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My quest to find hidden gem Halloween Game Titles continues!

Going over my “backlog” of video games I have yet to play, I decided to take a look at all of the free games I got thanks to my Xbox Live Gold subscription. Despite me playing online games less and less over the years I still keep my Gold sub active for this very reason. Sure the games offered on Xbox One are not yours to keep if your sub lapses, unlike the Xbox 360 game titles offered, yet the services still have its usages. The service offers a decent selection of free games from a variety of genres. Thanks to this I’m hardly wanting when it comes to games to play on my Microsoft systems. It was how I was able to enjoy one of my favorite tower defense games Defense Grid 2. Love the first one and enjoyed the second one. So I thought it wouldn’t hurt to see if there was a game in my digital collection I had yet to try out that would fit well for an Octoberween game choice pic.

I must admit that Games with Gold has yet to disappoint me.

I was able to find this gem of a game and decided to try it out. It’s why it’s one of my top 5 picks for Octoberween Game Title of 2018: Murdered: Soul Suspect.

I can best describe the game as an adventure game with some stealth elements mixed in for good measure. You play the part as Salem Police Detective Ronan O’Connor (I could’ve sworn the game says his name is Rohan) as he gets killed off at the beginning of the game by “The Bell Killer”, the latest serial killer to grace us in modern media. Despite meeting his deceased wife in the afterworld and wishing to join her, Julia informs him that he has unfinished business to tend to in the living world before he can join her in the afterlife. From there Ronan comes back to the land of the living to not only learn how to use his ghostly abilities but to solve the mystery of who the Bell Killer is.

The game starts you off easy by giving you a tutorial of sorts with the help of a puritan ghost girl you meet who tells you how to use your ghostly abilities like how to possess people to be able to read their thoughts and influence their actions. You also learn other things in the abilities and limitations you have in the physical world like being able to walk through certain walls and only able to enter buildings when the door is left open to cross the threshold. It’s a nice way to keep things centered in the supernatural realm of rules while at the same time helping to explain loading screens to new areas in the game. The tutorial ends roughly as you begin to investigate your own death. It’s here that the gameplay feels more like an adventure game. But instead Murdered: Soul Suspect falling into the formula actions of “bashing the search button till you find something to use” mentality that most adventure games fall into, it enters what I like to call “Detective mode” as you search the area for any vital clues to help you investigate the crime scene. Though you will find yourself bashing the search button to locate pieces of evidence, the game feels more like the investigation gameplay found in another game series that I’ve added to my Octoberween Game Titles in the past: The Condemned series.

The game will give you a counter of how many clues are in the area so you’ll always know how far you need to search in finding out how to progress to the next area. Solving a crime scene not only deals with clues found in the area but also possessing witnesses or cops nearby will help in solving some of the harder scenes that will require you to manipulate someone to allow them to show you something you need to move forward, or in the case of eye witnesses subtle suggestions of their memory to help them remember something that might have been overlooked before. At the end of the investigative phase you’re then given the option to piece together all the fragments of clues to help Ronan in figuring out what happened at this particular crime scene. You’re given a badge count in how many attempts you get to figure out the situation with one badge being taken away if you choose the wrong order of clue fragments in answering the overall questions at the crime scene. I assume it’s the games method in scoring your deductive reasoning skills to get a better overall grade during gameplay. Thankfully if you run out of badges it doesn’t mean you’re stuck and can’t move forward in the game’s story, at least in my play through that is, but I wouldn’t be too shocked if it’s just a means to get a better achievement unlock, better ending or higher score at the end of game.

As you explore the city of Salem you get a chance to run into other ghosts in the world who’ll need help in trying to cross over to the afterlife because of similar reasons on having to stay due to unresolved issues. As a detective you can use your skills to help them cross over just ignore them as you continue your own quest of damnation or salvation. They are a nice side quests to take part in that help give more life to the game, given all the thought repeating NPCs you’ll run into in the town of Salem, and adds more humanity to the game in showing that the world is inhabited by not just the living but the dead as well.

Another item you’ll run into as you explore the town of Salem, and its surrounding game areas, are the inclusions of collectables. As you find these pieces of information they’ll tell more of the story that is Murdered: Soul Suspect. They tell more in-depth info about what the Bell Killer, Ronan on his checkered past and general history of the town of Salem as a whole. Though not mandatory in finding them all, unless you want an achievement unlock, they help to ground the player in the game world and set the dark tone of the overall narrative of the game’s story.

The stealth element to the game comes into play in the form of 2 types of gameplay scenarios. One involves the inclusion of demons that roam the living world that try to suck the unlife out of any ghost they run into. Ronan is able to “hide” from them by inhabiting soul remains that litter the gaming world. Though not a means of being a permanent safe haven from any demon that comes by, in fact if you hid in one for too long and a demon does approach it it’ll be able to sense your presence and attack you, you have the option to jump between multiple soul remains in a chain reaction move that’ll help you throw off a demon’s scent. Long enough to either slip passed them in the area they are frequenting or give you a chance to sneak up behind them and perform a randomized QTE action that kills them. Failing a QTE to take down a demon thankfully doesn’t mean instadeath but running from a failed attack is not a wise move, especially if you don’t consider your surroundings to have a plan of escape back into a soul remnant.

The second stealth gameplay type is when you must help a fellow NPC in escaping an area with the help of your ghostly powers to possess and cause distractions for them to move along to. This only happens later on in the game and thankfully is not as difficult as one would think. Other NPCs that perform the search are not as eagle eyed like some other stealth games out here.

But what makes this game a sure hit as an Octoberween title, aside from the reasons mentioned above, is the game’s story and certain collectables within the game itself. The story of solving the mystery of who the Bell Killer is and why he kills the way he kills is a great detective story that I haven’t played in a long time when it comes to Octoberween games. The game’s protagonist Ronan is an interesting character to play as who isn’t just a character you control. He has his own personality, character motivations and drives that help you go along with this search in trying to solve the case and get back with the love of his life Julia. The game gives you plenty of flashbacks of Ronan’s life as you visit various areas in the game world that show you he’s not just a typical bad boy turned good caricature. Despite him being dead he does take the turn of events well and learns to adapt as a character to his reluctant situation. It just goes to show that despite being a ghost doesn’t rob him of his deductive reasoning skills and helps to justify the thought that only a ghost might be able to stop the Bell Killer. Though I have to admit that every time I see his back story I keep getting reminded of the movie The Boondock Saints….

The setting of the town of Salem is perfect for any Octoberween setting given its dark history with the Salem witch trials that the game makes sure you don’t forget. The town’s buildings, church, cemetery and mental hospital setting help sell the setting that despite the town being modernized that it still holds a tinge of the supernatural that lingers within the town’s bones. What helps to solidify that is the interesting collectable, if all found in their specified area, unlocks specific ghost stories within that game area. My personal favorite is the ghost story of the beached bones in the old church. They are told creepypasta style and though your only given a static image as the story is being narrated it’s still a nice touch and a fitting reward in searching them out in game.

I can see why this game was overlooked back when it was released. I myself have to admit that I didn’t give the game a second thought when I heard about it long ago, even after knowing it was being published by SquareEnix. This game doesn’t strike you as a Triple AAA title yet one of those titles that you wouldn’t mind trying out if you had nothing else better to do. In all honest you can’t go wrong with this game as a great try for Octoberween. It’s relatively short I’m told and the gameplay isn’t too difficult to get into. Combat isn’t deep to the point of being non-existant so you get to soak in and enjoy the game’s narrative and charm. It doesn’t have anything in the way of true horror or jump scares but the game itself fits the mood perfectly for any dark night to enough. It has a delicious mix of ghosts, murder, mystery and the supernatural that it’ll keep you entertained for hours on end. Who can’t say no to a murder mystery of any kind during the Octoberween holiday? And if you give Murdered: Soul Suspect a try I can see anyone either finishing this game off in one sitting or coming back after each level clearing

This is definably a game to take your time and enjoy though. Murdered: Soul Suspect was released on Windows, Playstation 3 and 4 along with on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. The version I played was on Xbox One, one of the free titles offered awhile back on Games with Gold. I’m sure this copy wouldn’t be hard to find these days for cheap being around $5 to $10 dollars used. If you’re up for trying something a bit different and enjoy a good interactive murder mystery, you can’t do much worse than Murdered: Soul Suspect. Trust me you won’t be disappointed.

My Top 5 Octoberween Game Titles for 2018

5) Murdered: Soul Suspect – Price: Free with Microsoft’s Games With Gold offer on Xbox One.