Customer Reviews

Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders is a passable point-and-click adventure, and I think it would be especially appealing to Agatha Christie fans. Basically, in the game, you will tag along with Poirot and Hastings, helping them to investigate crime scenes, interview witnesses/suspects/family members, and solving various puzzles along the way that will test your logical and analytical skills. There isn't a whole lot of gameplay in the crime scene investigations, with the exception of the first scene in which you do find evidence. After that, when you click around to investigate the crime scene, you won't find evidence or clues but you will be given various interesting facts about Agatha Christie's England and her writing. Similarly, when you interview people, you'll basically just run through a series of questions, and you'll need to go through all of them. In other words, what you ask and when makes little difference, as you just have to click through all of the questions and answers. However, often the dialogue does prompt a puzzle, which you must solve in order to proceed, and this is where the actual gameplay takes place. The puzzles are pretty good analytical problems along with a few riddles, similar to the kind of puzzles that one encounters in the Professor Layton games.

In the end, I came away with mixed feelings about this game. On the one hand, I have a soft spot for Agatha Christie, as I used to read those books as a kid. I also thought the puzzles were pretty well-done, and a few were even rather tricky (in a good way). On the other hand, I was disappointed that crime scene investigations didn't yield actual clues or drive the story, the dialogue bits get a little boring since there isn't really any gameplay or decision-making involved, and the interface is rather clunky at times. Overall, the game seemed too easy and too short. I'd say it took me roughly 5-7 hours, though there is no in-game timer, so I'm not sure. To be honest, I feel a full-retail ($28+) game should provide at least 8-10 hours of gameplay. On the bright side, ABC Murders more than twice as long as Women's Murder Club.

As an Agatha Christie fan, I highly anticipated this video game. After playing for half an hour, I decided I will not play it again. First, you will know who the murderer is if you have read the book. Second, the puzzles range from unclear to dumb (guess which date the murder will be committed? Merry Christmas). Third, too many dialogues and too few interesting games. There is an "examine" function that gives trivial facts about Agatha Christie's life and random facts about the first lighthouse built in Scotland (or something). The game is simply dreadful. It is a shame that the wonderful book was adapted into something so tedious and boring.

Three different aged people played part of this game, just to gauge our different reactions to it; myself, a 45 year old woman, my 18 year old son and my 8 year old son. None of us cared for it and here's why:

DreamCatcher has produced three Agatha Christie games for the PC that are quite good adventure games; above average to superior voice acting, good to excellent graphics and well researched period appropriate locations, music, clothing, etc.

Since this is a DS game, it would naturally not be nearly as detailed nor would I have expected it to be, but this game is subpar on nearly all levels. The game play is very limited and you can actually do very little; the scenes when you click on them only have a few tidbits about history or Dame Agatha herself, and nothing that is pertinent to the game. You cannot move within a location - for instance, if the scene is a storefront and there is a door to enter it, you cannot go in.

Sometimes, figuring out how to end a particular chapter is difficult and you have to replay entire cut scenes to get to the end. Each chapter involves interviewing suspects or policemen, with little choice as to what you ask. It is frustrating, repetitive and stilted "conversation".

Oddly enough, there are math/logic problems that you have to solve to continue in the game and this was an unpleasant find; I actually like such logic problems and play them from time to time, but I was not expecting nor did I wish to have to put down the DS and take a pencil and paper to figure them out. You have no option to either skip or receive hints (if needed; some weren't really that hard, but some were) and you cannot proceed further in the game until they're done...and there's LOTS of them.

It's a pity - with a little more thought and innovation, this could have been a good title. Unless you're just a die-hard Christie fan and wish to own everything that is connected to her, this is a no-buy.

I had a bit of hard time with the way you interview people in the game & the limited way you can inspect each screen, but overall it was enjoyable. Having to actually think & work to solve a problem instead of just picking from multiple choice answers was a refreshing way of solving problems.
My son is now working his way through this game & having just as much fun having to actually work for the answers.

The whole game only took about three hours to beat but for that time it was a cute hidden object game. Not challenging at all.

I really wanted to like this game. Not only have I read all of Dame Christie's books, but I was born about 15 miles from her birthplace (Exeter, Devon, UK). I couldn't stand the story problems requiring you to figure out when someone arrived somewhere, mph, rate of speed, distance, etc. I finally used a web site giving the correct answers. I guess math is still not my cup of tea! (despite the fact that I have several degrees, one of which is a Bachelor of Science degree requiring math and science and a Master's which required statistics). Get it only if you like math.

I was not impressed with this game. I did not get very far. I just put it down and have never picked it up again. Maybe I might when I get some cheats (ha!ha!). I only have one set back on this game and it is the exact times of when someone was killed. I usually like doing riddles but these are not fair. How can you pinpoint the exact time for anything happening in a story. I do not recommend this game to anyone.