Murder is Game Over is murder mystery title from Ratalaika Games the features a detective and his dog but they aren’t part of Mystery Inc.
Ratalaika Games brings another graphics-nostalgia title with Murder is Game Over. You play as Detective Guy and his dog Cleo. You’ve both been summoned to a castle in rural Vermont to investigate the murder of a famous game designer. This is the first of three games in the franchise and the first to come to consoles. The copy provided to us for our review was for the Xbox One Series X.
As you play the game you can swap between Guy and Cleo on the fly. This is essential to the gameplay because when questioning suspects you need to be in control of Guy and when looking for clues you need Cleo. Hidden throughout the map are not just clues but also doggy bags. To get the best ending you need to find all thirty doggy bags and as long as you do most of your walking as Cleo you won’t have trouble finding them all. There is also a hidden treasure you might find that helps towards finding the true ending as well. The officer on scene tells you at the start to return to her when you are ready to make an arrest but you are blocked from doing so until you find all the clues.
Once you have all the clues you go through a list of the suspects and their motives, like watching Hercules Poirot or Sherlock, as you explain why each suspect couldn’t have done it and then in detail explain who the real culprit was. There are a few missable achievements so I suggest reviewing the descriptions FIRST. The two easiest are petting the cat and finding the bear in the woods.
Visually the game looks and feels like the classic Zelda: A Link to the Past. The controls are simple and work well with the game. The overall experience interesting. The story begins with an excessive amount of dialogue that must be read and is quite dry. I admit that I was tired when I started and fell asleep during the intro twice (at least). Once I got control of the character tough and started interacting with the story it started to pick up and kept me awake until completing the game in a single sitting. The complete story and the whodunit at the end made it worth the experience and overall I enjoyed the game, I just suggest not being sleepy when you start it because you might have some difficulty at the start.
