The legacy of Agatha Christie’s finest creations, Poirot, has lived on for over a century thanks to the success of various books, films and the long-running TV series. In the realm of video games however, the most recent Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot: The First Cases fell short on delivering a quality detective adventure. The developers, Blazing Griffin, have returned for another attempt in the form of Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot: The London Case.
Is Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot: The London Case going to exercise those little grey cells and draw you in with an engrossing point-and-click mystery, or is it yet another blemish on Monsieur Poirot’s reputation?
Hercule Poirot is tasked with ensuring the safe passage of a valuable painting, the Penitent Magdalene, for an exhibition in London. While aboard the ship transporting it, a petty theft of a cigarette case provides a chance for Poirot to do some investigation. This is merely a taster for what’s to come as just a few weeks later the painting goes missing from the museum it’s being showcased at. The situation escalates further as one of the suspects then winds up dead, leaving the great detective with multiple crimes to solve and a web of lies to untangle.
Focusing on the positives first, and the cast of characters are full of secrets that make each of them viable suspects. It’ll keep you guessing to the very end, so you won’t suffer as a result of reaching a premature conclusion. The voiceovers are done well too, with clarity in the delivery and enough emotion filtering through the performances to be considered convincing. A slight dip in quality does occur for Poirot’s inner thoughts however, as the sound is dull and muffled.
For those who played the previous title, it’s also nice to see a familiar face return to the fold. Meanwhile, Poirot enthusiasts will enjoy the introduction of a certain Mr. Arthur Hastings. Serving as an origin story for the friendship between the then insurance man Hastings and Poirot, it’s interesting to see their supposed beginnings.
Unfortunately, the overarching narrative surrounding the Mary Magdalene painting is insufferably drawn out. Even worse is the fact that despite the added length, it really struggles to provide much depth to the characters until late on. And by the latter stages, you won’t really care who did what, or whether someone is harmed in the process. There’s a real pacing issue throughout.
As a point-and-click style adventure, you’ll take control of Hercule Poirot and help him inspect a variety of 3D environments. The investigations are done via an isometric perspective and each area can be rotated in order to cover every angle. Every interaction has a purpose, which adds real importance to thoroughly scouring the locations. Whatever you interact with could lead to the acquisition of a useful item, a piece of information pertaining to a suspect, or crucial evidence for making deductions.
The inventory puzzles are few and far between, but those in place are relatively straightforward to figure out. There’s only an option given to actually use an item if a particular object requires you to do so. On top of that, the inventory often has just a couple of items within. It’s not rocket science to decide which is the correct choice.
Another aspect that’s far too easy involves the closer inspection of items and such to uncover additional details. It might ask you to analyse a painting to find specific points of interest. The activity would feel far more rewarding if the navigational cursor didn’t indicate clickable spots upon hovering over them. These occur regularly and each time it’s mind-numbingly dull due to the lack of difficulty. The same is also a criticism of the new match puzzles, where Hastings usually asks you to choose evidence to support a claim. With such few options, it’s glaringly obvious which evidence you need to pick.
In fact, the mind maps are the sole puzzles with the potential to stimulate your little grey cells. Essentially, all information related to the case is collated in the mind maps and you must link some of them together to come up with a deduction. This aids Poirot in corroborating people’s alibis and opening up new routes of questioning. While the connections tend to be quite clever, they are occasionally a bit of a stretch and you’ll likely garner success by luck rather than logic.
Striking up a conversation is another pastime, leading to more information gathering, but it’s a bit irritating how you have to keep going back and forth between characters. You see, one character may say something about another, which can then be put to the person in question. It wouldn’t be too bad if it didn’t frequently require fast-travelling (with less emphasis on the fast) to different locations. The movement is sluggish as well, feeling like it’s having trouble rendering everything to keep up.
While on the topic of the technical problems, Hercule Poirot: The London Case has noticeable issues during the cutscenes across the entire game. Not only are the mouths completely out of sync with the voiceovers, the 3D models perform strange movements that don’t tally with what’s going on. There are also odd animations when trying to leave an area, where Poirot starts climbing imaginary stairs and opening invisible doors. If the detective career doesn’t pan out, at least he’d make a great mime artist.
It doesn’t take a detective to figure out that Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot: The London Case is an underwhelming adventure. The story itself doesn’t set the world alight and fails to flesh out the cast of characters swiftly enough to ensure connections are made with the audience. And then the puzzling teeters on the edge of being overly simple, with only the mind maps providing intellectual stimulation.
Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot: The London Case could possibly be recommended at a discounted price, but even then the technical issues may well put a stop to that.
