In between what I assume is heaven and hell is the melancholic world of ‘Dusk’ – a realm filled with dissatisfied ghosts and flickering remnants of the past that exists in the living world. Stuck in that realm is our heavily tattooed protagonist Ronan O’Connor.

Ronan is dumped into Dusk when he is thrown through a window before being shot dead by the ominous ‘Bell Killer’. Instead of being reunited with late-wife Julia, he finds himself stuck until he solves his own murder, and unmasks the serial killer who has been tormenting the young women of Salem for months.

Murdered: Soul Suspect is based on a very interesting and original premise: a detective has to solve his own murder from beyond the grave. Hindered by his ghostly form, Ronan has to team up with a teenage medium to track down the killer, piecing together clues and using a host of otherworldly abilities to find the answer that will reunite him with his love.

As well as being undoubtedly original, it’s a game that is crammed full of ideas, each of which feels restrained in some way. Controlled in third-person, the main character is a ghost, meaning he cannot touch anything but he can pass through walls and other objects unfazed. This provides an interesting and different method of seamless exploration. However, ghosts cannot go into houses unless a door or window is open, meaning that only specific buildings relevant to the plot can be explored. In terms of explorable locations, it’s a small world.

Ronan’s collection of supernatural skills include the ability to possess, influence (by controlling what the human he is possessing is thinking about), and among others the ability to eavesdrop. Despite the interesting abilities available, most of them involve simply pressing a button to possess and then another button to hear what the person in question is saying.

I thoroughly enjoyed every minute I spent with Murdered: Soul Suspect, unfortunately there wasn’t enough of them. With its wealth of ideas, it feels like the game could have been at least twice as long. It’s criminally short length means that its ideas are used briefly and then disbanded. For example, around half way through Ronan gains the ability to teleport, giving him access to more areas around the town-hub the connects all the important locations together. The teleport ability is probably used five times through-out the entire game.

The gameplay is divided into two distinct halves. As a detective, Ronan has to explore crime scenes, looking for clues that might lead him to his killer. This is where the game is at it’s strongest. Anybody who has played the phenomenal L.A. Noire will find themselves right at home. Ronan has to analyse evidence and contextualise it. It lacks the complexity of Rockstar’s epic, and instead of the tense interrogation scenes that were at the heart of L.A. Noire, Ronan instead has to merely review all the clues at the end of each individual investigation and choose the most relevant.

The simplicity makes the investigations very easy, the only difficulty arising in actually locating the clues, which is nothing more than an item hunt. It is satisfying to piece together what happened, and the brutal flashbacks help flesh out the investigations, but often they lack logic and can be solved by exploring every possible option.

When he’s not investigating, Ronan has to desperately avoid hate-filled demons intent on devouring his soul. The demons themselves are quite scary, jittering unpredictably and screaming with intense anger. However, the manner in which they are dealt with reduces their threat level considerably. The levels are filled with the husks of devoured souls that Ronan can hide in. He then has to wait until a demon turns around (they travel on predictable set paths), move behind them, complete a quick impromptu quick-time event and the demon is dead. All in all, Murdered: Soul Suspect is a game that completely lacks teeth.

Despite it’s faults in gameplay, the world Ronan is trapped in is wonderfully crafted. It’s dreary colour palette suits the melancholic tone of the story. The greatest disappointment about Murdered: Soul Suspect is that there isn’t more of the world to explore. There are side-quests which involve Ronan helping trapped souls find peace, and despite the fact that they’re very engaging, there’s only four in the entire game.

The levels are crammed with sneaky and gratifying collectibles which unlock copious amounts of flavour text; some interesting, like the unnerving ghost stories, and some dull, like the hundred or so that describe Ronan’s relationship with his wife and his chequered past.

It’s not that Ronan isn’t interesting, and despite the cliché’s of the cigarette and the Fedora, he’s likeable and pitiable. However, as the story progresses, one revelation after another, he begins to test the player’s patience when it takes him an anomalous amount of time to come to the conclusions the player came to an hour before.

I feel like I’ve been harsh in my critique of Murdered: Soul Suspect, but it’s only because I’m disappointed. This could have been an epic, innovative game, but instead it’s a short but highly enjoyable experience that coyly displays its potential before rushing towards its end.

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