Murdered: Soul Suspect

It seems today you have a mass of FPS's, action games and epic RPG's. However sometimes you need a break from all these and Murdered:Soul Suspect is just the sort of refreshing break you need in gaming.

You play as Ronan O'Connor and the game starts with you being killed. But its not all bad news, it seems you can't pass on till you've solved the identity of your killer. Handily you're also a police detective which means investigation is your thing and so the premise of the game is set up. You have to hunt down the Bell Killer, a serial killer running riot through the streets of Salem and put a stop to his spree.

For those expecting action and fast paced gameplay, you're out of luck. The gameplay is pretty much a mixture of adventure and stealth, with the majority of your time spent investigating crime scenes and establishing what has occurred. I suppose the closest games to this style would be the CSI games and if you enjoyed those you'll enjoy these too. There are elements of stealth where you have to sneak around demons to avoid having your soul devoured, but they are not overly challenging but do break up the gameplay a little bit. You also have a few special ghost techniques which help you to find your clues as well as find all the collectibles.


Yes, the game contains collectibles and there are a lot of them (173 in total). However, they are not too difficult to find and are easily located by bright lights (except for the hidden message collectibles, you will hate them trust me), but with a decent guide its nothing too strenuous to discover. On the plus side the collectibles actually have some purpose, all of them give extra information about the characters in the game and flesh out their backstorys, not overly but enough to stop them seeming too cardboard cutout. You also can unlock mini ghost stories which are nice little narrative parts, some better than others but it is a nice touch and bit more rewarding than just GS for collecting them all.

The graphics are pretty standard, not ugly but not going to be the thing you remember, there are occasional lags and being a ghost you can run through a lot of walls, which sometimes leads to a moment of confusion as you run into a cupboard and can see nothing but walls, but overall it never really hinders the title.

The voice acting is pretty good, the main characters are well voiced and it doesn't seem like a phoned in performance by the actors either. The mind reading skill will get repetitive as its is often the same dialogue but often the initial thrill its not a well used move.


Which leads me to the main downfall, its a good game but you just feel it could be so much better. There are elements to the game which could have been expanded on so much more. Often you will be surrounded by options to do things but only one will work. For instance the mind reading and poltergeist powers are pretty redundant except for a few occasions, and frustratingly you have to use a specific item for the poltergeist power to work in distracting people or it has no effect. Hopefully if a sequel comes along they will make more use of these techniques and expand the game, it just sadly feels like they had a lot of ideas but they weren't executed as well as they could have been.

Overall though this is a good solid title. It's nothing spectacular and with a short story, pretty easy difficulty and little replay value, its not something I would recommend purchasing at full price, but a rental or discounted price I would certainly recommend for a pretty easy 1K and a nice break from the usual fare we're offered by developers nowadays.

Overall: A solid 8/10

After reading the review I fail to see how it deserves an 8. It had a lot more cons than pros, sounded more like a mediocre 6 at best.
Nice read though

I put 8 as despite its flaws, I really enjoyed it. I played it till 1am last night without realising and jumped straight on it again this morning. I guess i rated it on the experience it left me with which was a very good one.

Ice read Tenlo, confirmed my suspicions to stay away, cheers

Tenlo wrote:I put 8 as despite its flaws, I really enjoyed it. I played it till 1am last night without realising and jumped straight on it again this morning. I guess i rated it on the experience it left me with which was a very good one.

no that's fine mate it's just so derogatory I was surprised to see an 8 at the end

That's probably my fault, I think my main fault was it could have been even better, with a little effort. Just a lot of missed opportunity I feel. Still an enjoyable game but not going to appeal to.anyone who doesn't like these sort of games

That's probably my fault, I think my main fault was it could have been even better, with a little effort. Just a lot of missed opportunity I feel. Still an enjoyable game but not going to appeal to.anyone who doesn't like these sort of games

Sounds up my street, will wait for a sale though. Thanks for the review!

This is on sale for Gold people right now. Down to £13.49 from £29.99. Considering taking a punt.

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-GB/Product/MURDERED-SOUL-SUSPECT/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8025351081e

Nice spot gotd!
Cheap as chips that

well worth it at that price

cheers gotd rep