Afterlife mystery solving

If ghosts do not scare you, become one to experience the adventures of the other world

I was just about begun when I was thrown out of a third-floor window by a hooded person. I somehow survived the fall but found myself staring down at my body. As I tried connecting body and soul, the same hooded person came down and shot me. In cold blood!

That, however, wasn't the end of my adventures. Now, I was a ghost hunting for answers. More specifically, who killed me.

Meet Ronan O'Connor, protagonist of Murdered: Soul Suspect and a fedora-wearing police detective with a past as chequered as his tattoos. Oh yes, he's dead as well. But with death comes certain powers - for example, passing through walls or reading/influencing a person who is alive. All to get to Ronan's murderer.

The action takes place in Salem, Massachusetts - the place infamous for its burning of alleged witches centuries ago. And therein presents a problem for the player. One, Ronan can't pass through consecrated walls and two, he'll keep coming across ghosts from several time periods.

Anyone who loves detective stories will like this game. One actually needs to look for clues and get to a conclusion. Trust me, it's not too difficult, though it would have been better if there was a logical connect from a clue at one stage to the other set of clues in the next stage.

There are many side quests and mini-games within Murdered: Soul Suspect and while they'll reveal titbits about Salem, they can confuse you while you're on the main quest. Some items one picks up thinking them to be clues can turn out to be just one more collectible to reveal information that is useless to the main quest.

While there is a points system, one isn't penalised for mistakes or taking too long to solve the cases - yes, Ronan does help other dead people as well. Why, then, does Ronan try to catch his killer? It is because of the promise of uniting with his dead wife Julia (whom one discovers by layers as one comes across her personal effects).

Ronan is helped on the path by a teenage medium called Joy Foster, who I initially found nothing better than a bratty girl. But as one starts working with the sidekick, one realises she will be of help (and needs to be helped) to get to the end. Besides Joy, Ronan's best friend is the mini-map, as it's easy to get lost in the rather repetitive settings of the city.

Ronan's quest isn't devoid of challenges. He encounters demons that can gobble him up (and, thus, end his quest). The way to fight them is hide, creep up behind them and destroy them with a combination of button smashes.

Murdered: Soul Suspect (Rs 2,499 for PS3) is a good concept as a game but is marred by bugs (like non-playable characters talking out of sync) and the needless addition of the fight mode. At the end, one isn't disappointed, but not satisfied as well.

One expects a more developed game in the second instalment, which we'll look forward to.