User Reviews (11 - 21 of 34)

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Very Cool

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: January 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

These types of computer games are great fun. As an adult, I don't spend much time playing, but I would definitely get sucked into this one. My daughter plays them too fast and then it's done. So that is the one downfall; it is a one game thing. Good game to do with someone you're having a hard time knowing what to do with. The graphics are good. Can be a little difficult ot manipulate.

Very Dissappointed

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I received this game for Christmas (at my request) as I had played the first one (And Then There Were None) which was intriguing and this one had David Suchet!!!! I'm a huge fan of Poirot and was very excited at this installment. I finally got to play it and was highly disappointed!

The graphics are very good (not outstanding) and the voices are excellent, however, the game play is slow and tedious.

The game consists mostly of interviewing everyone in the train, it is a lot of questions, questions, questions and you listen. You don't even really have a choice. You pick out of a list but eventually you have to pick them all anyway, so order doesn't even matter, although sometimes it becomes confusing when you ask them out of order.

Poirot himself does nearly nothing in the game but give you hints if you need them.

The actual use of objects to solve things is so illogical that I finally had to look up a walkthrough. I knew what needed to be done, but the "how" was so ridiculous that when I found how you had to do it I sat there scratching my head saying, that makes no sense whatsoever!

I would say there is more talking than solving puzzles in this game and since I hadn't yet read the book and its been a very long time I saw the Peter Ustinov version of it (movie) I finished it just to see how it ended (and I kept hoping it would get better).

I found the game boring and tedious and would not recommend it unless you are extremely bored and die hard fan.

Almost a great game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Although I have given this game 4 stars, in reality I would make it 3 1/2 if that was possible.

If you are undecided about buying the game based on the reviews then hopefully I can point out the good and not so good things to help you.

I should say at this point that I played the game as Poirot's assistant, which means that he will give you cryptic hints during the game. You can also choose to play without any help at all.

The Good
1. The graphics are really good, I played this on a laptop with an ATI Radeon 9600 video card and a 1.4ghz celeron processor and I was able to use all of the highest graphic settings. However, there aren't a huge amount of locations to explore to be honest, the 30 odd compartments are all identical apart from the colour of the upholstery in the 2 passenger coaches. I agree with the comments about poor lip-synching, but thats not a big deal really.

2. The plot develops in a natural, unforced manner. I knew the original story but if you haven't read the book you will find that things start to make sense with each additional piece of information you unearth.

3. Straightforward puzzles - I don't want to have to resort to a walkthrough to fathom out each and every puzzle in a game. There's nothing worse than getting bogged down for hours on one task when you completely lose the thread of the story. Having said that, getting the Ham Radio to work is one of those 'oh come on, how can anybody work that out?' moments :)

4. Related to the above, no timed puzzles and no possibiity of dying, I want my whodunnits to be an intellectual challenge, not a sweaty race against time or constant re-loads due to making a wrong move somewhere.

5. The voice acting - considering there are something like 26 discreet characters in this game, most of whom you talk to several times at length, there is nothing cringe-worthy about any of the performances and most are very good.

The Not So Good

1. This is a matter of preference, but if you prefer to actually do something rather than chat to game characters then you could be disappointed here. The thing is that you have to get them to reveal all pertinent information so that when you go back to Poirot to review the evidence he doesn't keep telling you to talk to the passengers again. It will take you at least half an hour of game time to simply collect all the passports and fingerprints.

2. As has been noted, the tedium of checking EVERY male pair of shoes is pretty bad, even after you have discovered the correct ones very early in your search.

3. When you review evidence with Poirot the dialogue tree sometimes assumes knowledge that you didn't know you had! Statements appear that are total leaps in the dark from the evidence you have accumulated.

4. The 'surprise' ending... this is so full of holes its hard to know where to start, but just one thing will suffice. The character who turns out to be 'not who they claim to be' would have been recognised as an imposter by any of the train staff immediately and would have to have learnt at least 2 languages in an implausibly short period of time to pull off their deception.

All in all though I really enjoyed this game and I only marked it down because of the repetitive nature of some of the tasks you have to perform, the melodramatic alternative ending and the shortness of the playing time.

I wouldn't pay full price for it but I got it in a 2 for 30 bucks deal and I reckon its worth it for that kind of money.

OK, but not great

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: January 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am used to playing Nancy Drew mystery computer games, and this is no comparison. If you want an enjoyable, sensible game, try those. This one left me stuck in a lot of parts, not even hinting to what I should do next. To sum it all up, I think it was a tad on the boring side. If you still want to purchase the game, wait until it goes on sale because it is not worth $30. Period.

Strange Mouthings!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: December 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I couldn't wait to start this game: the box is beautiful and I had a vision of beautiful graphics and beautiful people renditions! The romantic Orient Express- a perfect getaway! The scenes of the train itself are wonderfully done and you really feel you're in first class on the famous luxury express. But-here's the problem. The characters, with the exception of M. Poirot, look like they were created by amateurs. (The voices are perfect-after all you have the definitive Hercule, David Suchet, as the voice of the detective). However, Antoinette Marceau, who is sleuthing under the direction of Poirot, looks like she's made of silly putty. She is long and tubular in shape with long heavy arms and awkward gestures. The closeups of her face while she's talking are really hideous. Her lips look like they're writhing rather than forming words and there is no synchrony at all between what she says and what her mouth is doing. The lack of effective "talking" is apparent in all the many characters, although as I said, Poirot is better than the others. And was it really necessary for Antoinette to climb into bed fully clothed in the blue suit she wears apparently night and day? After all Poirot appears in pajamas after he sprains his ankle. Game creators should realize that people notice things like that.

As a comparison, I am simultaneously playing "Nancy Drew- The Final Act." The two games are both from The Adventure Company. In the Nancy Drew piece the characters are nevertheless very well coordinated, and very natural looking and talking.

Although the searching for items in "Murder on the Orient Express" gets to be a bit annoying, as other reviewers have pointed out, I don't mind the contrived ending or the introduction of Antoinette as the active sleuth hound. The game is worth playing as a presentation of a world that has disappeared forever.Incredibly, there are going to be gamers of the younger generations who have never been on a train! However, the people figures in my estimation, are so bad that I could only give this presentation three stars.

A major disappointment...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: January 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I really wanted to like this game; after all, I enjoyed "And Then There Were None" despite some flaws. But this game was simply bad from the get-go.
For one thing, there are very few puzzles; most of them are ridiculously easy, although one radio puzzle forced me to try random combinations until I finally worked it out. Either way, I didn't get a feeling of satisfaction from solving them. It also made for a very short game (less than 10 hours for me).
Secondly, this "game" is really more of an animated movie than a game. You spend most of your time tracking down your suspects and then patiently working your way through the dialogue tree until you've exhausted their information. It's incredibly tedious, especially because most of the dialogue is word-for-word from the novel. I appreciate the respect they showed the book, but seriously, if the game isn't any different from the book then there's no point in playing.
Which brings me to my biggest complaint with the game: the "original" ending. "And Then There Were None" had a genuinely different ending which made sense, and which you could figure out through the clues. I don't want to give away the ending to "Murder on the Orient Express," but I will say that adding a single twist to the ending is an infuriatingly cheap way of creating a "new" ending. And if that weren't irritating enough, you really don't get to do anything for the last half hour of the game, as Poirot sums up the case and occasionally tosses you a multiple-choice question just to make sure that you're still awake.
High points: David Suchet as Poirot; most of the other voice-acting was good, and the backgrounds were lovely
Low points: Poor gameplay, too short and easy, ending likely to disappoint fans of the novel

Talk, talk, talk

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game has beautiful music and pretty good animation. However, it is a game based on way too much talking and not enough action and puzzle solving. Took too long to load between sections and the puzzles were either super easy or completely out of left field. Had potential, but due to the lack of gameplay, I was pretty disappointed.

I The Detective

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The game is fun, but not the easiest or most straight-forward I've played. Things need to be done pretty much in the correct order to finish the game. The graphics are good, but not great. It sticks pretty close to the book so that is great. I would recommend the game. It is fun and absorbing.

Murder on the orient express

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game was okay. It was not better than and then there were none. It keep getting stuck in some parts of the game and the women who was do the investing on the train keep move slow at some point of the game. It seems like it was glitches through the game.

DELIGHTFUL SURPRISE

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Having already played the earlier attempt to put an Agatha Christie on a video game format, I was somewhat hesitant to buy "Murder on the Orient Express". I was so glad that I decided to order it anyway. HURRAY!

No, there are some things about the game that aren't perfect, but on the whole I found them so trivial as almost to be beneath complaining about.

No, the graphics aren't of the best - and I'm a graphics freak. It's very hard to match voices with the graphic rendition, and with "Murder" they weren't of the best, but they WERE tolerable, GIVEN ESPECIALLY that the voice acting was so good. Who could complain about the "Hercule Poiroit" - David Suchet - as THE voice of HP? I'm not about to do so.

The device of using the plucky Antoinette as his "legs" was utterly delightlful, and gave the video game all the more validity in it's own right. I should also say that I had no complaints about the other characters either. They weren't perfect, but they worked!

Other minor complaints I might express are just that. Too minor to mention.

I have only given 4 stars because I am SUPER, SUPER PICKY! If there were a 4 1/2 star rating, that is what I'd be giving it. I found playing "Murder on the Orient Express" an utter DELIGHT, and I highly recommend it. (Besides, I'd already "read the book".) It is TRULY worth it!

I LOVE DELIGHTFUL SURPRISES - and this was one of them.

B. Taylor

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