Detective

Copyright : Amsoft | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

Detective is a game of deduction and tactics. It is set in an English country house where the body of the butler, foully murdered, has been found dumped at the top of the staircase. Each player takes the role of one of the characters in the game, and each of you falls under the suspicion of Scotland Yard. Unimpressed by the Police, you each decide to clear yourselves by finding out who committed the crime, the weapon used, the place of the murder and the killerâ??s motive.

Graphics

The screen looks nice and colourful but there really is no depth to it. All of the â??actionâ?? takes place on one lone screen and there is no real animation to speak of as your disembodied head flashes before re-materialising in the next room that you are going to.

The presentation is basic and a bit shabby to be honest. Itâ??s clear that the programmers didnâ??t have a clue (nyuk nyuk nyuk!) as to what they should make the game look like. Or they didnâ??t careâ?¦ but I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt.

Sound

With only a paltry trio of sound effects, Detective would really have to focus on making those sounds good youâ??d think. But no, theyâ??re awful. All three noises grate with the inexplicable warning noise at the start of each turn particularly drilling.

Gameplay

To sum it up in two words: complete gash. Detective is a simplistic variant on board game favourite Cluedo and, like the board game, is rubbish played by yourself. As such the one player mode is fairly redundant anyway but the multiplayer mode (up to six can play at once) is not much better with players having to jot down codes before they begin with the other players turning away. This in itself is unnecessary as when the game starts, like Cluedo, you move around making suggestions as to the murder combination.

Although there are two different modes of play, the difference is merely that the second mode does not reveal which of your guesses is correct only how many. This does make things a little harder (obviously) but at the end of the day it still boils down to pot luck and the most basic of guessing games.

Put it this way. There is a reason why Amstrad shelled out to Leisure Genius to be able to bundle Cluedo as a part of the later CPC packages rather than put this in itâ?¦ despite the fact it would have cost them nothingâ?¦