Murdered: Soul Suspect is a mystery/action game developed by AirtightGames and published by Square Enix. You play as Ronan O’ Connor, a detective in the American town of Salem, Massachusetts. Ronan is brutally and suddenly killed, but this is where the adventure begins, as you play as the ghost of O’ Connor. You must solve puzzles, defeat demons and find the person who killed you.
The gameplay in Murdered is simple and it’s an easy game to pick up and play, but that doesn’t mean it’s fun. With wonky combat and relatively poor controls, the murky atmosphere is suddenly less intriguing. Sometimes you’ll go toe-toe with enemies via quick-time events and other times you’re sneaking around the environment to get the upper hand on them. You’ll obviously be trying to solve puzzles and attempt to find your killer. This has been done before in video games and it’s been done much better (ex.Heavy Rain). The town of Salem has the potential to be fun and cool with it’s dark corners, blue ambience and gloomy fog, but the environments are all tiny and closed-in. It’s a shame because with more open areas, the game could have done itself a favor. Nothing really new or different is brought to the table in Murdered and it’s quite disappointing.
Graphically, Murdered looks just decent on next-gen consoles. On PS3 and 360, there are a few frame-rate issues, but mostly, the textures are just bland and uninspired. But then again, the feel and mood of the game is still relatively cool. You won’t find much attention to detail in Murdered, either. Character models are probably the strongest part in the graphics department, but even those look like a PS3 or 360 game. Don’t buy Murdered to show off your new hardware!
The story is just okay and the characters are run of the mill. It’s also a very short game, clocking in at around 6 hours. Overall, Murdered: Soul Suspect is an average game at best, with lackluster graphics, a generic story and characters, wonky controls and low replay value. Give it a rent.