Clue: Murder At Boddy Mansion / Cluedo: Murder at Blackwell Grange EAI Interactive / Hasbro Interactive 1998

This is a very competent translation of Parker Brothers' popular board game to the computer screen. If you've ever played Clue for any length of time, you'll be amazed at how good this translation to the PC really is. In fact, this is probably more fun than playing the board game. If you've never played Clue at all, the basic setup goes like this: Six characters are at the mansion of Mr. Boddy, and through some underhanded means, one of the characters has murdered him. Playing one of the six characters, you move from room to room making suggestions about who killed him with which weapon. The suggested location of the murder is always the room in which you're making the suggestion. Once the suggestion is made, the other characters must show clues to disprove the suggestion if they have any. Through a system of cards, the actual murderer's name, choice of weapon, and location of the crime are chosen from a deck containing all the character names, weapons, and locations. The rest of the cards are handed out randomly to all the characters. When you make a suggestion, anyone disproving it shows you one of his cards that fills in one of the missing pieces of the mystery. By analyzing who's making what suggestions and knowing which cards you and others have, you try to accuse someone of the murder. A bunch of great shortcut scenes were added that accompany the suggestions about the murder. You'll be amazed the first time you see Ms. Scarlet whacking someone with a lead pipe the size of Pittsburgh and hear the thud as the metal makes contact with the victim. Playing this game at work is one thing, but you really have to sit at home in a dark room with a couple of friends to get the true feel of murder solving. The cutscenes are different for each character and weapon, so don't think that they're just repeated animations. Clue offers full animations of the characters walking from room to room. While this is interesting for a while, you'll probably want to play with the standard overhead view of the board. Along with the animations is a really good soundtrack that includes sounds of the storm outside the mansion and a forbidding butler who calls out each suggestion as it is played. There's really just one problem with the game. The suggestions of the computer players go by so fast, that it's often difficult to follow what's happening. The "autonotes" feature that takes notes as to what cards you've seen doesn't record what suggestions have already been made, so making educated guesses as to which cards people don't have by their suggestions becomes a pen and paper experience. This modern version of the game sports classy graphics, three ranges of computer opponents (which can be VERY good), network gaming, Butler voice-overs and 3D animated character cut-scenes for suggestions. Some years later, the game was given out free with boxes of cereal.
Reviews
Multilanguage-8 ISO Demo (provided by Meddle & upped by Scaryfun) 363MB
English UK ISO Demo (provided by Meddle & upped by Scaryfun) 93MB
Clue: Murder at the Boddy Mansion - ISO Demo 482MB (uploaded by Internet Archive Software Collection)
Full Demo with dgVoodoo to run on modern o/s 130MB (uploaded by The Collection Chamber)


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