Peril at End House PC Game

Date released: Nov 22, 2007

Genre: Puzzle, Hidden objects, PC Game

As the title suggests, this review is about the Agatha Christie Peril at End House PC game. I decided to write on something different this time after trying (and completing) the game yesterday. A few months ago I first tried my hand on the Christie PC game series starting from And Then There Were None. There are also a few other titles in the series; with the more popular ones being Evil Under the Sun, The ABC Murders and Murder on the Orient Express. Of course, to complete all of that will take me months.

Now, for those who had read Peril at End House before, this game will be very, very easy and predictable. It is nothing like And Then There Were None where significant changes had been made to the storyline as well as the ending (you will find me comparing both these titles a lot). There is also very limited player interaction in Peril, which means that the player doesn’t get much choices and will not affect the plot in any way, whereas in And Then the player is directly involved in the plot and each choice taken will impact the outcome of the game. In short, both games are very different and if you choose to start with a simple one which is easier to understand, then Peril is recommended for you.

The game starts with the background of the case; players will see comic strips of Poirot, Hastings, and the main character, Magdala “Nick” Buckley, the mistress of End House. This is where most of the conversations and actions take place. Players who are already familiar with the story may skip this process and proceed directly to the first phase of the game. Each phase consists of an investigation of clues and witness accounts which will reveal a small part of the real story and as you progress, you will collect all the clues and come to your own conclusion. However, the solution is revealed by Poirot in the end so there is no need for you to think too much on it, actually. In Phase One, there are two locations for you to examine, namely the front gate of End House and the hotel garden (I think). There are ten items which must be located in each location and you are allocated 25 minutes for each phase of the game. There is also a bonus of 5 “hints” which will help you to locate hard-to-spot items. However, most of the time the items found are just red herrings thrown in and very little of them are relevant to the investigation. As you go through each phase, the number of locations to examine will increase from two to five but the time and hints allocated remain the same. Which is why keen observation is a must in this game if you intend to finish it. One complaint that I have with this “hidden objects” approach is that sometimes the items are located in places which are absolutely impossible to be noticed. That is why you have to save up your hints to be used in the last few minutes. Another reminder to readers; you have to locate the items carefully rather than just clicking on everything in the scene, hoping to get lucky. Random clicking, usually more than 3 times at the same place, is subjected to a penalty of 30 seconds deducted from your time.

At the end of each phase, there is a “bonus round”, which is actually a mini-game related to the clues and witnesses you just examined. If you have not read the story, you must pay attention to each conversation in order to get the answers for the bonus round. You can also opt to skip the bonus rounds as they are not necessary to complete the game. I forgot how many phases there are in the story, but the clue-hunting process can get boring and repetitive over time.

Altogether, I am not very satisfied with this game. It follows the novel too closely with no variations at all. The game itself is short and consists entirely of clue-hunting and mini games where you piece together a puzzle to reveal another additional clue which is not very helpful in solving the case. The player doesn’t get to search the crime scenes manually, interrogate suspects, or make decisions on how to end the story. Unlike And Then where you can perform small tasks and run about the island to search for clues that will trigger the next scene, players in Peril are provided with everything and all you have to do is just to locate hidden items. But perhaps this is just as well for new players (or those lazy ones!) as you do not need to search over and over again or perform a specific task that unlocks the next scene. I must admit that it was a little frustrating for me the first time I played And Then; it took me 3 days to complete it even with the help of Game FAQS.

There are a few plus points for Peril too. For one, the graphics depict the scenes beautifully, something that you cannot imagine just by reading the novel. Secondly, should you fail to complete the investigation in a phase, you can start over again from the beginning of the phase, rather than trying too hard to fix the mistakes you did in order to proceed. There is also another advantage for players with good memory; since the locations are sometimes repeated, you can locate items faster if you remember where you have seen a particular item last time in that location. All the clues and witness accounts are kept neatly in the “Clue Room” and “Evidence Room”, so if you feel like solving the case before Poirot reveals the solution, you can always double-check your clues to form your own conclusion. Overall, Peril is just average to me; they could have done better with a Christie masterpiece like this one.

 

My rating: 3.0/5.0

Crooked House

Author : Agatha Christie
Genre: Crime, Investigation
Published: March 1949

This is one of Christie’s works that I’ve been longing to read for a long, long time. I managed to find an e-book version but in my opinion, good Christie novels should be read only when you’re comfortably curled up on your favourite armchair, a hot cup of coffee beside, and with all the time in the world so that you wouldn’t have to rush by the pages! Reading from e-books always strain my eyes (not to mention that they don’t have the old books’ smell!)

“There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house”.

Like many of the other Christies, this story takes place in a big household, where a member is murdered in cold blood and we have to guess which one of them did it. This is one of my favourite themes in crime novels as readers can actually guess the culprit based on the limited list of suspects. Being labelled by Christie as “one of her two favourites of her own works, the other being Ordeal by Innocence”, I can find a few similarities between them (I read Ordeal last year). Other than the fact that both murders took place in a confined household, they also do not have any of Christie’s famous sleuths to take the centre stage. No Poirot, Marple, or the Beresfords (Christie herself admitted that she was getting tired of Poirot). And the plot? Members of the family getting afraid and suspicious of each other, hoping that the murderer would turn out to be an outsider. Which one of us did it? seems to be Christie’s favourite theme.

The story opens with the main character, Charles Hayworth, falling in love with Sophia Leonides, the eldest granddaughter in the rich and influential Leonides family. Both of them were working in Cairo at that time, and promised to marry when they get the chance to return to England. However, upon Charles’ return, he discovered that Sophia’s grandfather Aristide Leonides, the head of the family had been murdered by poison (eserine) from his own eye medicine. The fatal injection was given by his young wife whom he married not long ago, Brenda, who thought she was administering insulin. The other members in the family who live in Crooked House are Philip and Magda Leonides (Sophia’s parents), Roger Leonides and his wife Clemency, Edith de Haviland who was Sophia’s maternal great-aunt, the other grandchildren Eustace and Josephine, and finally Laurence Brown who tutors the children.

So the cast is completed. We now proceed to the actual story after Aristide’s death. Charles agreed to help his father, the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, to solve this case. He managed to get himself to stay in Crooked House, and interviews all the suspects to looks for clues. Things are made complicated with the fact that the poison can be easily obtained by anyone in the house and it was Aristide himself who suggested the means of murder when he announced that his eye medicine is actually a deadly poison. Charles managed to get something out of Josephine, the youngest child who was only 12 but had been snooping around the house observing everyone, taking notes in her little notebook. Another death follows when the house’s Nanny was killed by digitalis in a cup of cocoa, seemingly intended for Josephine. The police arrested Brenda and Lawrence Brown, who were apparently having a love affair and killed Aristide to get him out of the way. However, there will be two more deaths before the actual killer is discovered.

I have enjoyed this book a lot, perhaps I should say, one of my personal favourite Christies of all time. The plot is smooth and decent, but the pace is a little rushed towards the ending. Even without our dear Poirot, the characters are likable enough for you to follow the story to the end. And I think the solution is certainly a little…. shocking and unexpected, but not if you’re familiar enough with her works (if you have read And Then There Were None or Murder of Roger Ackroyd for example). Overall, I wouldn’t rate it full-score, but it will still be in my top ten titles. Perhaps that should be my next project; Christie Top 10 Must Read!

My rating: 4.0/5.0