14 DAY TRIAL // 
Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders can be seen as a video game about the power of ego and how it drives a man who should retire to continue working, continuously challenging himself to prove once again that he is the best, even if each victory only exists to create an even tougher challenge down the road.
Hercule Poirot, with his mannerisms and his ability to observe and deduce, is one of the best-known detectives of the XX century, and the game captures his unique way of dealing with situations and conversations.
The biggest problem of the experience is that it stays too close to classic portrayals of the characters and the crimes he solves and fails to introduce any kind of innovations, which will please fans of the Agatha Christies cannon but might fail to capture the attention of newcomers.
I like the fact that Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders is accessible, with clearly defined mechanics and easy-to-understand progression through the cases and towards a final conclusion, serving as a great intro into the world of Hercule Poirot and his unique way of solving the toughest of cases.
The video game is developed by Microids and can be played on the PC, the PlayStation 4 from Sony and the Xbox One from Microsoft.
Story
Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders is, as the name implies, a very classic crime story that focuses on the classic Hercule Poirot character, allowing players to experience one of his most complex cases and try to do as good a job as the legendary detective when it comes to solving it.
The action takes place in the 1930s and gamers need to carefully interact with some other characters as they try to put together clues and theories, understand who is lying and who is telling the truth and then find a clear way to rationally reconstruct what has happened.
The ABC murders start off with the death of Alice Asher in Andover and two other killings that follow the letters of the alphabet follow in quick succession, with plenty of suspects for all of them.
The developers stay very close to the structure of the original Hercule Poirot story, and that means those who have seen the television episode with David Suchet, the most well-known portrayal of the detective, or read the novel will find plenty of familiar moments and will even have ideas about how to progress.
The novel on which the video game is based was published in 1936 and impressed readers with both structural innovations, like the two perspectives, and with the mystery that Hercule Poirot manages to solve.
In 2016 Agatha Christie's ideas and crimes scenarios are not as attractive as they once were but the main characters and his associated cast retain their charm, and it's great to see an old-fashioned crime story that plays out relatively slowly, giving gamers time to think about the events that take place around them and the passions of those that put them in motion.
Hercule Poirot himself can be a little old-fashioned, but there's charm hidden under his cold demeanor, and after a few hours you appreciate any chance to get more ego points, which are awarded when the player acts as the fictional detective would.
Gameplay
Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders is an adventure game with relatively classic mechanics, centered around a player's interactions with the locations around him and a varied cast of characters, with some puzzle solving thrown in for good measure.
Poirot and his companions have to deal with some pretty gruesome deaths, and gamers will have to explore the scene of each to find clues and understand more about what happened and why the criminal engaged in the act.
The detective can use his powers of observation to focus on a particular area and then identify the most important clues, with short bits of internal monologue explaining why they might be important in the long run.
Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders also asks players to deal with locked cabinets, closed down areas and other puzzles by searching for information in the environment and by manipulating objects to gain the desired results.
Hercule Poirot will often jot down ideas and clues into his notebook, and he can also appeal to his little grey cells to gain more insight into the actions of the criminal he is chasing or to get other information that will help him when it comes to character interactions.
There are plenty of conversations in the game that only serve to flesh out details or to push the plot forward, but the detective also has to carefully observe his partner and only then use the details he notices to guide the dialogue options toward the desired result.
The biggest problem with Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders is that it is often too easy, forcing the player to use the little grey cells to gain information that the brain of the player would have already figured out minutes ago.
“There are moments when the observation, conversation and deduction gameplay mechanics complement each other and allow the player to explore a genuinely interesting series of deaths that have a very interesting conclusion, with Poirot at the center of all the interesting moments.”
At the same time, the title often seems too slow for its own good, with the core features playing catch-up to the gamer's thinking instead of helping him find new ways to gain information and to discover clues.
Graphics and audio
Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders uses a very stylized approach to graphics, using sharp lines and color to give its characters personality and to create an interesting world for the player to puzzle his way through, although locations can be a little too spartan when it comes to details.
There are some awkward moments linked to the animations or to the way that characters interact with each other, but the development team has managed to make Poirot himself look very close to his David Suchet portrayal while giving the game an interesting melancholy vibe.
There are some transition scenes that could have been ignored to allow for more focus on interactions between the characters, but the title does manage to make solid use of the interface, especially the grey cells mixing and matching of information.
There's a lot of voice acting in Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders and Poirot will initially be a little grating, with his constant accent and slow delivery, but by the end his character was the only one that comes across as even slightly believable, with the rest of the cast trying a little too hard for a radio play atmosphere.
The music of the game is well chosen and manages to underscore the fact that this is a slow-paced game with a focus on thinking and not on action.
The Good
- Hercule Poirot as a character
- Little grey cells mechanic
The Bad
- Progress seems too easy
- Limited presentation and voice acting
Conclusion
The oversized personality of Hercule Poirot is always at the center of the action, and his methodical approach makes for a very good fit with the mechanics of the adventure and mystery genre, although the pacing is too slow at times.
Agatha Christie has created a very interesting narrative in The ABC Murders, but it's a shame that the video game stays as close to the book and the television adaptation as it does and fails to surprise gamers in any major way.
The Microids title has the potential to spawn a long term Hercule Poirot mystery franchise, and I am eager to see what the company can deliver if it has access to more resources and is willing to innovate a little when it comes to the mechanics.
