I do enjoy a bit of detective work. When it comes to detectives, few are as renowned as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Poirot’s most famous case involves the world’s most famous train. Publisher and developer, Microids brings you Agatha Christie – Murder On The Orient Express. A modern spin on the classic tale, now in video game form.

“Step on board the legendary Orient Express and immerse yourself in the most famous detective suit in a race against the clock to unmask the murderer.”

Please allow me to get this bit out of the way first. I don’t like the modern setting. Taking Hercule Poirot out of the novel’s 1935 setting and putting him in the modern day just did not work for me. Technically, this takes place (a few weeks) in the future as it is set in December 2023. Just seeing Poirot use a smartphone and such felt really off. But, modern setting aside, how is the game?

If you don’t know the story of the novel, I’m not going to spoil it for you here. But the gist is, Playing as Hercule Poirot, you board the Orient Express and soon after, somebody turns up dead. Using your detective skills, you have to work out who the killer is. On the surface, it is pretty basic stuff, but there is a reason why Murder On The Orient Express is one of Agatha Christie’s most loved and famous stories. Thankfully, this game does a cracking job of sticking to the plot of the novel, but also doing several new things with it.

One of those new things is the addition of a new character. What! Somebody has had the audacity to add a new character to an established story from a world-famous and respected writer? Yes, yes they have. That character is Joanna Locke, a police officer who gets pulled into the plot and even becomes a playable character. Even more so… she really works too and how she ties into the main plot is pretty damn clever. I do have to applaud the devs for being brave enough to change things up and still have them feel authentic.

The gameplay of Agatha Christie – Murder On The Orient Express has you playing as Hercule Poirot (sometimes Joanna Locke) as you question suspects, search for clues, examine crime scenes and piece everything together until you find the killer. Conversations are as easy as just selecting a reply/question from a menu. Examining crime scenes will have you picking up clues/evidence and such. Everything is recorded and maintained in a ‘mind map’, as the game calls it. Said mind map really works as a ‘what to do list’ and it comes in very handy as you’ll often be juggling more than one mystery at a time.

There are a handful of logic puzzles along the way too. Things like helping the chefs of the train squeeze all of their ingredients into the fridge in a jigsaw/Tetris kind of way. Putting the gears into an orange juice maker (don’t ask) and such. There’s plenty here to keep the old grey matter working and even if you know the story like the back of your hand, there are still several surprises in this modern take on the tale.

There is something that I wanted to bring up. You can’t really fail anything. You can get a bit stuck on some of the logic puzzles, but that is why they are logic puzzles. While you can get stuck (but work it out eventually) you can’t fail any of the puzzles. You can’t fail when questioning suspects or examining crime scenes either. Let’s say you are talking to someone and you give the wrong response, there is no punishment, Poirot will just mutter something to himself (no that’s incorrect, I must try again) and you just pick another option. At times, you have to try and reconstruct a series of events for them to make sense. As with the conversations, you can get it wrong and you can just try again with no punishment. I guess this is to make the game flow as getting stuck (which never happens) would become frustrating but, it does make the game a bit of a cakewalk.

Priced at around £34 (depending on format) and out now on Steam, PlayStation Switch and Xbox. Agatha Christie – Murder On The Orient Express is pretty damn good. There are a few rough edges, some of the animations feel very ‘dated’ and I did cringe once or seven times at some of the voice acting. I may not have liked the modern setting, just personal preference. But those slight niggles aside, I really enjoyed my time with this game. It may be a bit too easy for hardened sleuths out there as there is no way to fail and no punishment for getting anything wrong. Still, this is a great story with a new modern twist and playing though it really was enjoyable with plenty of variety along the way.