Point and click adventure which suffers a couple of frustrating flaws
User Rating: 4.5 | CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Dark Motives DS
After playing the Xbox 360 CSI about a year ago, I decided to play Dark Motives for the DS. Although the DS is very capable of handling a game like CSI, it does seem a bit of a step back from the 360. I don't recall noticing any illogical behaviour whilst playing the 360 game, but on this one, I reached a point on one mission, where I was convinced I should be able to arrest the suspect based on the evidence, but the game wouldn't let me. After going back through the locales and searching for more evidence and trying to talk to everyone again, I then looked at my evidence and showed it to a team mate, only to find that I hadn't shown him a useless document which had no effect on the story. After showing him this, I could then arrest my suspect and end the mission. There were a few occasions during the game when I noticed similar things happen, so this was a major problem. Also, on multiple occasions, I picked up items as evidence even though they didn't appear to be evidence at the time. For example, after gaining a warrant to search a woman's home, I picked up some underwear, even though it didn't appear to relate to the murder at the theater. Only in hindsight did this item prove valuable in closing the case, but it seems illogical to pick up such an item without good reason which is the logic that is used in the game Another Code. The game itself plays out like a point and click adventure. First, you explore the crime scene, so you tap the stylus at points of interest for a more detailed view, then collect the evidence. However, you can only zoom in on certain areas, so you usually drag the stylus around and look for the cursor to change to the green arrow, before clicking. However, sometimes these points can be so close together that its easy to miss. For example, one room contains a wheelchair where you can zoom in on the backboard, the handle, and the metal frame. But the backboard is attatched to the metal frame which leads up to the handle, so moving the stylus over this region changes to a green arrow once and gives you no indication that its actually 3 possible areas. So often its just trial and error, tapping at the screen in hope it zooms somewhere else. Another reason why its unclear what you can interact with is the fact that its too dark. The whole game looks more like a Resident Evil game, its always nighttime and all the objects have been coloured with a dark colour palate, giving everything a dull, spooky feel. There is an option to brighten the screen which I instantly turned on, but it doesn't fix the problem; it's still dark and dull. After zooming in, there is usually at least 1 piece of evidence that you can collect, be it an item, fingerprint, or trace of blood. You have to collect it using the right tool, but again, its a bit trial and error. Sometimes objects look small so you may choose the tweezers, but the game actually wants you to use the rubber gloves. You do get some feedback, mainly something like "try something similar", even though the message is useless, since the correct tool is usually something completely different to what you were trying.
CSI is quite a hard game to review. Its more like a interactive story book. Its not as engaging as most point and click adventures in terms of gameplay, but the twists and turns make for some engaging storytelling. It is more like Where's Wally? where you are scanning the screen for a certain item. The 5 missions seem to take some time to do, but mainly because you will get stuck often, usually on something silly. If you wanted to play a CSI game, I would recommend going for Deadly Intent on the main consoles.
