Review of Poirot: After The Funeral

Introduction

I`ve got to say, I`m not one for bored games. And that, David and Matt, isn`t a typo. I don`t know what it is about board games, but they just don`t press any of my buttons. Neither, for that matter, do computer games, but that`s another story. I once dallied with RPGs (role playing games, not rocket propelled grenades), but I was more interested in the technical possibilities of multiple-choice storytelling than picking virtual punch-ups with orcs.

I am, however, a sucker for an Agatha Christie mystery. I can watch them happily, secure in the knowledge that even if I know the story backwards I`ll have guessed wrongly and that Mrs McGinty wasn`t murdered by the tennis pro in the conservatory with the lead pipe at all. I know I`m no Poirot, Holmes or Columbo. As an amateur detective I`m happy to model myself on Scooby-Doo.

Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence - they`re all great fun and some of the names who have played the part in the past are as much part of the fun as the mystery itself.

This interactive game, released by Universal UK, uses footage from the 2006 ITV Poirot episode of the same name as the backbone of the investigation. Based on a 1953 novel by Agatha Christie, it is a tale of multiple murder following the funeral of Richard Abernethie (Hammer Films regular John Carson). The cast includes Robert Bathurst, Geraldine James, Anna Calder-Marshall, William Russell, Anthony Valentine and Benjamin Whitrow - all familiar faces and top-notch acting talents, so the video testing your little grey cells is of the topmost quality as well as the game itself.

Poirot himself pops up from time to time during proceedings in specially-filmed pieces to offer advice and make points. That David Suchet should make these sequences points to the game being of much higher quality than some quick knock-off only vaguely associated with the series it is tied into.

The game is one of observation and deduction - neither of which I`m terribly good at. You navigate through the game using the menu screens depicted in a couple of the screen captures illustrating this review. Central to the game is the Cluedo-like overview of the locations of the action. In addition to the investigation, Poirot tests your skills of observation, analysis and intuition which really makes you feel like Hastings (conspicuously absent from proceedings).

Video

The game is presented in 4:3, with the inserts from the tv episode cropped down from the original 16:9.

Audio

Dolby 2.0 presentation of the original stereo soundtrack.

Features

Not really applicable

Conclusion

Everybody`s favourite Belgian sleuth - okay, Belgium`s only famous sleuth - tests the little grey cells with this humdinger of a murder mystery based on one of Poirot`s 2006 tv outings. A top drawer cast enacts "After The Funeral" and two players get to be apprentice gumshoes to David Suchet`s peerless Mr P.