Evil Under the Sun is generally considered one of Agatha Christie's best novels; featuring intrepid detective Hercules Poirot in one of his most memorable capers. Unfortunately, fans of the Christie novel can expect little familiarity. To some extent this might be expected in a modern adaptation, however, in the final execution, there are far too many strange strings left untied. The final game fails to come together and players are left with a lackluster title that does nothing more than share the name of a classic novel.

The game is played as one of Poirot's memories. However, the gameplay quickly becomes somewhat inane. Point and click adventures have lost steam for a multitude of reasons, but one of the biggest lies in their constant need for players to pick up random objects. Occasionally, these items make sense, at least in the confines of a current puzzle. However, Evil Under the Sun seems to intentionally avoid that, doing two very distinct things. First, players must pick up every item they find, no matter how out there it may seem. There are points when you'll pick up an item that is completely useless for the first few hours you hold it, perhaps even longer. This leads to instances where many of the later puzzles in the game will go completely unsolved if you're missing objects. The second issue is that the item usage is far from logical, and a ball of lint could solve four or five puzzles down the line. This becomes tiring, especially as Poirot is forced to act like a pick pocket of sorts, going through bags and hotel rooms to find some seemingly unnecessary items that eventually lead to solutions. If anything, Poirot comes off as some kind of thief rather than a detective, stealing from women and children on his way to solving a crime that you most likely will have stopped caring about.

Evil under the Sun definitely has a nice aesthetic quality to it.

This is ultimately a problem that many adventure games have been plagued with for years now, and it merely continues on in Under the Sun. There are even puzzles as silly as picking up large boulders, to be later used as bird blinds, but without any explanation whatsoever as to why you would pick it up and carry it in the first place. The game itself revolves around going from place to place, asking questions of the hotel guests, and trying to see if someone has moved. This is supposed to be the way in which a player knows that something has changed, but in practice it just seems silly. Retracing the same steps over and over does not lead to adventure but rather repetition, and this kills the overall feeling of the game. Fans of the genre may enjoy these trivialities, but anyone interested in solving the game's initial murder may find it nothing more than an exercise in futility.

The in-game voice acting is actually quite good, if not a bit tongue in cheek. The biggest complaint lies in the once masterful detective Poirot sounding almost cartoonish. He walks around, somewhat blundering, making statements that may be perceived as idiotic. The saving grace lies in the ability of the actors portraying the ancillary characters, which this helps to bring them to life. A huge crutch of adventure games is obviously the story, and although AWE Games seems to have some aversion towards Christie's base work, they generally keep the actual writing and plot moving along. To some extent, liberties needed to be made on a story written over sixty years ago, such as changing the ending to keep diehard readers guessing. However, the game strays too far from the base material. In fact, past basing the story in the same locale and relying on many of the same characters, the game itself has almost nothing to do with the book, which is not a good thing. In one respect, adventure gamers are given a new look at a classic story. Realistically though, it feels more like a butchering of a beloved story than an exciting new chapter in the Agatha Christie world.

The game excels graphically, at least in the overall design. The artistry fits well within the time frame and the characters all look great. Featuring an art deco look that ties the game's characters together well, it is among the strongest pillars this game can stand on. Along with the fine acting, the book's characters truly come to life in their renderings, which helps to bring some likeability to them. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the cutscenes do not fare as well. They are generally blurry, with certain characters looking significantly better than others. Some actually look almost morbid, missing facial features that the more prominent characters have. It's a shame actually, as the graphic design truly seems to bring the game along well enough, only until these little blips start to detract from the overall experience. As mentioned before, the voice acting is great and the sound design earns some extra points here. Each character sounds unique and different along with the locales themselves sounding very lifelike. The music also helps to set the tone, taking queues from story; revving up in times of suspense.

Feel free to guess how many seemingly pointless items are hidden in this room.

Inevitably, gamers are left with yet another adventure game that completely misses its mark. On the graphics and sound production side of things, this title is generally quite good. Graphically, the game has some problems, but overall, it comes off as both original and interesting. The game play however does not. From collecting silly objects to calculating whether or not said silly objects will be of importance, the game truly suffers from one of the worst cases of poor planning. Similarly, the destruction of the base material and the hammy nature of the main character distract from what could easily have been a home run, for both adventure game and mystery novel fans. Evil Under the Sun fails to live up to either its genre or Christie's lofty expectations, and players are better off not trying to solve this poorly constructed murder case.