Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile - PC

When I was younger I used to love watching Agatha Christie movies; I’d try and see if I could solve the mystery before Miss Marple managed to. The more you watch the easier it becomes to spot the clues, and more often than not the murderer gives themselves away by talking something that hadn’t been revealed by the police. After all that ‘training’ I was keen to put my murder solving skills to the test with this Death on the Nile themed game.

The game cover doesn’t give much away and I thought this was going to be another point-and-click game like Runaway: The Dream of the  Turtle, but I was surprised to find it was more akin to spot-the-difference. The game starts out with an old black and white movie in which one of the passengers aboard the luxury Nile riverboat gets shot and another is found dead in her bed. Luckily good old Poirot is on hand to help catch the murderer. You assume the role of the French detective and have to track down various clues in each of the staterooms so that you can question the passengers.

To find the clues you have to ’spot the hidden objects’ in each room, which is easier than it sounds. Imagine a picture of a storeroom, piled high with suitcases, ropes, trunks and random souvenirs brought on board by the passengers. Hidden within this mayhem of random items are a number of things that you have to spot, such as a snake, a dart board and three pieces of rope. It’s amazing how long you can stare at a picture and still not see things that are right in front of your nose!

There’s a time limit on each round of investigations of 25 minutes. In the first round you have to find less than ten items so it doesn’t take very long. Don’t be seduced into thinking this game is easy though, by the third round you have to find 40 items and that 25 minutes sure goes by fast. I had to frantically shout for Gamesbuzz Boy to come and help as the time slipped by and I just couldn’t find two butterflies hidden in a stateroom. A second pair of eyes is definitely useful to spot the items you just can’t see for looking. If your time runs out you have to restart the level, and while the rooms may be the same there’s a different set of random items to find!

At the end of each round is a bonus mini game where you have to take a photo or a letter that’s been torn into pieces and put it back together again, rather like a jigsaw puzzle, to reveal the hidden information. Everything you collect allows you to ask questions to each of the passengers to try and weed out the killer from the suspects.

If you have an eye for detail and enjoyed the recall round on the Krypton Factor then you will enjoy this game; but I must warn you that it’s addictive. I sat down to just have a quick look at the game and before I knew it two and a half hours had flown by, and I still have another nine levels to play! I’ll defintely be spending some time completing this game, and I’ll let you know if I manage to catch the killer.

Agatha Christie: Death On The Nile

Tags:Agatha Christie,butterflies,Death on the Nile,french detective,game,game cover,Games,hidden objects,Krypton Factor,long don,Miss Marple,Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories,murderer,Nile,Point-and-click,Poirot,riverboat,ropes,souvenirs,staterooms,storeroom,suitcases,three pieces,time limit,Video Games

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