The main strength of the title is the satisfaction that comes with unraveling the mystery at hand. While the story is nothing new – that’s sort of the point. This is meant to be a throwback to a genre staple, with all of the British accents, 1940s accoutrements, and Clue-esque character archetypes you can throw a pulp novel at. Agatha Christie nuts (do you play Wii games?) can rest easy knowing that a new ending is in place, lest the fun of the adventure be completely spoiled.

Unfortunately, the highlights end there. The graphics are pretty chunky and the character models are PS1-era at best. The pre-rendered backgrounds and brief cut scenes look just fine, but the janky animation and atrocious lip-syncing really don’t do the Wii service at all (and really, that’s saying something). The voice acting is quite good, if a little over the top, and the background sounds (there’s very little music) fit together well, but it’s tough to get over the ugliness swimming around on the screen.

The biggest issue by far is the unforgiving old-school design. You really will run around for hours, trying to find that one stupid item that you need to progress – and nearly all of the objects blend right in with the backgrounds, making this task all the more frustrating. More often than it should, it comes down to scouring screens for that little blob of pixels that signify something of interest – a flaw that really should’ve died in 1995.

You will get lost, and you will get blocked, and the in-game hint system (which involves “the finger of justice” – a literal finger that spins around) isn’t very helpful. More often than not, you’ll stumble upon the right solution out of pure blind luck or tons of trial and error. This, my friends, is archaic game design, and I believe most players will quit out of sheer frustration or boredom long before Poirot puts the final pieces together and wows everyone in the denouement.

The bottom line is that it’s impossible to recommend this title to anyone who isn’t a fairly hardcore adventure buff. The price is right ($30), and the story is solid, but this is an old-school game with old-school problems. If you can deal with that, and you like this style of game, you’ll probably enjoy Evil Under the Sun. Otherwise, stick with Sam and Max Season One or the Strong Bad games on WiiWare for a much friendlier adventure fix.

Questions or comments? We'd love to hear from you .