Murdered: Soul Suspect

[Shadow Fire]

Director: Yoshuke Shiokawa

Producers: Naoto Sugiyama

Music: Jason Graves

Starring: Jason Brooks, Cassidy Lehrman, Travis Willingham, Laura Harrison

Rating:


Plot
In the town of Salem, Massachusetts, several unexplained killings remained unsolved. One night, Ronan O'Connor, a detective who'd had his run-ins with the law in his youth, investigates a possible lead. Instead, he finds himself thrown out an apartment window. Separated from his body, Ronan attempts to realign his soul, only to have his assailant standing over him, before grabbing his gun and firing seven shots into his chest, killing him. As Ronan's soul becomes caught in the purgatory world known as Dusk, he must investigate his own murder if he is to have any hope on moving on. However, in doing so, he is about to find much more than meets the eye. Together with a witness who not only saw his death, and can interact with spirits, Ronan begins his investigations.


Review
I had known about this game since before its release, but had held off purchasing it, until my boyfriend purchased it for cheap on Steam. After watching him play through some of it, I was instantly intrigued, and decided to purchase the game myself, on the Xbox One (I love playing games on consoles). I immediately found the setting to be quite eerie, and at times, I even found myself caught up in the story. It seems that one of the criticisms about this game is that it is relatively short. It took me two days to complete, as well as getting every achievement. Had I focused on story missions alone, I likely would have beaten it in a matter of hours. While that is rather quick for a completion, I still found it enjoyable. There are quite a few side missions to complete, as well as collectibles to find.

 

The gameplay is relatively straight-forward. It is a third person action/adventure style, but with a lot of thriller aspects. Two of the most used abilities you have at your disposal are Possession, which allows you to enter the living form of a person, effectively granting you access to their mind, and even allowing you to manipulate their behaviour, to a limited degree, and Hide, which is especially useful once you begin to encounter demons. This is where the game starts getting a little spooky. Demons appear at pre-set locations (the same in every game), and search for souls to steal. If they notice you, they will try and steal your soul away. Hide comes in handy, as it allows you to jump into ghostly afterimages, which you can move between provided they are close enough together. In addition to these is the ability to walk through certain terrain and objects. It can take a bit of getting used to, but once you get the hang of your techniques, it's rather easy.

 

The music fits the mood of the game, providing an eerie, uncomfortable tone. It is mostly calm, but spooky, but can become tense, especially when a Demon is aware of your presence. The voice acting is pretty hit and miss, unfortunately, and the main character suffers a lot from the generic modern male protagonist syndrome. The supporting cast is actually pretty well performed, although some characters have voices that make me want to punch or strangle them. Another typical failing is that characters tend to repeat the same dialogue, a-la a lot of RPGs of the past. The most that the townsfolk have to say is limited to two different sets of dialogue.

 

Visually, the game is nice to look at, especially when you consider the effects and the setting of Salem. Unfortunately, the game is not without its flaws. Some collectibles can be difficult to locate, and it is very easy to get lost, especially considering that things look the same after a while. I also ran into two bugs, which forced me to restart from a previous checkpoint, however the game saves frequently enough for this to not be too much of a problem.

Overall
Murdered: Soul Suspect is a pretty decent game if you look past its few flaws, and is a great time-spender. I recommend it for those who are into the thriller/investigation style of games.