I'm not going to pretend like this game doesn't have problems, but it's still pretty damn great. You play as a cop who was killed, but still exists as a ghost and has to solve his own murder.

Pros:
- The story is great and really pulls you in.
- The environment is great and walking around the city finding all these mysteries you can solve is awesome.
- The crime scenes where you have to piece evidence together are fun, logical, and satisfying.

Cons:
- Anything in a story mission that's not cutscenes or puzzles. This is basically dealing with the demons that will try to kill you. To me they just felt like filler and were frustrating.
- The pacing is a bit off. This is in part due to the story, but mostly due to the demons. One moment you're playing a puzzle game, then a stealth game, then an action horror game. The tone this game sets is great, but the change in pace can mess it up sometimes.

If you see this game on sale, pick it up in a heartbeat. Full price it might be worth it depending on how much you enjoy the game, but for max 10 hours of gameplay (About 5 for just the main quests) $30 is a bit much.

EDIT:
I recieved a comment saying that it's actually possible to disable demons by making a change in the config file. I highly recommend doing this.

is supernatural detective adventure thriller game where you are playing as detective Ronan. He got murdered by a Bell Killer a primary antagonist and now he need to solve his case as a ghost.

+ Great main character
+ Voice acting is really good
+ Enjoyable graphics
+ Good story and atmoshpere
+ Lots of collectibles
+ As a ghost you can walk through walls, read people's minds etc.

- Short ( main story for around 6 hours )
- Combat is poor ( you basically sneak behind the enemy and do fast QTE)
- Only one type of enemy
- Most of NPC's are just clones/duplicates
- Only 4 optional quests ( to finish them you need like 5-10 mins each)

I've now finished the game so i've updated my review.

This game is a lot of fun, not sure why the professional reviewers hate it so much. Maybe they're expecting it to be a fast-paced action game or something like that which it definitely isn't.

It's a detective game with an interesting story and characters that draws you in. It's also pretty novel in that you're playing a criminal-turned-detective's ghost who's trying to find the identity of his killer. You spend the game collecting clues to figure out your killer's identity while stopping along the way to help out other lost souls in little sidequests where you figure out how they died so they can pass on. There are also lots of collectibles, some of which provide background for the story, such as notes left by the main character's wife, or that unlock stories about unsolved crimes connected to hauntings. You end up collecting a lot of clues and you have to figure out which ones will help you solve whatever crime you're working on. They make sense and its fun. I've noticed a few negative reviews saying the clues don't make sense and you end up just clicking on everything till you get it right. I only did this once at the beginning of the game...and all I can say is, try thinking a bit and paying attention before just mashing your mouse. If you do this, you'll pretty quickly get a feel for how the clues work in the game and figure out which ones are useles. You can also posess the living, and while you can't move them, you can help them remember and eavesdrop on their conversations or thoughts. You can, however, posess cats which allow you to reach places you can't reach on your own. Everything about the game makes sense...you can't walk through the outdoor walls of buildings that have been consecrated, the demons you have to sneak past to take down from behind are souls who never passed on, etc. The mood the game sets just enhances the experience, being creepy and immersive.

Overall, this game is a lot of fun. Story is great, gameplay is fun, voice acting is well done. Having finished the game now, the story is a pretty good detective story, with everything falling satisfyingly into place at the end and a few neat twists. There are only a few drawbacks: the graphics aren't the best, but they're still decent (especially the lip synching); sometimes when you posess someone and listen to their thoughts you'll hear the same thought in different people; the parts where you have to sneak behind demons and take them out can be a bit tedious. However, all these are definitly worth overlooking.

The other drawback is that the game is a bit short. I finished it in 7 hours, and if you check out my achievements you'll see I didn't get 100% completion. I did all the side-quests and found as many collectibles as I could. You could probably stretch it out to 10 hours if you wanted 100% completion which seems totally possible in a single playthrough. Its up to you to decide whether a 7-10 hour game is worth $60 or if you want to wait for a sale.

In short, if you like story-driven games, or mystery/adventure games then you'll probably like this game. If you want this game to be a gritty shooter, then go buy Max Payne instead, because you won't get that with this game. Having finished it, I would now give it between a 7 and an 8 out of 10.

*You'd likely prefer it at sale price

+ Voice-acting is excellent
+ Facial movements and lip synchronization are above average
+ Character makes a ghostly 'impression' on walls and objects as they are passed through; this makes it easy to keep track of areas previously visited
+ Mechanics in place to facilitate ones investigation are inventive and refreshing
+ Ephemeral bits of Salem's past look fantastic, and work with the mortal world to create a uniquely hybrid environment
+ Disposing of demons is a somewhat satisfying experience, and is the only time in the game that really requires situational awareness and a tactical approach
+ 'Unfinished business' side-quests are interesting and well-scripted
+ While Ronan isn't exactly a unique, well-written character (he isn't), he and Joy are, at least, well fleshed-out and see a satisfying level of development throughout the story
+ Successfully creates a dark and unsettled atmosphere; gameplay is very immersive

- Choices are meaningless, and funnel into a solitary conclusion
- Puzzles/Crime scene investigations require almost no thinking, and the solutions are always quite obvious
- NPC models are shamefully copy/pasted
- Due to linear story and few 'off the beaten path' collectibles and additions, there is little replay value to speak of
- While unique and interesting, the historical remnants of the environment serve only to limit exploration in practice


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Murdered: Soul Suspect is an adventure detective game, which was released in mid-2014 on PC, PS3, PS4, 360 and Xbox One. The game was developed by Airtight Games; which hadn't released anything worthwhile for a while before this game.

You play the role of detective Ronan O'Connor, based in a town called Salem in USA. The story is based around hunting down a serial killer by the name of "The Bell Killer". Ronan is killed by the serial killer at the beginning of the game and you are revived as a ghost and must find the killer before he can move on to the afterlife.

The game is played in a third person view as you wander around the town of Salem, the town is split into a couple of separate areas, such as churches, graveyards petrol stations etc. As you progress through the story, you learn a few different abilities, such as being able to teleport yourself short distances, being able to possess other living beings allowing you to read their minds or being able to influence their decisions in dialog scenes. The main game play element is solving the mystery of the killer; you do this by investigating the crime scenes for clues on the killer, and trying to predict their next move. This takes on a similar way of doing things as games like LA Noire has done; in that you have to find specific items of evidence scattered, and sometimes hidden around the crime scene in order for you to put them all together in order to resolve the scene. This can lead to quite a few moments of where you need to study all the evidence put in front of you in order to solve it giving it a real detective vibe.

On top of these detective scenes, there is a small element of combat in the game - as you are a ghost, living humans are not able to detect you; however the demon souls of the death world can. You have to remain hidden to these ghosts in shadows before being able to pounce out behind them to kill them by pressing a few key sequences in a small QTE - these combat scenes are very few and far between however and aren't really anything to rave about as they become very monotonous as you progress in the story.

Visually, Murdered: Soul Suspect looks nice. The whole game takes place in the time frame of one evening, so the darkness of night gives the game a very eerie feel to it. It doesn't have ultra-realistic graphics, but all of the characters are well animated. There are a couple of poor quality textures, however given that this is a sort of open world game, this can be forgiven somewhat.

The story in Murdered: Soul Suspect is something really special. From the opening scene, I was completely drawn into the plot and was able to fully immerse myself in this world being unfolded in front of me. As you progress, you come across other characters who aid Ronan in his efforts to solve the mystery and you grow attached to them too. The story is 100% linear though; there are no game changing decisions which you have to make which disappointed me slightly. But the overall plot which is being shown here is really interesting.

As this game is being categorized in the horror genre, I would of expected a little more from the sound effects, but I was let down by the fact that there isn't anything really that scary in Murdered: Soul Suspect; the scariest I came across was the demon's you encounter; and even they are tame and the lack of any jump scares or horrifying scenes was a let-down too. Every character you find in the game is fully voice acted to a high quality though. None of the voicing sounds off or cringy which is always a plus.

I found that there was next to zero levels of difficulty in Soul Suspect; the lack of any real combat leaves this game without any skill element, and is purely based on your ability to solve the crime scenes by finding the relevant clues - I was able to resolve all of the crime scenes with a 3 star rating 99% of the time (you are scored out of three). The hardest point I found has to be due to the game's controls which I will go into on the technical issues section of this review.

Murdered: Soul Suspect is a vast open world game; you are able to go wherever you want, whenever you want (within reason). There is absolutely tons of stuff to explore and investigate not related to the main plot. There are a number of side investigations you can complete in the early chapters, but these slowly become less and less common as you progress and focus more on the main plot. Another huge part of this game is finding the collectables; this has to be the game with the most collectables in I have ever played - there are hundreds to find. Each level has its own version of collectable items, and there are also the overall games collectables which unveil even more about the main character's past, and information about the killer. Due to the fact that there are so many of these to find; I felt a little overwhelmed by trying to find them all and just sort of with the approach of picking any up which I come across whilst completing the investigations.

I finished Murdered: Soul Suspect in just over thirteen hours; this was with doing all of the side investigations, and collecting over a hundred collectables. I also took the time to playout all of the dialog options with all of the characters and spent a lot of time exploring the town of Salem. Sadly though; there is no reason what so ever to play through this game for a second time; you are not able to change the story in anyway nor are you able to ramp up the difficulty simply because there is no difficulty there in the first

I had a couple of technical problems whilst playing. Firstly I was playing on my high end rig, on 1080p settings and even though the majority of the time the frame rate was over 100 fps, it still felt like it was stuttering at times. I had to play with v-sync off because otherwise this locked gameplay to 30fps which looked horrendous. Cut scenes are also played out in 30fps in the game graphics, which makes the transitions between gameplay and cut scenes feel a little off too. The game's controls during the combat scenes also came across as clunky too; I often found myself not actually completing the QTE presented because it's not clear which buttons you have to press and what you can let go of which meant a lot of running and hiding from the demons due to failed attempts at killing them. Finally the last issue I had was there are quite a few invisible walls to be found to, these often are in places where you would not expect them, leading to moments where you'll find you are suddenly floating in mid-air because you've walked into a wall and are trying to climb up it - this is something which can affect the immersion of the game and it's a shame that it is still in it given it's been out for well over a year now.

I am going to recommend Murdered: Soul Suspect; it has an amazing story which you really do need to experience in order to fully appreciate it, and has an original concept. The linear gameplay, lack of any many action scenes, and a couple of technical issues renders me unable to recommend it more than just that, a recommendation to play. The full price of £19, 99 is also slightly over marked too, so you may even want to wait for it to hit the sales before purchasing.

Tom's Score Card
1) Stay away
2) Not Recommended
3) Only recommended when on sale
4) Recommended
5) Highly recommended
6) This is a must play

If you found this review helpful, please consider giving it a thumbs up. You can also find more reviews over at http://www.completingthebackloggroup.com/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/233290/

Just don't expect too much out of the gameplay, and get it on a good sale.
I still gave it a positive review because I enjoyed it enough to play through 100%, but there is zero replayability.

Murdered Soul Suspect is perfect, you play as the detective Ronan O'Connor hunting down the Bell Killer a ruthless serial killer with a particular and unique pattern when he is choosing his victims, i can't spoil much because is gonna be to obvious if you haven't played this masterpiece.

The story of this game is incredible, flawless and for me it was like i watching some series while i was playing this game, i'd say the suspense of this game reminds me of Hannibal the series.

If you haven't played this game yet, please do a favour to yourself? ok.

Murdered Soul Suspect 10/10
Heisen.

Good game, soul can walk through walls,this is originally, good story,.

Pros:
- Great voice actors (Primary & Secondary characters)
- Main story is kinda predictable but good.
- Side-stories/quests
- Gameplay is unique.
- Graphics are great.

Cons:
- Auto Saving only. No, manual saving.
- Bug. Main objective on the 'Tab' is stuck on "Investigate the War Room".
- Map? There's no map. You can get lost immediately, if you're like me. Haha.

Short description:
A street thug turned detective gets brutally murdered and enters the spirit realm as a ghost, he finds out that his soul can not move on until he resolves whatever is holding him back. Thinking it is his own murder, he now sets off to solve his own murder in order to move on or else his soul will be trapped to wander the living world for all ethernity.

Pros:
1: Runs well on low end PCs
2: Easy to unlock achievements
3: Easy to adapt to and not that complicated game mechanics

Cons
1: Still has that bug where you need to close the game manually via task manager
2: Some clues are hard to access as in you have to hover your mouse several times over them to see them, and this often results in you overlooking them

From Final Fantasy to Kingdom Hearts, Square Enix never fails to impress gamers. This game, too is definitely worth every penny even though it is short. It goes at a very cheap price during Steam sales, so why not try this fantastic game out?