A game for all of the Harvey Birdman fans out there
For anyone out there familiar with the [adult swim] lineup on Cartoon Network, should have at least heard of the [I]Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law[/I] show. It was one of the launch shows of the programming block. The show was recently canceled, but it had a great run and all of the show's writers worked on the game script as one final hurrah. Plus, anyone who is a fan of the show should really enjoy the humor and running gags that were present from episode to episode. Even for people not familiar with the show will find a great deal of the jokes and gags very entertaining, but it is adult-themed humor even though it is a cartoon.
The actual game itself has a set-up very similar to [I]Phoenix Write: Ace Attorney[/I]. This is not surprising since one of the production houses on the game is Capcom. In Phoenix Write, the player has to find clues, interview witnesses and submit evidence to win court cases. In Harvey Birdman, the player has to do the same thing. The difference is that in Phoenix Write the player actually has to work to make progress through the game and it is very easy to make a mistake. Harvey Birdman is a much more dumbed down version. The producers were more focused on progressing the story and the jokes than actual game play.
The actual story is great. In fact, it is pretty much all the game has to offer. The game looks just like the cartoon show except some of the animation is stiff and sometimes abrupt. The problem with the story is that all five episodes of the game feel like rehashed scripts from the show. None of them were actually reruns from the show, but similar plots. The sad aspect is that Stephen Colbert did not perform as Phil Sebben for the game. Fans of the show will notice the difference in the replacement actor's performance. The humor keeps the gamer entertained. It has to be one of the funniest games ever made, but humor is selective so not everyone will find the game funny.
The games biggest flaw is its length. The game has five episodes, each with one unlockable movie. One of the unlockable is a clip from volume three of the DVD collection; the other four are for the game itself. To unlock a clip requires the player to find a Street Fighter III reference within the game. All five episodes, including finding all of the hidden Street Fighter references can be down in less than five hours. This extremely short length can make it painful for shelling out the $40 sticker price of this game.
In the end, the game is a great entertainment but it is STICKLY a rental title.
If the game must be bought, it is not worth more than ten or fifteen dollars and even that is a stretch. This is disappointing because the game itself is so clever.