VIDEO GAME REVIEW

“Murdered: Soul Suspect”

Grade: C+

Details: Square Enix, for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, $59.99

Death is rarely permanent in video games. Whether you’re Mario, Lara Croft or Master Chief, no matter how many times you get “killed,” you can always dust yourself off and leap back into the fray.

That’s not the case for Detective Ronan O’Connor, who’s dead from the very start of “Murdered: Soul Suspect” . You would be, too, if you’d been shoved out a fourth-story window and shot seven times in the chest.

But Ronan still has things to do, so his ghost rises from his still-bleeding corpse and gets back to work. First on the agenda: figure out the identity of the Bell Killer, the serial murderer who took Ronan down.

“Murdered” is, in some ways, a refreshingly old-fashioned mystery. And while it displays some gory homicides, it’s oddly nonviolent. In his spectral state, Ronan can’t pick up anything, so he can’t use guns or knives or even his fists. All he can do is linger around crime scenes, look for clues and try to piece together what happened.

Ronan can also possess other characters in the game, but even then his abilities are limited. He can read their minds and goose their memories to see if they’ve witnessed anything important. If they’re already in motion, he can hitch a ride to get past certain obstacles. He can also possess cats, which comes in handy if he needs to climb trees or sneak around air ducts.

“Murdered” is set in Salem, Massachusetts, so you know it’s connected to the 1690 witch trials. I was sure I had the Bell Killer’s identity nailed, but the final reveal is more clever — and disturbing — than I had expected.

—Lou Kesten, Associated Press