Murder in the Abbey (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 7.0 (3.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Brett Todd
• Reviewed on: 09/03/2008
• Released on: 08/26/2008
• Originally published on GameSpot: Murder in the Abbey (PC) Review

The odd combination of monks and murder has been a staple of whodunit fiction for decades, so the biggest mystery here is why somebody didn't come up with an adventure game like Murder in the Abbey (known in Europe as simply The Abbey) before now. Developer Crimson Cow delivers a solid take on the murderous monastery minigenre, too, thanks to a smart story and impressively painted scenery populated by cartoonish characters reminiscent of graphic novels. Unimaginative puzzles and some overwritten dialogue make your sleuthing tedious at times, although the adventure still delivers a gripping, sharp-looking trip back to the Middle Ages.

However, if you're looking for something with the faintest hint of originality, you might want to look elsewhere. This utter lack of imagination extends to the storyline, a good chunk of which has been rather liberally scarfed from The Name of the Rose. Here you play Brother Leonardo of Toledo, a monk sent to deliver his teenage sidekick Bruno to the Nuestra Senora de la Natividad Abbey for study with the resident monks. Unfortunately, dark, dastardly murder interferes with this kiddie drop-off. Someone tries to kill Leonardo and Bruno on their way into the monastery by rolling a boulder onto them, Wile E. Coyote-style, and the duo then discover that a monk has recently died in a mysterious fashion. Given that Leonardo is basically Sherlock Holmes with a tonsure, right down to his nearly supernatural powers of observation that let him figure out nearly everything about everybody from just the briefest glance, he sets out to solve the mystery of the murdered monk.

Gameplay is focused almost entirely on interrogating monks like the usual adventure-game gumshoe, as well as collecting useful objects. There are just a couple of set-piece logic puzzles in Murder in the Abbey, and these are basic brainteasers in which you slide tiles around to form a picture and click on faces on a bas-relief to open a secret door. Carrying conversations and picking up whatever isn't nailed down are the cornerstones of your investigations. Most of the riddles here are based on common sense, at any rate, which keeps the game out of need-a-walkthrough land. Considering that you don't have to worry about the absurd leaps of logic that are all too common to old-school adventure games, you need to concentrate on your surroundings and simply grab items that have a reasonably obvious purpose. So when a key falls out of a book, you know to scoop it up. Spot some gunpowder? Ditto. Run across an icon of the Virgin Mary? Pocket that, too.

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