On the map are coloured circles: green represents items that have been completed blue, those to do grey, facts that you have ascertained orange, interactive tests of understanding and purple, the very interesting “intuitions”, which invite you to make a decision about what is happening in the case, without requiring you to be correct or even indicating whether you are. Playing as Hercule – and sometimes as a new character, Joanna Locke, who we’ll come to in a moment – you must explore environments, checking out a light sprinkling of clearly-marked hotspots, talking to characters and solving puzzles.Ī mind map system, adapted from previous Poirot games, smartly collects all the threads of the investigation and shows how they relate to one another. Action takes place in third person, with an over-the-shoulder perspective and standard controls for camera and movement. The game trades the 1930s setting of the novel for the modern day, and with 2023 being the 140th anniversary of the Orient Express itself, there is a perfect excuse for Poirot and his crew of soon-to-be suspects to be stepping aboard.Ĭaptured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)Īlthough Microids published the last two Agatha Christie games – Hercule Poirot: The First Cases and Hercule Poirot: The London Case – this is the first to be developed internally, and it plays rather differently from those others. Microids, having opted for rote drilling of name, nationality, occupation, and age, have not found the most elegant solution, but it will at least be effective for newcomers while keeping things moving for those already familiar. Since the complex relationships and interactions of figures from different backgrounds are a hallmark of Christie’s mysteries, it’s essential the characters are internalised. Details are kept light and the player is tested on a few key facts about each character to reinforce the basics of who’s who. Several of the story’s ensemble cast are introduced in quick succession. Murder on the Orient Express, like the novel, begins in Istanbul, in the grand Tokatlian Hotel. This is the challenge taken on by Microids Studio Lyon, as the team packs our bags and stows us away on the legendary locomotive, playing the role of celebrated detective Hercule Poirot. And just in case anyone missed out on the book, decades of film adaptations have also solved the case again and again. When a mystery story has been told millions of times before, how can it still be a mystery? This is the challenge faced by anyone adapting Agatha Christie’s phenomenally widely-read 1934 novel, Murder on the Orient Express.
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