I never watched a CSI show in my life, but after reading the reviews for this, I was hoping for another "Spycraft" type of game, one of my favorite games from 10 years ago where you get to use all kinds of equipment and tools while tracking down mysteries. There was some fun using different tools to find clues, but what this CSI game gave me instead basically boiled down to matching up 2 different items, and thanks to a bug in the program you end up trying to confirm every possible combination because sometimes 2 items that are clearly not the same actually will be confirmed to be the match! First the bad: Yes, the graphics are terrible, the sound is boring and repetitive, and the characters voice acting was a little uneven. It feels like they gave the developer 1 week to port the games over from the PC to the Xbox with no Q/A testing involved, and it shows with tons of bugs and glitches! There are also several occasions where the game glitched, and the story was moved along somehow, and new items appeared in my inventory, and left me scratching my head trying to figure out what just happened. Also the glitch I mentioned above trying to match up DNA or Fingerprints ended up being boring because you just sat there trying over and over to see if something matches. Finally the Good: The Stories. With me never watching the show, I didn't know anything about the characters or rhythm of the show, but I was sucked into the game mainly from the stories and gameplay itself. There are 10 different stories or cases to go through, and it was a surprise to me when a later case sometimes referenced an earlier case, pretty cool how they related them sometimes. Contrary to what other reviewers say, I found I really enjoyed the FIRST 5 cases much, much more than the second five cases. I know that these were originally 2 different PC games, and it seems like they tried to get a little too convoluted in the story-telling for the second game's 5 cases with too many back and forth runs to different sites that didn't make much sense. I found myself having to use a walk-thru for the second game's 5 cases not so much because I was lost, but because they added new functionality to the game and didn't explain very well the new things that you should be doing, like being able to re-examine items back in the lab for a second try at finding a clue. In Summary: If you can overlook all the rough-edges, there is an interesting enough game here that kept me busy for 20 hours total - around 2 hours per case, and I did enjoy the time spent for the most part. I'll look forward to any future installments, and I think I'll have to check out the TV show too. For only the $20 I paid for what was originally 2 PC games, I think it was a decent value.
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