And Then There Were None is the story of eight very different guests who are invited to a mansion on a remote island. One by one, each of them dies in the manner described in a children's poem titled "Ten Little Indians." A copy of the poem hangs in each of the guestrooms. The title of the poem was also one of the less offensive titles of the novel, play, and movies.
The gameplay represents the divide between the usually slow-paced, deliberate action of PC point-and-click adventures and what a lot of console gamers will readily find boring and frustrating. Luckily, the developers managed to come up with some interesting uses for the Remote. These touches are sporadic and sometimes not readily apparent or explained; the often cryptic in-game instruction refers to this frustration as "part of the puzzle." You hold "A" and twist the Remote like a door knob to open doors. The Remote is also used to dig, pump, and carry out other physical actions. This is not enough to appease most console gamers, or casual gamers for that matter. It takes a very special player to enjoy the deliberate pace, especially with a throw-away, bargain-bin mystery like this. And they will grow weary soon enough; and then there were none.
The cinematic sequences throughout the game are lush and stylistic, but technically very much in the past. The in-game graphics are even worse, with lackluster avatars and static, nebulous backgrounds. The game shows its age, and the Remote updates can't begin to obscure that.
The game goes against the grain of the original story, and fans may find this frustrating. The classic is a classic because it broke many of the traditions and conventions of murder mysteries up to that point: no detective solves the case, the murderer goes undetected, and the story's construction is confusing enough that guessing the killer is nearly impossible. So, interject a lackluster sea captain turned detective to turn all that around, and well, it could lead to another kind of murder.
Searching for clues or even empty space to find some way to progress the action will continue for hours on end. Your search will then turn to a weapon to dispatch yourself. To solve this one, you're going to need to be a PC gamer born in the early 1970's or Agatha Christie herself. If you bought this game for PC three years ago, you might have been pleased with the clunker, especially if you had little knowledge of its genesis. But as a Wii title in 2008, a few added control gimmicks can't save this from the bargain bin of the slowing trend PS2 and PC ports that just shouldn't be.
Pros:
Lastability: 1.5
I'd rather watch the 1945 film version with the sound off than play this game again. You'd have a better chance reading Walter Huston's lips than solving this clunker.
Final: 3.5
It's easy to ruin a classic, so it's no surprise this game does such a good job of it. The slow-paced point-and-click play will be enough to turn most players off. The limited Remote gimmicks try to advance the gameplay but fail. Read the book, see the play, watch the film, but skip the game.
