I remember watching Poirot on TV as a kid and having difficulty telling the difference between the moustachioed sleuth and René from ‘Allo ‘Allo. The moustache was probably enough for me to make the comparison but this game shares another similarity with ‘Allo ‘Allo and that is the ridiculous selection of bizarre accents.

Before the game properly begins, Poirot takes it upon himself to explain that he has removed any person, areas, or items, from his story which he believes were merely incidental and do not play an important role in its retelling. This is clearly meant as a convenient method of justifying a distinctly unrealistic quality to the game but I find it baffling as to why anyone would consider this disclaimer a requirement. I don’t know about anyone else but I have never played a game, such as Monkey Island, and wondered why certain areas are unrealistically under-populated. I happen to think it should be accepted that the average gamer understands that games require a certain degree of suspended belief.

You can’t just click on any part of the ground and have your character walk there, instead you must click on designated objects and areas in order to make Poirot move around, and for me this diminishes the sense of control. The restricted movement makes you feel as though you’re going through the motions. I find it interesting that while the old-school text adventures demand a higher level of patience and are more restricted in appearance they didn’t have to worry about these fancy 3D graphics getting in the way of an enjoyable story. It is highly likely that more titles based on Agatha Christie novels will be released in future and I really hope that the developers learn from this effort and the issues I have with the dialogue, voice acting, and controls, are ironed out.

I’ve tried my best to think of who I might recommend this game to and it proved to be quite difficult. I can’t recommend this title to fans of point n click adventure games because nothing about this feels quite right and there are far better examples out there, not least of which Sam & Max: Season One which also happens to be on the Wii. I also have difficulty recommending this to fans of Poirot, Agatha Christie, or detective stories in general as all this game manages to achieve is to slow down and somehow manage to over-complicate the whole process. If you really want to experience Evil Under The Sun I suggest you take a trip to your local Library and ask if they have the novel in stock or, if you’re after a visual representation, look around for the film on DVD.

4/10

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