CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Hard Evidence (Xbox 360) Review
Posted by Chris McCarver on 10.29.2007
I don't even get a Who song for theme music? Seriously?!
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Telltale Games
Platform: Xbox 360 (also available for PC, Wii version available Nov. 27)
ESRB Rating: M (blood and gore, sexual themes, violence)
Release Date: Sept. 26, 2007
I won't lie to you, folks: I'm a CSI nerd. I love the shows... even CSI: Miami and its endless arsenal of lame Horatio Caine one-liners is at least good for a laugh while the other characters actually do stuff besides look barely menacing and fiddle with their overpriced sunglasses. My love of CBS' forensic-pathology franchise doesn't extend much beyond the TV shows though, and certainly not to the videogames. I've read enough IGN and watched enough X-Play to know the CSI games are some of the worst examples of PC point-and-click boredom ever to be burned to disc. But I admit my firsthand experience with the games is literally zero, largely due to the games' less-than-stellar reputation. Nevertheless, due to the call of my pride as a gaming journalist (plus my editor Caleb threatening to call a tip into Gil Grissom that I was the bastard child of Paul Millander and the Miniature Killer), I hereby present my review of the most recent console entry into Ubisoft's CSI game franchise: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Hard Evidence.
Stop snickering.
Capt. Brass isn't as think as you drunk he is.
Graphics
I can sum up CSI: Hard Evidence's graphics in one word: ugh. The character models, while ably textured, are possessed of very-dated and very-bland facial animations, especially in terms of the models of the primary cast. The emotions on the faces of each of the characters are barely adequate, utilizing a threadbare morph of the eyebrows or lips. The environments are serviceable, but the fact that you don't get much more of a ride-the-rails tour of each of the gamescapes (more on that later) is something of a hindrance. All sorted, the game's visuals are completely forgettable.
Gameplay
In played-one-played-'em-all fashion, Hard Evidence plays pretty much like every other CSI videogame ever created. You play through a first-person P.O.V. as a nameless rookie crime-scene investigator newly attached to the Las Vegas P.D.'s crime lab, under the supervision of night-shift supervisor Gil Grissom (William Petersen, who reprises his role in the game). You're assigned a series of five criminal cases, each of which you're paired with one of the show's cast members. The cases are of a wide range of grisliness, ranging from the bedroom stabbing of a pregnant casino waitress to the allegedly accidental group electrocution of a has-been '80's hair band.
The game follows a fairly simple point-and-click design, where you use the analog sticks to pan, scan, and zoom your way through the various crime scenes and A-button-click various bits of forensic evidence. I would have preferred a more freeform method of moving about the various areas; the game instead teleports you to various hotspots that you camera-pan through with the thumbsticks and you reach new areas or get a closer look by a button-click. Evidence collection is also as simple, but even though you're given a wide variety of forensic tools ranging from UV lamps to magnetic fingerprint powder, the game restricts your choices each time only by a handful of the dozen or so tools, which yanks out a bit of the challenge. Granted, you'll sometimes pick the wrong tool (as your partner will be quick to tell you), but finding the right one is essentially cake. You can also ask your CSI partner for hints, which is another stab at the challenge level of this game, since doing so will basically point out every single thing you haven't found yet (at the cost of nailing a perfect score on the case).
Once you've buzzed through the crime scene grabbing up every spent bullet and bit of blood splatter there is to find, you whisk away to the crime lab and employ a less portable array of CSI hardware, such as a DNA-analysis computer and a chemical analyzer. And if you had any doubt about which tool to use here, don't worry, the game's dumbed down the challenge here as well by having a flashing exclamation-point icon appear on the screen of every machine for which you have a bit of evidence that it needs to be fed. The icon disappears once you've exhausted your evidence.
Warrick was ready to believe the suspect until he saw the multiple DVD bootlegs of Alien Resurrection on his mixing board.
My major concern with this game, and I realize this is a bit of a tradition with this series, is the point-and-click mechanics are going to seem a bit on the boring side for console gamers. Were the developers willing (or contractually able) to break out of the box and go more freeform, a CSI game might be worth playing. But unfortunately, the game suffers from a lack of freedom and challenge. New areas are reached by bringing up a menu and clicking an icon; why not actually pile into one of those black SUVs and drive there? The environments are very rail-oriented; why not be able to just walk around wherever you chose? And for that matter, considering that the show's characters are usually juggling three or four cases at once, why is it necessary to play through one case from beginning to end before “graduating” to the next?
Another inherent flaw of Hard Evidence is its dependence on fetch-quests. Suppose you find yourself enough evidence during a case that the game tell you you have enough for a search warrant. Head straight to the suspect's house, right? Wrong. You actually have to head to Capt. Brass' office, go through a KOTOR-esque conversation mini-game with him to obtain the warrant, and then go do the search. Two minutes of wasted gameplay right there including loading time, and that's just one example.
Sound
I was rather pleased to see that most of the CSI cast took out some time in the recording booth to voice their respective characters. That's right, “most.” For although we have the aforementioned Bill Petersen, George Eads (Nick Stokes), Gary Dourdan (Warrick Brown), Paul Guilfoyle (Capt. Jim Brass), Eric Szmanda (Greg Sanders), and Robert David Hall (Dr. Al Robbins), the ladies of the series are voiced by soundalikes. Kate Savage's barely-awake rendition of Jorja Fox's Sara Sidle was... well, sad to say, dead-on (anyone else surprised she's leaving the show?), but I have to give kudos to former Robotech voice actress Edie Mirman for delivering a dead-bang performance as Catherine Willows (originally played by Marg Helgenberger). Seriously, I didn't realize it wasn't Helgenberger until I watched the game's credits.
Kratos finally met the foe he could not best: an entire cargo van of Brownie Bites.
The music, however? Not so much. The soundtrack is comprised of some forgettable musical ambience, some of which seems wholly out of place in some levels. In one example, my player character and Grissom were questioning a couple of barely awake teenage twin brothers in their frat-house of an apartment, which was scored with a horror-movie track that sounded like something out of the original Halloween.
Lasting Appeal
Oh, my poor Xbox Live brethren. It probably won't surprise you in the slightest that online play on this game is nonexistent, but the XBL achievement list is woefully small. All that's available are five 200-point achievements and all you have to do is solve a case for each one. You don't have to perfect the level or collect all the evidence or ask all the right questions, just finish the case and bang, 200 Gamerscore points. You can perfect the levels to obtain additional bonuses (for example, each case has a bunch of hidden insects to collect for bug-enthusiast Grissom's collection), but it won't affect getting the achievement one way or the other. Sad to report that this is the first 360 title for which I've earned all the possible achievements on, and if you've got a weekend to burn, you can probably do it too.
Yeah, that's right: a weekend. Five cases, each of which can be banged out in maybe three or four hours, does not a high Lasting Appeal score make. Consider it best to rent this title for a day or three rather than outright purchase. I'm a CSI fan as stated above, but not enough to drop more than a rental fee to keep a copy in my house.
"So, I got iTunes running on this one, WoW on that one, and the one on the far left's my personal PicHunter.com archive..."
Fun Factor
I will admit that the stories and inherent mystery of the game are engrossing, and I have to admit it was a bit of fun to snap on the ol' latex gloves and play police lab-geek. The major problems with CSI: Hard Evidence are its dated mechanics, its robbery of any challenge for the player, its outright brevity, and its lack of staying power. If Telltale Games was interested in breaking out of the TV-tie-in mold and really making this an engrossing crime-drama title, they could have had a hit on their hands. Instead, we have yet another CSI game that isn't going to raise many eyebrows.
The 411
If you're a fan of the show, you might enjoy giving CSI: Hard Evidence a test-drive, if for no other reason than being able to interact in Anthony Zuiker's fictionalized rendition of the Las Vegas crime lab. But if you're any kind of gamer or, for that matter, CSI isn't your cup of televised tea, look elsewhere. Can't recommend it, but I hope Ubisoft and Telltale learn from their mistakes, assuming a new CSI game is commissioned. Which, given their current track record, looks about as likely as David Hodges suddenly becoming likeable.
Graphics
4.5
Lamely designed character models, nice but restricted environments
Gameplay
6.0
Engrossing storylines, dated interface, very low level of challenge
Sound
6.5
Nice VA work by the TV series cast, music is ill-placed
Lasting Appeal
2.5
Very short, no online play, can be finished and forgotten in a couple days
Fun Factor
4.0
A nice weekend rental but otherwise not worth a prolonged play-through, improvement over past titles but still in need of more
