1609: In Custody

Finished Murdered: Soul Suspect this evening. It’s not a long game, which may cause consternation among some people wondering whether to splash their hard-earned cash on it, but I found it didn’t outstay its welcome, and it was an eminently satisfying experience. (I am also of the age when I remember paying £30-40 for titles like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, which are about 2-3 hours long apiece, so I don’t mind too much when something clocks in at 10 hours or less. In fact, given the number of absolute behemoths I play on a regular basis, it can be quite refreshing to play something short.)

I won’t spoil the story here, but I was pleased to see that it didn’t end up being quite as predictable as I initially believed it would be. Those with a better mind for this sort of thing than I — I’m thinking mainly of my friend Lynette here, who can spot a plot twist coming a mile off, however well the author might have obfuscated it — may still find it to be predictable, but I found that there were a few interesting surprises along the way, and the conclusion was satisfying and, well, conclusive.

I stand very much by my feeling that it had the atmosphere of a 1990s PC game, and I’ve been trying to figure out quite what I mean by that. It’s a combination of things, I think: the use of “real world” settings with various obstacles in the way so they don’t end up having to render the entire interior of a building; the way that NPCs sort of mill around and occasionally have conversations with one another that occasionally give you little hints about the plot; collectible bits and pieces that help flesh out the world; and gameplay that is less concerned about being overly “cinematic” or based on spectacle than it is about using its mechanics to make the player feel involved in what is going on.

It is not a hard game, and since the protagonist is already dead at the outset, there are relatively few situations in which you find yourself in peril, making it a mostly fairly cerebral experience. Even the few instances in which you find yourself threatened by angry spirits (known in the game as demons) are more environmental puzzles than fast-action combat — you don’t actually “fight” the demons as such; instead, the only way to defeat them is to sneak up behind them and “execute” them. Alternatively, in pretty much any situation where you’re threatened by them, you can just sneak past, too, which is nice.

This latter aspect of the game called to mind a slightly more recent game: Silent Hill: Shatered Memories, a retelling of the first Silent Hill game that replaced the PS1-era “survival horror” gameplay with something a bit different, a bit more modern, and entirely combat-free. In Shattered Memories, the most you can do with the monsters that inhabit the dark world of Silent Hill is to block their path with something heavy — for the most part, you’re simply fleeing from them, attempting to make your way back to the exit as quickly as possible. Murdered: Soul Suspect isn’t quite that non-violent — you can defeat the demons through the aforementioned sneak attacks, after all — but playing a game that doesn’t have a straight “attack” button that causes you to flail wildly at enemies is always a pleasant surprise.

It may sound contradictory to compare Murdered: Soul Suspect to late-’90s PC games and Shattered Memories, a title I described above as being “modern”, but there are certainly elements of both in there — the atmosphere and structure of a ’90s game; the unconventional approach to gameplay of Shattered Memories.

Ultimately, the whole thing ended up being a game that I’m very glad I played, and one which I have absolutely no hesitation recommending to anyone who enjoys a good ghost story, a good detective story or a bit of both. It’s an enjoyable tale told well, and a worthwhile investment of 10 hours or so of your life.