Anyone familiar with the works of Agatha Christie will know of the Belgian crime solving mastermind Hercule Poirot. He is, of course, just a fictional character, but quite easily one of Christie's most popular characters, and therefore quite easily one of the world's most popular fictional crime solvers. Although Poirot has featured in many full and short stories in both written and film/tv mediums, few were and still are as wildly acclaimed as Murder on the Orient Express, which saw great success in both its novel and film forms. Now a computer game variation using the classic "point-and-click" adventure genre formula has hit the scene (a good 30+ years after the main movie), and while fans should be pleased, it relies so heavily on the storyline aspects that anyone familiar with Murder on the Orient Express will probably fail to find enough new here to really enjoy the game, and anyone not already familiar will probably have a hard time looking past the gameplay concerns.

Even though developers AWE Games and publisher The Adventure Company managed to secure David Suchet - the man who plays Poirot in the current TV series Agatha Christie's Poirot - for the voice of Poirot in this game, the actual main character - as in the character you control - is Antoinette Marceau; a new character to the Murder on the Orient Express franchise, who is a representative of the Orient Express on board the train fulfilling her normal duties. Antoinette is an avid fan of Poirot, who also obviously boards the train, and finds herself working with Poirot to solve an on board murder, doing most of the dirty work thanks to the fact Hercule becomes bed ridden due to an injured ankle when the Express makes a sudden stop due to avalanche snow covering the tracks. Basically, this means you do the running around as Antoinette collecting clues and information, and bring it all back to Poirot in his cabin who offers insight and possible theories. As fans will know, this is quite a change in the classic's storyline but it not so much of a change that it has any real impact on how the story plays out, which is still fundamentally the same as the original book.

The game starts at the Sirkeci Train Station in Istanbul Turkey as you make your way through market areas on your way to boarding the train, and unfortunately it isn't long into the game when one of the more serious problems with the gameplay becomes evident, and that is the truly tedious and dreadfully mundane tasks the game will sometimes have you performing. Within the first few minutes of gameplay you will be given a serving of "help me find something I'm missing or you won't be able to continue the storyline" tasks which make absolutely no sense whatsoever as they have nothing at all to do with the game's main storyline not to mention the fact their very premise is terribly flawed; somehow two people standing in front of an otherwise obstacle free walkway prevents you from walking past without finding what they need first, or somehow the chef missing a side of bacon prevents a train from taking off until you find it are just two examples. These tasks and ones similar are nothing more than cheap frustrating ways for the game to extend its play time, and to litter the opening parts of the game with this certainly doesn't sell the game's initial impressions very well. While it could be argued these minor but necessary tasks are thrown in to introduce you to the game's characters, this could have been done in a far better and more realistic ways than forcing your "proper" 1930's female character to run around doing everyone's chores. Luckily, most tasks are not like this, but even so it isn't too much of a stretch to feel this game is little more than a movie at times where cutscenes play a greater role than actual gameplay. Don't get me wrong, cutscenes are great to watch and the ones in Murder on the Orient Express are pretty well made, but they definitely seem to be the focus which is a questionable design decision for a computer game.