Parents' Guide to Murdered: Soul Suspect

Murdered: Soul Suspect is bursting with promise that's never realized. The notion of playing as a dead detective working his own unsolved murder is tantalizing. And it's refreshing to see a game meant for older players that eschews constant fighting for something more cerebral -- namely, searching for clues and putting them together to solve mysteries. Add a few cool ghostly powers to help the character along -- for example, possessing people of interest to read their thoughts, influence them, or look through their eyes to see what they see is undeniably cool -- and you have a recipe for what should be a great game. Sadly, it never quite comes together.

The story relies on pretty much every gumshoe trope imaginable and delivers each through bland dialogue and surprisingly dull and repetitive thoughts that run through the heads of most of the people Ronan can possess -- a problem for a game that relies so heavily on storytelling. Making things worse are a host of design issues, such as the lack of an in-game map (which makes finding your way around Salem much harder than it needs to be). There also are half-baked, wholly unnecessary combat scenes with Ronan sneaking up on demons that feed on ghosts' souls to "execute" them. Happily, these fighting sequences are infrequent. There are some interesting kernels here that warrant a look for grown-up gamers searching for something a bit different, but even then Murdered: Soul Suspect isn't worth the full price.