Adventure games are forced to walk a fine line of gameplay in that they have to be difficult enough to make the player think, while at the same time be involving and entertaining enough to make them want to see everything through. Evil Under the Sun is the latest entry into the niche adventure genre, powered by the storyline and characters of the popular Agatha Christie novel of the same name. While the novel is as gripping as any of Agatha’s works the video game adaptation serves as little more as an example to show what happens when adventure games go bad.

The underlying premise of the title is that the player is being told the story of the case after its conclusion by Hercule Poirot, the famous detective found in dozens of Christie’s novels and the very detective who solved the crime in question. In this particular case a young woman has been murdered in a plush island resort frequented by the 1950’s most famous actresses as well as those just looking for a quiet retreat. Poirot, on the island for a now cut short vacation, takes it upon himself to sift through the mysterious circumstances surrounding the woman’s death and ultimately find the real killer and solve the mystery.

Evil Under the Sun plays much in the same manner as fans of adventure titles are already used to. The mouse pointer is an arrow with a circle attached, and context sensitive icons appear in the circle whenever the arrow is placed on an object that can be interacted with in some manner. Clicking on the floor will make Poirot slowly walk to the location, but if the area you click is a room transition such as a door or archway double clicking will immediately force the transition to happen. Walking over to interact with objects and talk to people cannot be accelerated, and can only be reached after Poirot makes his way there using his slow, plodding pace.

Poirot isn’t the only facet of the title that suffers from slow pacing. While adventure games often bring to mind games that require the player to figure out puzzles, think through problems, and ultimately find solutions such is not the case with Evil Under the Sun. Much of the gameplay is what can only be described as busywork such as talking with absolutely everyone about every topic available, dragging the mouse over every pixel of every room to scan for objects to interact with, and stealing everything that isn’t bolted down knowing that it will for some reason be used in some capacity later on.

The fact that all objects ultimately have some purpose and that Poirot has apparently limitless pockets in his vest means that the biggest puzzle that the game has to offer is simply that of locating every object that you can possibly pick up in each act of the game and hanging onto it for later use, or finding the dialog tree that unlocks the ability to acquire the item from someone. Even once the items are obtained their use is often outright silly, as in the case of when Poirot scavenges materials to build a little girl a bird-watching blind while at the same time acknowledging that he has no experience in doing so.

What this boils down to is that the majority of the gameplay seen in the title is split between either mindlessly wandering the game world making absolutely certain you speak to everyone and touch everything every time the plot changes, or using items you had picked up some time earlier out of context in odd situations. Thankfully speaking with people is actually a pleasant affair, with overall a skilled set of voice actors and facial animations and expressions that are rather realistic. On the negative side the voicing of Poirot is easily the most often heard while at the same time one of the worst, with an accent delivery that for the most part sounds either forced or just badly performed.

As Poirot slowly explores the game world it is apparent that the game is set in the 1950’s. Everything from the clothing styles on characters to the furnishings of the resort seem ripped from the days of yore, and the language and vocabulary used by characters is equally fitting of the time period. The character models themselves range in their looks from average to striking, and though the animations are often more robotic than natural the overall level of detail in the characters is outstanding. The world itself however often lacks any quantifiable level of detail, which makes objects that can be interacted with stick out at the expense of making the world seem barren. In-game movies that serve to expand upon gameplay or plot elements are much worse for wear though, with an overall fuzzy and slightly washed out look that destroys any level of detail left in them.