Welcome… to Casa Hastings
Far bet it from me to complain aboutAgatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The London Caseintroducing more incongruous eye candy, after myprevious conniptions over Hot Hipster Poirotwith his ankle-grazer trousers and his sexy egg-shaped head, but tick tock, it’s himbo Hastings o’clock. Released onSteamthis week, The London Case takes young Poirot to, err, London, charged with protecting a famous painting along with a representative of the insurance firm. Naturellement, the painting is stolen from an apparently locked room under everyone’s silly noses, and thus begins Poirot and Hastings' first puzzle caper together (for who else is our insurance representative?).
The game is a little bit larger as well, with a few different locations to visit in the course of your investigation (which I have not yet finished). You rotate the scene like a little diorama of a museum office, or a flat, or a church, and send Poirot to look around. I’ve run into a couple of sections where I can’t find the last clue in an area, because one must click on a specific part of a fire trail, but in general it all works well, and there’s a good cast of insufferable suspects. There’s even an old friend returning from the first game, which I found unexpectedly heartwarming. But the main innovation is Hastings.
I say innovation. He’s just a man. A big blonde hunk. He stands there and has a nice curl in his hair. Like Watson, who Sherlock Holmes once said was a useful “helpmate”, in part because he found every development in the case a complete surprise (and sometimes because he was used as a humanrubber duck), Hastings' job in this game is to be impressed as you solve the crime. He reminds me of the ITV version of Hastings, who said, “I say!” a lot, and liked cars, and was a fool for pretty women.
I can’t explain it, but it makes everything feel so much more detective-y to have a slightly nonplussed sidekick there, to be amazed at you smelling poison and then deducing that someone has, in fact, been poisoned. Extremely ugly naming convention aside, I find these games absolutely charming and quite funny. I’m extremely excited to see the introduction of Young Hot Inspector Japp, which is surely only a matter of time…
