Agatha Christie – The A.B.C Murders

Having seen a few of my friends playing this, I thought I would carry out my own investigation into a game adaptation of Agatha Christie – a concept I thought was very weird. I was wrong about it being weird and, in fact, it was quite the boring experience.

You play as Agatha Christie’s Poirot and you are on the trail of the ABC killer, a killer who is targeting victims in various locales starting with the letter A, then the letter B and so on. This isn’t much of a spoiler – the clue is in the title.

The nearest like for like comparison I can make is to the Sherlock Holmes series and I have to say that the Sherlock games are a lot better. On Poirot’s investigations, you have to solve various puzzles, interrogate victims and suspects and piece together clues to reach a valid conclusion. The puzzles and interrogations are fine for the most part but piecing the clues together is very, very subjective and it suffers from the same problems as other games of the genre where it wants you to reach its conclusion without you making any of your own. I don’t understand this style of gaming unless building the functionality to allow you to take shortcuts, after you’ve worked stuff out for yourself, is incredibly difficult to build.

The puzzles, while okay, aren’t going to win any awards for ingenuity but a few of them may win some points for obscurity, especially towards the end. Some of the puzzles required you to have some kind of psychic connection to the thinking of the developers as there was no real way to identify the steps required to solve some of them.

Graphically they have gone for a cartoony look and feel which is suitable for the game type and allows Poirot to look sensibly different from David Suchett. The music is also in keeping with the genre with the exception of the puzzle sections where an overly ominous track plays in the background despite the fact there is no punishment for failing or time limit to complete any of them – a strange choice.

The last comment I will make is that they seem to have tried to match Sherlock with how much of an asshole Poirot can be. He comes across as majorly condescending at times, especially towards Hastings, the one guy that is meant to be his friend. I don’t understand the need for these games to create a completely unlikable protagonist for you to play as. For me, this is a buzz kill and made this game a drag to get through.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 50 Achievements

A welcome return to the 50 achievement format here but to get all of the achievements takes some planning if you want to avoid extra playthroughs. 32 can be obtained on a single playthrough without issue, however the other 18 are completely missable.

At least a second partial playthrough will be required as you need to make eight mistakes during the course of the investigation. There are counter achievements for taking the right approach but you only get one save so tactical saves won’t work and the mistakes achievement is cumulative in one playthrough. To get eight mistakes in one playthrough you need to get as far as nearly the end of the game so it’s practically two playthroughs that are required.

Agatha Christie – The A.B.C Murders

Having seen a few of my friends playing this, I thought I would carry out my own investigation into a game adaptation of Agatha Christie – a concept I thought was very weird. I was wrong about it being weird and, in fact, it was quite the boring experience.

You play as Agatha Christie’s Poirot and you are on the trail of the ABC killer, a killer who is targeting victims in various locales starting with the letter A, then the letter B and so on. This isn’t much of a spoiler – the clue is in the title.

The nearest like for like comparison I can make is to the Sherlock Holmes series and I have to say that the Sherlock games are a lot better. On Poirot’s investigations, you have to solve various puzzles, interrogate victims and suspects and piece together clues to reach a valid conclusion. The puzzles and interrogations are fine for the most part but piecing the clues together is very, very subjective and it suffers from the same problems as other games of the genre where it wants you to reach its conclusion without you making any of your own. I don’t understand this style of gaming unless building the functionality to allow you to take shortcuts, after you’ve worked stuff out for yourself, is incredibly difficult to build.

The puzzles, while okay, aren’t going to win any awards for ingenuity but a few of them may win some points for obscurity, especially towards the end. Some of the puzzles required you to have some kind of psychic connection to the thinking of the developers as there was no real way to identify the steps required to solve some of them.

Graphically they have gone for a cartoony look and feel which is suitable for the game type and allows Poirot to look sensibly different from David Suchett. The music is also in keeping with the genre with the exception of the puzzle sections where an overly ominous track plays in the background despite the fact there is no punishment for failing or time limit to complete any of them – a strange choice.

The last comment I will make is that they seem to have tried to match Sherlock with how much of an asshole Poirot can be. He comes across as majorly condescending at times, especially towards Hastings, the one guy that is meant to be his friend. I don’t understand the need for these games to create a completely unlikable protagonist for you to play as. For me, this is a buzz kill and made this game a drag to get through.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 50 Achievements

A welcome return to the 50 achievement format here but to get all of the achievements takes some planning if you want to avoid extra playthroughs. 32 can be obtained on a single playthrough without issue, however the other 18 are completely missable.

At least a second partial playthrough will be required as you need to make eight mistakes during the course of the investigation. There are counter achievements for taking the right approach but you only get one save so tactical saves won’t work and the mistakes achievement is cumulative in one playthrough. To get eight mistakes in one playthrough you need to get as far as nearly the end of the game so it’s practically two playthroughs that are required.