An enjoyable romp true to Dame Agatha's Poirot

Murder on the Orient Express is the second Agatha Christie novel to be made into a PC game by AWE Productions, with several notable improvements from their first AC outing And Then There Were None (Ten Little Indians). The story centers on a murder aboard the famous Orient Express. Set in 1934 (when the novel was originally published), twelve passengers (including Belgian detective Hercule Poirot) are trapped in the snowbound train during a winter avalanche. When one of the passengers is murdered, all are suspect. Instead of playing as Poirot, a new character, Antoinette Marceau, was invented, combining two characters from the original novel: a French lieutenant and M. Bouc, director of the rail company. Antoinette does Poirot's sleuthing for him after he is injured, and does so with grace and wit.

The book deviates from the novel's original ending, adding a new dimension to the mix. The majority of the in-game dialogue is taken directly from the novel, and new dialogue fits in well with Dame Agatha's original spirit. Graphics are excellent: characters are appropriately dressed and styled for the mid-1930s, and the background details are exquisite. The in-game camera lends itself to very cinematic moments, including exterior shots of the train as Antoinette briefs Poirot. Although not perfect, I greatly enjoyed Murder on the Orient Express and am greatly impressed at how much thought and care was taken to make the game true to the book.

The good:
+ Graphics
+ Music
+ Plot (including "new" ending)
+ Inclusion of paperback copy of Murder on the Orient Express
+ Rating system (you earn more points for deducing solutions without Poirot's assistance)
+ Ability to jump between rail cars to cut down on backtracking
+ Superb voice acting, particularly from David Suchet, the original BBC Poirot

The bad:
- One or two extremely far-fetched puzzles that required a walkthrough (you'll never look at cake batter and orange juice the same way!)
- Certain features are not intuitive / user-friendly. The most serious of these are the inventory and fingerprinting functions.
- If you've already read the book / seen the movie, you know how this ends.
- If Antoinette is French (educated in England), why is her spoken French so horribly British???

Note: a patch is available that corrects several minor gameplay issues related to dialogue, inventory, and crashes.