The Post-Game - Murdered: Soul Suspect

Ronan is a criminal-turned-cop who is killed by the mysterious Bell Killer. Playing as Ronan's ghost, investigate a series of crime scenes (sometimes with the help of teenage medium Joy), searching for the identity of the killer. Many supernatural elements come into play – ghosts, witches, demons – and some flashbacks of the witch trials are pretty gruesome (drowning, burning, hanging).

As the investigation progresses, you'll explore a graveyard, an apartment house, an old mansion, a police station and of course the obligatory asylum level. While the game world is small, it is open, with the ability to just wander around the town of Salem. It's a gloomy place – the game occurs entirely at night – but is well-dotted with NPCs and collectibles. Obtaining collectibles can unlock other stories (usually brief, narrated cut-scenes), and some NPCs will provide side-missions. There's a decent amount of stuff to do, but most collectibles were easily found as I explored the town or level.

Investigations require exploring a a crime scene, finding evidence (“Press E to analyze”) and sorting through the collected evidence (“Press Q to conclude the investigation”). Walking (or later, teleporting) around as a ghost feels fun; Ronan can walk through walls, possess people (mind-reading), and turn on random stuff to mess with the townsfolk (poltergeisting). Especially cool were the impenetrable “ghost walls” from past times that can block Ronan from exploring – or even provide new hazards (watch out for the ghost train!). Oh, and you can possess cats, too. This is actually crucial to progress through several stages of the game.

The demon sections, though, dragged the experience down a bit. Demons will sometimes spawn after completing an investigation. Their existence does have a crucial part to play, and they're easy enough to defeat with a little patience. Given that this is a supernatural tale, it would be rather weird if demons of some kind weren't in the game, and having some stealth sections added some variety to the gameplay. But after a while the demons became annoying distractions from the story.

And the narrative is where Murdered: Soul Suspect stands strongest. There is a lot of backstory to be found about Ronan and his wife (via collectibles). Sometimes collectibles are merely annoying, but they are worth pursuing here. Jason Brooks (as Ronan) and Cassidy Lehrman (as the medium, Joy) provide stand-out vocal performances. The graphics (Unreal 3) are great – murky and dark. Jason Graves' score provides a classic horror-story undertone. Murdered: Soul Suspect is a well-crafted detective game with a few quirks that holds its story aloft as its best attribute. If that sounds good to you, then go ahead and get this one.