The game takes place on a 1930s vintage Nile River cruise ship. You, as Poirot, have to search the ship for physical clues and interrogate the passengers. Searching is done in several passenger cabins and common areas, such as the salon or reading room. These are depicted in a colorful though somewhat cluttered configuration complete with many, many objects--some obvious, others not so obvious--but mostly appropriate to the era.

In each area you are given a list of objects to find within an allotted time. If you’re successful, you can move on. Some objects become clues in the mystery, such as an empty jewelry box belonging to a wealthy woman, or a bloody letter written on a wall. You can leave an area and come back to it later if you start to get cross-eyed staring at the scene so long, but then you’ll be presented with a new list of objects. You’re granted five hints (arrows pointing to the object) for the entire game. These hints should be used wisely, and if you click too often and too randomly you’re docked time on the clock.

You’ll have an opportunity to gather information from the 14 suspects and others for additional help to solve the mystery. Every so often you are presented with a bonus mini-game that provides additional clues. Eventually you must match clues, quotes and suspicions to identify the killer.

The game plays easily and is colorful and appealing. Although occasionally frustrating, this game does provide a different approach to a famous murder mystery adventure.

From Oberon Games, www.oberongames.com, Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Free 60 minute trial download, $19.95 purchase.

Image Doctor 2 (****) is a plug-in requiring Photoshop CS2 or Photoshop Elements 5 for its use and provides easy-to-use tools to quickly perform photo retouching, restoration and repair.

Image Doctor 2 includes five tools that you can use for retouching jobs. Each tool has factory presets that worked well for us, but you can tweak the settings for a better result, such as increasing or decreasing the amount or blur or changing the area of replacement reference. In most instances, to use a tool (except the JPEG repair tool – more about that later) you’ll need to open the picture in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements and select the area to repair, select the tool you want to use and the repair is then done automatically. You can toggle between the original and repaired image to check the effect of the tool. If you like it, you can accept it; if not, redo the selection area or tweak the settings or even apply a different tool if necessary.

The Blemish Concealer tool allows you to select a pimple, mole, rash and the like on your photo and it disappears--poof! Whatever you selected is replaced by just the right texture and shade of skin to match the rest of the face. Repeat the action as often as you need. This tool can even be used to remove distracting stains on clothing.

The Skin Softener tool does more magic by removing wrinkles, under-eye shadows, circles, bags or by reducing skin glare and the like. This tool is especially useful in creating a "Magazine Cover" style appearance that the program is able to do without overdoing it. The program recommends using the Blemish Concealer first to get rid of discrete blemishes such as pimples.

The Dust and Scratch Remover is useful for restoring old black and white photos that have cracked or flaked over the years or even recent color photos that have suffered damage. Select the scratch, dust or fold marks and apply the tool. If a linear defect affects non-homogeneous parts of the photo you may need more than one selection to remove it.

The Smart Fill tool was the most amazing one to use. It’s used for removing large objects from relatively complex backgrounds. Although this tool can be used in a "quick and dirty" removal, you may find yourself wanting to exercise a bit more control by using some of the variable manual settings.

The JPEG Repair tool, unlike the other tools, does not require a selection area and will work on the entire image. The tool is designed to improve the appearance of highly compressed, low-res, blocky images captured from the Web or taken by camera phones. It applies de-blocking, blur and grain to do this. Use the factory defaults or manually control each setting.

Help is in the form of an online pdf manual that reads easily and is very helpful, even incorporating a sense of humor. Phone or e-mail technical support comes with the program.

Image Doctor 2 is a very useful, though admittedly expensive, plug-in for Photoshop that can give your portraits that magazine-cover look, remove acne form your teenager’s face or subtract your ex-husband from that vacation photo with ease.

From Alien Skin (www.alienskin.com), Windows XP with Pentium 4 or PowerPC G5 or Intel processor and Mac OS x 10.4 including Leopard, $199).