Murder in
the Abbey is a classically-structured third-person adventure
game with an intriguing setting, a strong story, quality music, and
generally excellent graphical presentation. Unfortunately, it’s
also got problems that undermine whatever potential fun there is to
be had.

Before
I go any further, though, please indulge me in a little digression.
I need to criticize my friends at The Adventure Company for a minute.
I’ve long disapproved of their annoying habit of changing the
titles of the games they acquire. Perhaps I would be easier on this
practice if the titles they picked were regularly better than the
originals, but they’re not.

In this case they changed
the name from The Abbey to Murder
in the Abbey. First of all, duh . . was that change
worth it? Reminds me of a few years ago when they changed the name
of the university I attended from “North Texas State University”
to the “University of North Texas.”

Actually,
they only sort of changed the name. Meaning they were too cheap to
change the name of the game in the actual game. Yep,
they just slapped the Adventure Company-approved moniker on the box.
What’s worse, they also plastered the box with utterly misleading
images which have nothing to do with the look of the game.

It begs the question, doesn’t
it? Hey Adventure Company, if you hated the name and how the game
looked, why did you publish it?

Okay, back to the actual
game. Let’s first talk about what the game gets right. The setting
is a lonely monastery high on the top of a mountain during Medieval
times. Ever since Umberto Eco’s novel The
Name of the Rose created this genre of story, it’s
been a solid venue for mystery and intrigue.

Heading
up the twisting mountain path are Brother Leonardo and his novice
Bruno. Leonardo, a highly intellectual monk with a mysterious (and
possibly checkered) past, is headed to the abbey to look into a death
that occurred under suspicious circumstances.

So far, so good. At the
monastery Leonardo learns that a 200-pound censer has fallen on one
of the brothers and killed him. The rope, it turns out, looks to have
been tampered with . . . and the wheels of the story start spinning.
The tale that follows is surprisingly rich, dealing with alchemy,
the Inquisition, church politics, avarice, murder and beyond. The
mystery is nice and chewy, complete with vivid characters and a decent
red herring or two.

The
story is presented in an old-fashioned 2D animation style which is
most welcome to this player. The art is solid and the hand-painted
backgrounds several times reminded me of the beautiful work in the
early Disney films like Pinnochio
and Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs. There are some lovely
lighting effects as well.

The score is suitably grand
and evocative and (thankfully) used sparingly.

The mechanics of the game
are pure classic 2D third person point-and-click. The mouse is used
for everything, including movement, interaction and menu choices.
I’m pretty sure the Esc key is the only thing you ever have
to touch on the keyboard. The inventory is handy and easy to use.

The
majority of the puzzles in the game are of the inventory-based, fetch
these several things and use them together to solve this problem variety.
For the most part they make sense and reward clear and logical thinking.
There are also a couple of more “puzzley” puzzles as well,
but nothing very impressive.

So why, after all I’ve
described, shouldn’t you race to the store and pick this game
up faster than you can say a pater noster?

First of all, the graphics
are marred by two problems: The character faces are not expressive
at all. They behave more like stone-headed puppets than living beings.
Even worse, character design artists have a baffling affection for
making characters severely cross-eyed. This is simply dopey, and proves
to be a real distraction. It also accomplished absolutely nothing,
character-wise.

Compounding
this problem is a problem with the voice acting. Okay, stay with me
here, don’t click the Back button in disgust quite yet. I know
I have a reputation at JA for being overly harsh in this department.
So I’m going to be extremely specific with my complaint this
time around.

Actually, most of the voice
work is at least above-average in the game, which is a relief. However,
there’s one big gaffe which pulls you out of the game several
times. It’s because the voice work was obviously recorded with
absolutely no context given to the actors. It’s not enough to
simply say to an actor, “Say this line: ‘Now we have it.’”
There are several different ways you could say this sentence, each
affected by the circumstances during which you would say such a thing.

For example, if one character
said to you: “Bill had this handkerchief. He was killed. Then
Emily had the handkerchief. And she was killed.”

If
your line in response to this was “Now we have it,” you
would, in all likelihood, say, “Now WE have
it.” Otherwise the line makes no sense.

Mistakes of this nature
happen over and over in this game, and each time it happens it pulls
you right out of the drama. It’s a mistake for which there is
really no good excuse, and it undermines the game.

So, will you like this
game or not? The answer depends on how much its flaws bother you.
If you’re more forgiving than, say, me, you could have a really
good time with Murder in The Abbey. But
if wooden faces, absurdly crossed eyes and baffling line readings
bother you, be warned.

System Requirements:

• OS: Windows® XP/Vista
• CPU: 1.4 GHz or Equivalent
• RAM: 512 MB
• Disk Space: 3 GB Free
• Video: 64 MB graphics
  card, GeForce4 Ti generation or ATI Radeon 9500 (DirectX® 9.0c compatible)
• Sound: DirectX® 9 Compatible
  Sound Card
• CD-ROM: 4x
• Input: Keyboard, Mouse
  and Speakers

This
review is copyright Ray Ivey and Just Adventure and
may not be republished elsewhere without the express written consent
of the author. Republication of said review must also contain a link
back to Just Adventure.