In the App Store, the match three Candy Crush style game, running games and online “clan” games are king. These games are hugely popular, butIn the App Store, the match three Candy Crush style game, running games and online “clan” games are king. These games are hugely popular, but lets be honest, once you’ve played one version of them, you’ve played them all. But what should you try if you want something a little different? Which games really stand out from the crowd?
Set in Paris, 1890, Criminel in a first person investigation game based around a number of murders linked through an over arching plot. You play a photographer working with the Paris police department. Your role is to collect and record evidence at the relevant crime scenes, interpret witness statements and charge the culprit. The protection of the people of Paris depends on you.
Stylistically the game is presented as if through the sepia photos taken of the age, and this lends a real level of grit to each of the, often expansive, murder scenes. The grey brown hues broken only by the splashes of crimson around the victims.
The graphics are very good. The two other policemen you work with are wonderful creations, they almost look like period photos apart from the constantly moving eyes. The photo analogy is perfect in fact, as they never really move.
Max, your police sidekick, is on hand to ask for hints if you get stuck, although he will offer hints on each piece of evidence as opposed to the evidence you’ve not located. This can become a bit frustrating if you are only stuck for two clues and have to ask over and over to get to the right hint.
Movement is completed by a touch to move system, where you go to where you touch on the screen. This works, but it’s hardly an elegant solution to movement and perhaps a virtual D-Pad would have been better and would have keep you more involved in the game environment.
After photographing the evidence you make your way through the police station to the evidence rooms. This is the games weakest section as its repeated several times per case and also adds very little to the over all experience. You can only travel down a single corridor and, whilst some exposition is given during the walk, the attempt to add to the over all atmosphere of the game falls a little flat after repeating the process several times. Also, you appear to enter the evidence and interview room through a window instead of a door.
Once the case is complete and the murderer is in prison, the chief of police gives a break down of the case, and you then have to move down the corridor to start the next case.
After solving a couple of cases, a running theme is clearly evident and the conspiracy aspect of the game really starts. I would expect you to pick up on it much sooner than Max, your policemen sidekick, as despite his many years on the force, he does seem somewhat slow. But as layer upon layer is peeled back, the game becomes more compelling.
The difficulty increases in a linear fashion and the jumps of logic needed to complete the game seem rational. You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out the early cases and in the latter ones you kind of have a feel for the way the designers work.
Whilst not the longest iOS game I’ve ever played by any stretch, clocking in at about an hour of steady play first time through, I wouldn’t count this against the game. It is a quality game, and a breath of fresh air when compared to many other games in the App Store.
However, this does feel very much like a first chapter of a larger story and it comes without a totally satisfying resolution to the conspiracy. As you would imagine, there is very little reason to replay the game once completed, so the question must be asked, is it worth it? In short, yes.
Despite some issues I have with the game, I hope this case gets reopened in a sequel, as I would thoroughly enjoy some more of this game, presented as it is in its 19th century colour palette.
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