Murders in Space

The Good
A nicely composed and slightly sinister opening tune accompanies us as we dock into the space station. The original box of the game came with a lot of "feelies" (dehydrated food -seriously-, a plastic spider and one or two other things.) There is also a booklet full of clues (wrappers, photos, etc) which you are referred to in various points of the game as you discover them. It was a fun little package for a kid to get.

There is no ingame music, but the stillness simulates the space station conditions in a 2001 Kubrickesque fashion. You have 24 hours to identify which one of the crew members is a psychpath; at the same time you need to ensure all the crew members survive the aforementioned 24 hours. A lack of action on your part will result in bodies turning up. Sometimes the indications of death on your first playthrough will give you clues on how best to save them when you try again.

There is only one killer, but everyone has a dirty little secret and while interactivity is limited, there are various things to do and see on the station. Every hour each member of the crew is doing something different. Fortunately you can slow down time and even bring it to a halt entirely making your job that much easier.

The Bad
There is limited interactivity in this title and limited dialog options. While the conversations for the most part are well written, a lot of them are annoyingly ambiguous. This is no pick-up-everything-you-see adventure title. Everything is achieved by a single click or affirming a thought from the in-game character (on the occasion that he has any)

You must endure the entire 24 hours of your trip in the station, you can skip time but this will more than likely start resulting in deaths. Even if you piece together who the killer is, you are bound by the games time frame and the lack of an ability to take matters into your own hands until the 11th hour. There is very little in the way of animation.

The manual I mentioned earlier, while fun to own renders the game unplayable without it as several essential numbers and passwords can only be found in the manual itself.

The Bottom Line
An interesting and unique slow paced detective game of sorts, that you will either enjoy or find unbearable. It's not for fans of action or even some of the more playable adventure titles. My judgment may be clouded by nostalgia but I still believe the game deserves at least one play session if nothing else.