunately you can double click on exits or skip line of a dialog.

But it’s definitely a very good game, one of those where you can name many slight annoyances, but can’t deny its atmosphere. But my biggest gripe is that after the beginning and first part which pulls you in quickly, it somehow loses the pace in the second part. The mystery is still there, but with too many backtracking, and side-characters are not fully developed (actually, I’ve learned more about William or Gordon ancestors than any of the locals). As for the twist and ending - I’m not the biggest fan, but it didn’t really spoil the entire game for me, as well. Also, I think there’re many ways to interpret things and killings.