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Review: And Then There Were None
Agatha Christie's 'And Then There Were None' is a game based upon a mystery novel by the 'queen of crime', Agatha Christie. The game has been available on the PC for some time now, but the Wii version has just been released.
Fans of Agatha Christie novels may remember that the book was titled Ten Little Indians – and before that, Ten Little Niggers – after the childrens rhyme on which the killings in the book were based. The book has changed name several times to reflect the political climate that we live in today, and in the game you will see the rhyme being told as 'Ten Little Sailorboys'.
The story of Ten Little Sailorboys (or whatever name you chose to call it) is one of the most popular Agatha Christie tales out there, and is ideal as a conversion to an adventure game. The game remains quite faithful to the book – there are some changes made, and there is less of a sense of individual guilt and paranoia than in the book, but you can still recognise the story, and since you are cast as a relatively peripheral character, and can't really impact the direction of the story much until the end, I think that the liberties were acceptable.
For those who have not read the book, the premise is simple – ten people have been invited to spend a weekend in a mansion on a secluded island. The owner of the mansion, Mr Owen, has made sure each person attends by making personal invitations which offer the person something that they could not refuse. The first night on the island, after a grand dinner, they learn that the purpose of the invitation was not an offer of hospitality, but a plan to see them all die – each person has, at some point in their life, committed some form of crime, and Mr Owen wants to see them all pay.
You play as Narracott – a villager who operates the boat that takes people to and from the island. You end up stranded on the island, and trying desperately to unravel the mystery behind the killings.
Each guest is murdered in a way that reflects the rhyme – 'Ten little Sailorboys went out to dine, one went and choked himself, and then there were nine....'
The game is a third person 2.5D point and click (or in the case of the Wii wave, shake and waggle) adventure – characters are 3D and walk around a 2D environment. The graphics on the Wii version aren't as good as on the PC version – they do look better if your TV supports 420p than on a standard PAL display, however.
The game has a lot of cutscenes to watch – starting off with a quite lengthly intro, and then including scenes when you peek through keyholes, or walk in on interesting events as the plot unfolds.
The Wii version of the game goes beyond just point and click – in an attempt to increase immersion interacting with objects often requires you to make the same motions with the Wii remote as you would do in real life – opening doors requires that you 'turn the handle', and instead of just using a scoop on a bag of flour you also have to make scooping motions to 'dig' things out of it yourself. Safe cracking involves turning the Wii remote to twist the dial around.
As the first game of this type to really use the Wii Remote, it shows a lot of potential, however since the game is a typical PC point and click adventure, the controls quickly get frustrating. As you wander around the mansion looking for things to interact with, and trying to figure out what to do next, the sluggishness of the Wii remote becomes annoying. On the PC, combing the screen to see what you can interact with is a lot easier, and the mouse is much more precise than the Wii remote. I often found myself attempting to walk to one location, but finding the remote would 'slip' as my arm moved, and I'd walk somewhere else.
It could be the nature of our Wii setup, but in our gaming room you have to stand to play on the Wii, and make quite large motions to move the cursor across the screen. I never thought I would find myself tired from playing a point and click adventure, but as I wandered around trying to find the next plot advancement my legs began to ache.
The game is quite short if you know what you are supposed to do (in the end I did something that most true adventure gamers would be horrified at, and consulted a walk through), but playing as a genuine player I found some of the puzzles a little illogical (I often resorted to random combining and disassembling, and found it quite successful, where thought and 'I think this should do something' would fail), and the old tenet of 'if it is interact-able, there is a reason' does not apply – there were several things that you could click on that served no purpose other than to prompt the same line of dialogue each time.
The dialogue was quite good, in that it was authentic to the book and characters – there is a decent amount of speech in the game, and you can converse with the characters quite a lot. There is also a decent amount of music in the game, which adds to the atmosphere, and is quite pleasant to listen to.
You spend most of your time in the mansion – there is some time spent outside, but only a small percentage of your overall game time. I would recommend if you play the game you keep some paper handy – the mansion is maze-like, and it will save you some headaches if you draw out a simple map and note where each guest is staying and what rooms adjoin to each other. I did not do this in the early stages, and while the mansion is nicely designed, there is only so much admiring of the decorations you can do before you get frustrated with re-covering the same ground!
The story advances slowly, but it is well done, and interesting, and you do find yourself pushing on eager to see what happens next as they rhyme counts down.
Overall, I would say this is a good game for Agatha Christie fans, but the slow pace of the story, combined with the frustrating Wii control system, makes it hard to recommend on the Wii unless you are a die-hard mystery player. There are plenty of puzzles to enjoy, and it is a good story, well told, but it is showing it's age, and I can't help but feel that there was so much un-tapped potential in the execution Wii remote system.
I am hopeful for any future adventure releases they decide to do, however. 'And Then There Were None' is a port of an older PC title – if a similar game is designed from the ground up for the Wii, I think it could work out a lot better.
For
Good musical score.
Fairly faithful to the book (original ending is an option)
Interesting story.
Against
Frustrating controls.
Slow progression.
Dated graphics.
Overall
If you like Agatha Christie, or are a die hard point and click adventure player who prefers the Wii, you may enjoy this. The PC version has far better controls, however.
