Hasbro has Clue regarding this classic

Web posted January 18, 1999

By Helen Ubinas
The Hartford Courant

Title: Clue: Murder at Boddy Mansion
Subject: Murder-mystery
Format: Windows
Ages: 8 and up
Manufacturer: Hasbro Interactive
Price: $30
Web site: www.hasbro-interactive.com

Call me a traditionalist, but if it was a board game when I was a kid, then so it should remain.

This isn't just an egotistical request. My experience with other board games gone interactive has not been good. The computerized version of Monopoly, also by Hasbro, left me craving the good old days when players actually held the car or the hat in their hand.

When it came to this computerized classic, though, I was all wrong.

All the elements of the board game aimed at solving Mr. Boddy's murder are here, from the characters to the inevitable questions: Whodunit? Where, and with what?

As in the classic, players direct their characters around a board and various rooms, except this board is 3D and the characters are animated. The lovely Miss Scarlet, for example, comes complete with an ``I'm all that'' dress and sashay.

But back to the familiar points. Players must deduce who the murderer is by accusing a character of using one of six deadly weapons in one of the mansion's nine rooms: Professor Plum in the library with a candlestick?

As murder combinations are eliminated, players get closer to finding out whodunit. Each player is allowed to make a suggestion while in a room. An original video clip then illustrates how the character could have performed the act with the weapon. This feature gives the CD version an eerie quality that the board game lacks.

Other new features include ``auto notes'' and the ``no die roll.'' The no die roll speeds up the game by giving players nine moves per turn.

The auto notes feature automatically records incorrect suggestions, eliminating the possibility of mistakes and leading to a faster and more accurate apprehension of the bad guy.

Although there's room for other players, I missed the interaction that comes from a good old-fashioned board game. Sitting around a computer just isn't the same as playing the game by a fire with a friend on a lazy afternoon.

Still, whoever thought of moving this classic to disc, had at least one thing on his side: a clue.