Crime Files 2: The Templar Knight

Reportedly there are plans afoot to change the name the English Channel to the 'Anglo-French Pond', or 'Le Pond'.

Putting the politics aside for a moment, I'm wondering if anyone has considered the unfortunate knock-on effect this will have on the Channel Tunnel - a name which rolls off the tongue with poetic ease and gives birth to the wonderful abbreviation 'Chunnel'.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the AnFrePunnel!

Which tenuously brings us back (via Paris) to the city of Marseille, and a delightful little cafe bar on the Place du Midi.

Not much has changed since last we visited the Bar du Midi in Crime Files: The Cursed Hotel. Michel still cuts a gaudy figure behind the counter, there are notably very few customers, and everyone who frequents the area seems to harbour some form of guilty secret.

But beyond the furnishings of the unadulterated setting there have been more than a handful of alterations, many of them very good indeed.

The Interrogation feature makes a welcome comeback, but perhaps the best of the improvements sees an increase in how many collectable objects our new protagonists, Officer Nadia Mogadi and Alex Zimmerman, can pick up in each chapter. As a result, there are far more red-herrings to traverse as you attempt to confound your suspects, giving the difficulty a much-needed boost.

Another welcome change is the wider range of locations to visit, and there are far more characters to interact with as you pick your way through a mystery involving catacombs, knights and dodgy back-street wheeler-dealers.

Crime Files 2: The Templar Knight stays true to the style and character of the series and features yet another involving storyline, told with the same verve as its predecessor. The developers have sensibly retained everything that worked in the first game whilst improving on those areas which were less than impressive.

This is very much a case where bigger is better.

That isn't to say there isn't room for improvement. Navigating the menus could be simpler, and you're unlikely to play it through more than once - making two of the game's three save slots a tad redundant.

But such minor criticisms aside, this is a charming if short story that will win a place dans votre cœur.