Unfortunately for billionaire hotel developer Walter Jones, the beach below the rocky cliff on Sagorah Island was not wheelchair-accessible. On this beach, investigator Jack Norm examines Jones's body, with the wheelchair perched precariously on the cliff's edge above. Was it the fall that killed Jones? Probably, Jack thinks, as he examines Jones's tangled corpse. But the woman's fingernail lodged in Jones's cheek and the bludgeon wound on his forehead indicate otherwise.

A dead man and his wheelchair. Sinking Island begins here.

And so begins Sinking Island, the upcoming point-and-click mystery adventure from developer White Birds. At the helm is writer Benoit Sokal of Syberia fame, and his preferred brand of noir is evident from the opening cutscene as Jack choppers to Sagorah Island in the Maldives. Looming above the swaying palms is the Jones Tower Residence, the most recent--and final--project of the eccentric developer. For what is supposed to be an unrivaled tourist attraction, the tower is dark and ominous, with elements of gothic architecture--not exactly Club Med we're talking about here. The constant storms that pound the region are not ideal for snorkeling, either. Although not ideal for a tourist brochure, the gloomy atmosphere does serve as a fitting backdrop for another of Sokal's mystery games.

The Jones Tower has yet to open to the public, so there are only 10 people on the island, and everyone's a suspect. We'll leave most of the investigation to you, but you'll quickly run into Jones's pretentious lawyer Hubert de Nolent, freeloading grandson Billy Jones, and sexy island native Baina Jumhu. Given that Jack is a trained investigator, you won't have to wander around the island blindly, piecing together random clues in a maddening pixel hunt. Instead, the game is broken up into 10 questions that act as minor investigations within the entire mystery. The first question Jack asks, fittingly, is, "Was Walter Jones murdered?"

This first question acts as a basic tutorial while you search for evidence to answer this question. Besides the forehead wound, a fingernail in the cheek, scratch marks on the face, and a wheelchair on a cliff above, there are also numerous footprints that indicate a struggle. It doesn't take Nancy Drew to see that Jones expired prematurely, and against his will.

At your disposal is the handy PPA, aka personal police assistant, which helps organize photos, documents, and interviews with suspects. By pointing and clicking your way through the hotel and the grounds, you'll casually interview suspects, asking for their whereabouts at the time of the murder and their thoughts on the other guests. When you have enough evidence in the PPA to answer the major question, you simply punch in the clues, hit enter, and progress to the next chapter of the game. There's also a matching tool that's useful for matching up footprints to boots, comparing fingerprints, or discerning if two items are parts of the same object.

Sounds neat, but then why not simply title this mystery "Jack Norm and the Curse of Sagorah Island"? Because Sagorah is, you guessed it, sinking. In fact, in the span of three days, the island will disappear beneath the Indian Ocean for all time, taking along every piece of evidence with it. As the water level rises, certain areas and items will become inaccessible as they are washed away, and Jack is not a licensed scuba diver.

Jones Tower is full of atmosphere, but it's no Disneyland.

Along with the standard adventure mode, there's a race-against-time mode in which the island sinks even faster. The guests are surlier and will get annoyed at your constant questioning, forcing you to gather evidence even faster. All of this action is accompanied by an excellent cinematic score that pulsates throughout the island, an ominous opus of heavy strings and piano sure to induce, um, a sinking feeling.

For adventure fans looking for another mystery to solve, Sinking Island is due this fall for $29.99.

E3 '07: Sega dishes on E3 lineup

Seth Walker isn't the only one in Space Siege having fun. On board the other surviving colony ship, the Tachibana, up to four players can join together to eliminate the Kerak menace and save what remains of humanity after the Kerak rudely destroyed Earth. After playing through the single-player portion of Gas Powered Games' upcoming dungeon-crawler-in-space, we jumped into this multiplayer mode to get our action role-playing game fix.

Multiplayer isn't a separate campaign, really, but rather a series of battles that act more like a challenge mode. You begin by creating a character in a large cargo hold inside the Tachibana, distributing your skill points, selecting cybernetic implants, and upgrading your weaponry. Although Seth Walker starts out with nothing more than a machine gun and a can-do attitude in the single-player mode, you have full access to upgrades in multiplayer. Gas Powered Games likens it to starting out in World of Warcraft as a level 70 character.

Of course, many of the most potent combat and engineering upgrades are tethered to cybernetic implants, the crux of the single-player game. It all starts with a simple cybernetic eye, and then it's a slippery slope to the point where you transform your character into mechanical war machine with cybernetic legs, arms, torso, and even a brain. In the single-player game, the people will react to your deformed appearance if you choose to sacrifice your own humanity to save the human race; you'll even hear screams as you install your implants. Staying completely human does have a few rewards, such as 50 percent damage reduction as a discipline bonus. But in the challenge mode that is multiplayer, cybernetic implants certainly make the game easier.

Once you've outfitted yourself with implants, distributed skill points, and traded in parts to upgrade a few weapons (sonic blaster, rocket launcher, and laser rifle, to name a few), it's time to hit the Tachibana's tram system and take on one of the 15 missions that will see you regain control of the ship. Regardless of whether you're rebooting life support systems, disabling the engine, or eliminating the Kerak leader, each mission basically tasks you with killing a bunch of Kerak.

To do so, you use the typical point-and-click controls found in past action RPGs from Gas Powered Games, such as Dungeon Siege. Things are a bit more action-oriented, given that you have an evade key that activates a slick roll move to help you dodge incoming fire. A major concern is that you can't fire and run at the same time. Battles quickly become frustrating as you aim your cursor at an enemy and right click to fire, then have to move the cursor again and left click to move, and then right click again to fire. Considering that the game plays like a basic third-person-shooter, support for a gamepad would have greatly benefited players hoping to strafe while cutting down Kerak. Of course, the strength of Space Siege is mostly found in the story and your cybernetic-upgrade decisions, but those elements are mostly absent from multiplayer modes. One thing that isn't absent is challenge. Getting through a battle alive with your friends is a rewarding experience, no matter what percentage human you are.