Review by     Dave Wadler

Game:         The Elk Moon Murder
Publisher:    Activision
SPS:          31.99
Format:       CD-ROM
Available:    Out now

Requires:

O/S:          DOS 6.22+ or Windows 95
Processor:    486DX2-66+
RAM:          8Mb+
HD Space:     35Mb
Graphics:     SVGA+
CD-Rom:       X2
Soundcard:    All major cards supported

Tested on:

O/S:          DOS 6.22
Processor:    Pentium 120
RAM:          16Mb
Graphics:     SVGA  (2Mb)
CD-ROM:       Quad speed
Soundcard:    Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum 16
Controls:     Keyboard + mouse

The Elk Moon Murder

Back in the good old days when men were real men, women were real women and little green furry things from Alpha Centauri were real little green furry things from Alpha Centauri, all adventure games were text based and you typed in what you wanted to do. For example Go North, Pick up sword, open chest and so on. Then somebody invented the Graphic Adventure with the point and click interface. And the world was a better place. At least that's what most people thought. No longer did you have to swear at the text parser cos it didn't understand a perfectly simple statement like "cut the rope". The trouble is that point and click is now used for everything, including talking to characters within the game. Now in most games this is OK, but in The Elk Moon Murder it is rather unfortunate. I'll explain why later.

The Elk Moon Murder is, as you probably guessed, a murder mystery. Elk Moon, a Native American artist, has been found shot in her studio. It is up to you to find out who killed her. Since she is, or rather was, an important person in the local Native American community you have been assigned a Native American partner. In addition you have a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). The PDA is a very clever gadget which stores all the interviews, photographs of the evidence and so on. Not only that but the PDA can receive messages from other people.

At the start of the game you can go either to Elk Moon's studio or to interview her husband. In the studio you can examine a number of pieces of evidence, take photographs and/or order forensic tests. This, believe it or not is the most interesting part of the whole game. After examining the studio all that you can do is interview people. The trouble is that interviewing people is just a matter of picking questions from a very small list. And to make matters worse the questions you really want to ask never seem to be on the list. It would have been much better if there had been a good text parser so you could type in the question you wanted rather than picking from the list. I personally found it very frustrating having to choose the questions. For example, at one point I managed to prove someone's alibi false. The trouble was though, that I was not able to go back to that person, at least not at that time. When I could re-interview the suspect the choice of questions did not include anything about the alibi.

The game is divided up into 5 days of eight hours each. Every thing you do takes time, unfortunately you often do not know how long any particular action will take. This can mean that you suddenly run out of time and are moved on to the next day, even though there are things you still want to do. I suppose that this is realistic except that with a time limit of 5 days you would be very unlikely to work for only 8 hours per day.

Moving around the game is very easy. There is a map screen which shows all the places you can go. Or rather all the people you can interview. The cursor is either a cross or a compass. The compass shows which direction you can you move in. Not that there is much moving about that you can do. With the exception of one location the only movement is back to the map. The cross is normally grey and red, but if you move the cursor over a 'hot spot' it changes to gold and red. Basically the 'hot spots' are the locations on the map to which you can go, the evidence in the studio and the controls on the PDA.

When you reach the last day you can make out an arrest warrant. If the person you pick is not the correct one you will be told so by the Chief of Police. The Chief will also explain why your choice is wrong. This sounds rather useful but often this is the first time you have heard the particular piece of evidence which clears your suspect. For example, remember the suspect who I couldn't question about his alibi? Well, when I made out an arrest warrant for him I was told that he couldn't have been the murderer since he had an alibi. Admittedly the alibi was not the one I broke, but I still have no idea how I was supposed to find out about the new alibi since I was unable to question the suspect about it.

Once you have picked the correct person, and it's just a matter of trying each of them in turn, you enter the end game. Not that there is any actual game play in this part. You just go to the home of the murderer, where you are told he has gone to visit someone else. You go there and are told he has gone to one of two places. if you go to the wrong one you find nothing. Go to the other place and watch the murderer... no, I better not tell you. Play the game and find out.

The graphics are OK but nothing special. Most of the action is just the actors answering your questions. The last bit has some action but even then most of it is talking. The sound is pretty clear, although I had some difficulty in understanding the character who told me who the murderer had gone to visit. It would have been nice if there was an option of having sub-titles, but as usual there isn't.

All in all this is a disappointing game. The plot is rather good, but there is no game play at all. Not only that but it is very quick, and I managed to complete it in about 3 hours. As a computer game this makes a good TV film, so I'm afraid it gets a low score.

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Rating: 4/10 (Poor but Playable)
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