Cruise for a Corpse

Posted by Matthew Lee.
First posted on 01 February 2011. Last updated on 01 February 2011.
Articles  »  Reviews
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Released in 1991, Cruise for a Corpse is a murder mystery point-and-click adventure game set aboard a sailing ship. Originally released in French by Delphine Software, remnants of some poor translation litter the English dialogs in the game.

You play as French Inspector Raoul Dusentier, who has been invited on a cruise by the wealthy businessman Niklos Karaboudjan. Shorty upon boarding, Raoul is…

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Previous Comments

Excellent

One of the best detective based games on Amiga 500 !
Beautiful graphics with great sound and NPC involvement. Hard to forget .....

Germany By markegiani • On 08 February 2015 • From Novi Sad, Serbia

Very Good

I absolutley loved this game when i had it on my Amiga 500. I remember i could never finish it. I was only about 8-10 years old. Got so stuck, managed to open a boarded up door with a crowbar but ended up dead as the blackened out figure of the murderer crept up behind me during a cut scene and killed me with a single blow to the head. Will try to get this to work when my PC turns up! I need to finish this game! I need closure from all those years ago. I'm older and wiser so i should (hopefully) be able to complete it. Great game but maybe thats just the nostalgia talking :)

United States By Alex • On 20 September 2014 • From England

Very true, Phil. An oversight in the review, though I agree it is one of the main problems with the game. Much like the almost randomly appearing items, there is no indication when or which line of questioning you should again be persuing with a character.

I must admit, though, that I found this less frustrating than the hard to find clues. At least with the conversations you could methodically go through each option with the characters available if you were at an impasse. Finding tiny, insignificant clues was plain blind luck most of the time.

I'm sure I checked that hallway cupboard about a thousand times.

Australia By Matthew Lee • On 11 February 2011 • From Australia

Very Good

Cruise for a Corpse deserves a lot of praise for being the only adventure game to really implement a whodunnit mystery well. The game escapes the limitations of a linear design by building creditable cases against several of the game's suspects. True; if you get to the end and guess the wrong one then you really weren't paying attention, but there is a surprising depth to the story which I still appreciate. And the idea that the characters would be somewhat slippery and you wouldn't be always able to find them was an interesting touch; later put to far better use by The Last Express.

The mechanics of the game are, though, a real problem. The review mentions some of the annoyances involved in suddenly discovering an item in a location where there wasn't one before (in some cases it's excusable; like when a robe turns up in a laundry basket presumably after a maid has done the rounds. But in others it's all rather ridiculous. The number of times important letters are discovered hidden inside piles of laundry is quite spectacular)

Not mentioned in the review is the game's worst habit: you can question characters on the same topics over and over again. Very occasionally, the same question will yield a different result (usually in response to something that has happened in the game) but sometimes you'll find that a question will only result in game progress at certain preset times. Meaning you constantly have to ask everyone about everything. Ever. Time. You. See. Them.

Canada By Phil C • On 09 February 2011 • From Vancouver, Canada