Lost Souls is the third in the Dark Fall franchise of games and sees the player taking the role of the Inspector, a man literally haunted by his past. The latest title returns us to the English village of Dowerton and, more specifically, its train station and adjoining hotel, which was the location for the first game in the series. It’s fair to say that if you have played the previous instalments then you’ll pretty much know what to expect, and Lost Souls shares the same highs and lows as its predeccessors.

Considering the range of free-roaming PC games out there, Lost Souls feels like a dinosaur even when compared to other games in the point-and-click genre, which rarely command big enough budgets to fund much innovation. The game is delivered entirely in slideshow, with your character only being able to move in arcs of 90 degrees. I disliked this style of adventure game five years ago, and my feelings haven’t changed; irritation is only intensified by the fact that there is barely an animation in sight and some of the voice-acting is repet­itive and less than engaging.

The other big problem, for me at least, was the fact that some of the puzzles are so convoluted that it’s hard to imagine anyone would be able to work them out on their own, even with the healthy amount of tips provided. The most taxing of puzzles require not just thinking outside the box, but throwing the box away, along with any sense of logic, and working on the assumpt­ion that the answer will defy all reason.

Strangely, other elements are done well enough to almost, though not quite, compensate for these failings. In spite of the fact many a five-year-old mobile phone game is more immersive overall than this, the sound effects and score are superb at creating a genuinely spooky atmosphere. I must confess that the use of sound alone had me unnerved on several occasions, unus­ually for a game like this. The story, too, is interesting and engaging enough, if a little cliché-heavy at times!

Dark Fall: Lost Souls is not going to be a game for everyone – in fact, I’d hazard a guess that it won’t even be a game for many fans of the adventure genre. But if you can forgive the failings listed above and think “that doesn’t sound too bad” then I wish you the best of luck with this deeply flawed and frustrating title.