I was already prepared for this game being more of an interactive story than a real adventure. It is true, there is a tremendous amount of hand-holding in this game, every task is listed, the riddles are not very difficult (and often of the mechanical kind, which I personally don't like). Still, as I was prepared for that, it is no big problem for me - I take the game as a relaxing interactive story. Unfortunately, it is not a very user-friendly game and so I don't enjoy playing it much. First, the good things - the voice acting is enjoyable, the graphics are out of date but still nice to look at. There is a feature of Poirot being able to draw conclusions from looking at people or places. A very nice idea, but here the bad execution starts. Basically one moves the mouse until the cursor changes from a white circle to a smaller green circle, which shows that one of the relevant objections was just made. A bit too easy. When talking to someone, words next to the person show that person's mood - it would have been nice if there were some clues to the mood that one could find oneself. So these two features don't add much to the game. They could have been much better executed to result in a real addition to gameplay. However, my main issue with this game is the tedious controls. I also have the added problem that my mouse lags when playing (I don't have this with any other game), so every action involving the mouse is slow and so fun. Add to this the unpleasant controls and mechanisms. For example, in order to compare two letters, one has to click onto one letter, point out something, click out, click onto the other letter, point the same thing out, click out and so on. Why not put both letters next to each other and just click similarities? Why are the letters not in the inventory but require tedious walking to the desk with many clicks? Everything takes longer than needed and it's not enjoyable. Pity, it could have been a good game.
