CSI: Hard Evidence—Playing to the Choir
January 7, 2008 | Filed Under Game Reviews | No Comments
As anyone who watches the TV show CSI knows, the attraction is in the oddities of crime the team encounters added to the quirky CSI cast of characters.
CSI: Hard Evidence does just enough with both of these features to make the video game appealing, but if you are one of the few hermits out there who does not watch the show, you will not like this game.
As a neophyte crime scene investigator, you face five unrelated cases with different partners in each. As you collect evidence, you become aware that most of the investigative work has already been done for you. As in the point and click mode of the previous three installments of this moneymaker, your cursor glows green when you stumble across a piece of relevant evidence. For a gamer, this is just too easy. For a CSI aficionado, you will overlook this deficiency and wallow in the exciting familiarity of the environment and the characters.
Voiceover narration by some of the principals of the show adds a layer of appeal that enables you to feel more involved in the solution of the crime. Visually, CSI: Hard Evidence does not look sharp enough to elicit any WOW factor. The sameness of locales drags the presentation down as well.
As you work your way through the lab choices, you make decisions (or rather are guided through a narrow range of options) and realize that the game is just not that difficult. When you reveal the culprit, you experience a bit of a letdown because there is no other pay off.
Interrogation techniques show the real deficiency in CSI: Hard Evidence. The questions available do not involve any thinking on your part and you would almost rather skip this process. This game has better writing than the previous versions but still lacks the involving game play that you would like to experience.
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