The Butler Didn't Do It, There Is No Butler!
A Review of Murder, She Wrote
by Ron Enderland
Sometimes it seems that the television executives have a mission of cramming as much trifling drivel into a primetime schedule as is physically possible. Then, every now and then, a vehicle like 'Murder, She Wrote' slips by the non-quality control police, and we are treated to a show that is clever, witty, and just plain well done.
Murder She Wrote, the CD-ROM, is an attempt to bring the excellence of the show to the PC medium. In many ways, it succeeds, but not without a few glitches here and there.
The program opens with the familiar piano refrain that MSW fans find so familiar. The Quicktime videos run flawlessly smooth on my system (Pentium 90, 16 megs of RAM), which is not too surprising. I got excellent performance with this platform on my old 486 slc2-66 with only 8 megs of memory. I applaud Centron for using this resource-friendly video format.
Once you are into the presentation itself, you are shown a screen with four mystery choices. Let's select 'The Unconventional Murder.'
You click 'story' on the menu on the bottom of the screen. You then see videos of three different individuals giving details of the murder case. Miss Fletcher's still image resides in the middle of the screen. When she speaks, you instantly realize that something is awry. Her voice has been replaced by that of a stranger! Oh well, I guess Hollywood legends are too pricey for software companies to hire for voice-overs.
You listen to the accounts of the witnesses, then proceed to 'Puzzle.' Here, the program shows its strength. The puzzle is an image cut into the familiar jigsaw shapes. As you drag and drop, pieces that fit together 'snap' into place. You can then drag entire connected units of pieces to new locations. Once you have completed the puzzle, there are (rather obvious) clues which you use to deduce the murderer's identity.
When you solve the mystery, 'Jessica's' voice either congratulates you, or informs you that you are wrong. You can then continue and hear her explanation of the case, or you can try again.
I like the premise of the program. The murders are presented in a style similar to the TV show. The actors are entertaining to watch. The mysteries are well thought out, although the obviousness of the clues presented makes the cases too easy for true mystery hounds.
The interface is unnecessarily difficult to master. If you want to rehear a particular character's testimony, it is not an easy matter to find this under the 'Options' button. Some sort of menu could have been installed with minimal programming effort to facilitate this.
Right mouse clicks are enlisted in maneuvering around the puzzles themselves. While Win95 users will instinctively find this feature, 3.1 users will have to dig through help files or read the CD-ROM insert to find instructions for this.
Included on the disk is 'Jigsaw Power-Special Edition,' which enables you to create your own jigsaw puzzles with BMP or DIB files. This is an entertaining extra which is worth giving a try.
I had to hit the web site to find the system requirements. I later also found them in the on-line manual. The problem is, however, that they were not included on the CD-ROM insert itself.
As far as replayability is concerned, once you have solved the four mysteries, that ends the game. The puzzle feature remains fresh, however.
To sum up, if you are a lightweight mystery solver, or if you enjoy putting together virtual jigsaw puzzles, I would recommend this program. If difficult mysteries are your bag, then you'd better pass this one by.
Gamer's Zone Scorecard
| Product: |
Murder, She Wrote |
| Company: |
Centron Software Technologies, Inc.
|
| Cost: |
$39.95 |
System Requirements:
Windows 3.1/Win95
2X CD-ROM drive
4mb RAM
VGA (256 colors or better)
Breakdown:
Fun Factor 4
Graphics 5
Sound 4
Interface 1
Replayability 3
Overall Score:
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