Murdered: Soul Suspect Reviews
Square Enix's Gumshoe-cum-ghost adventure had potential to be one of the most interesting games of the year, but ends up an case study in wasted potential.
The few moments where Murderd: Soul Suspect actually makes good on its supernatural potential aren't worth slogging through the rest of the game for. It's trying to be a gripping murder mystery, but never really knows how to get there. This is one you should probably just leave for dead.
Murdered: Soul Suspect has a lot of great ideas, but none of them come together in a satisfying way.
Murdered Soul Suspect is a game that is hard to recommend in terms of gameplay and due to a lack of substantial content
Murdered: Soul Suspect is a game that some could find enjoyable in the span of one afternoon, but with the repetitive and restrictive gameplay, many will deem this supernatural mystery is not worth solving.
Murdered: Soul Suspect is caught between the uneasy middle ground of a big budget release and what should have been a more economic digital-only, episodic series.
It's still a great looking game, and the core narrative is a fun, if underdone and derivative one. It's simply disappointing that this game had a reasonably large budget, and in the process it lost some of its identity and seems to be shoehorned into some very unnecessary and destructive mechanics. This game would have been far better off being made for a fraction of the budget by a small team willing to take real risks.
Murdered: Soul Suspect lingers almost exactly at the quality middle point as a game. It doesn't do anything particularly good, nor does it do anything terribly bad; it's just okay. The ghost stories and premise of the title are what have pushed the needle up into the green but even these serve as a reminder of what could have been.
The concept and setting here were ripe for out-of-left-field explosiveness, but due to a lack of direction and capitalisation, and likely a small budget, all we're left with is a lifeless game that fails to live up to its potential.
Murdered: Soul Suspect has an interesting plot, an intriguing game world, and a lot of cool game ideas, but a host of little problems drag the experience down. Still, fans of a good detective story might want to check it out, provided they can deal with the game's inconsistencies.
Gripes aside though, the story, LA Noire - like investigations and general tone of the game pull it through. It's interesting, ominous at times and has a really solid atmosphere throughout. Not a masterpiece and sadly quite flawed in places but ultimately at a time where game releases are few and far between, you could do a lot worse than play through Murdered: Soul Suspect.
Murdered: Soul Suspect definitely isn't for everyone, but it fills a nice niche for those interested in the whole murder mystery thing.
Throwaway macabre fun, Murdered: Soul Suspect will likely keep you hooked until its only partially predictable conclusion. The game does a decent job of throwing up red herrings, before delivering its ending, but the journey to get there is a largely uninspired and inconsistent slog.
Judging by the screens, people may think that Murdered: Soul Suspects is a survival horror title, especially with the pics of the demons. It is far from that, as it tells a solid story and is more categorized as a suspenseful thriller. The lack of challenge in the game and the redundancy really hurt the title in the long run. The game is more similar to the likes of Heavy Rain, as it seems like more of an interactive movie. While the game looks and runs great, it certainly will not be for everyone.
Generally underwhelming and far too simple, Murdered would have been better as a cat simulator.
Murdered: Soul Suspect is a flawed interactive crime drama, which will only appeal to a certain audience. Gamers who like narrative-focused titles should give it a chance, while those who usually avoid linear experiences should save their time and money.
Less game and more interactive story, your enjoyment of Murdered: Soul Suspect will be directly proportional to how much you buy into the tale that it tells. Those looking for a title with engaging gameplay will be sorely disappointed by the lack of challenge, boring stealth, and hunt the clue investigations. But if you can overlook its shortcomings and throw yourself headlong into the fiction, you might just find a detective yarn with a supernatural twist that'll keep you engaged until justice is done.
It's a distinctly average experience, but it has enough going for it that I'm glad I was able to conquer the bugs and see it through.
In an adventure game, once the puzzles are over, the story is all you've got. Murdered: Soul Suspect, though it was diverting like a bit of light reading, never really hooked me. And that's its biggest problem.
It's easy to be overwhelmed by the many problems in Murdered: Soul Suspect, but if you dig a little deeper, there's an interesting story to uncover.