Reviewed on XBox 360

If you’ve played CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder, then you know what to expect from CSI: Hard Evidence. The original was an interesting puzzle game let down by an awful interface. The new game has the same puzzle structure and a slightly improved interface.

The concept of the game is simple: you’re a forensic scientist with Las Vegas Crime Lab attempting to solve cases by collecting & analysing evidence and questioning suspects. There are nods to the TV show if you care about such things, but you don’t need to have seen the programme. Since this is a forensic lab the cases tend to be rather unpleasant - this is definitely a game for adults only.

The basic mechanism of CSI is pretty much point-and-click adventure game. You move your cursor over the crime scene - and other locations as you open them up - in order to locate evidence such as blood stains, cigarette butts, fingerprints etc. These you then collect and take back to the CSI Lab where they can be analysed and matched with other samples previously collected or the police databases. You can also question suspects and the more you discover the more options open up until eventually you have enough information to solve the crime.

Like all point-and-clicks the game can get frustrating when you miss a certain piece of evidence simply because you didn’t realise a particular blob of pixels was meant to be significant. There are options you can select to make things easier - such as highlighting the cursor when over an area of interest - but even with these switched on there are likely to be times when you’re moving the cursor across the screen clicking randomly. Fortunately there’s a “hint” system which reveal as much or as little as you want.

The interface is also annoying in other ways. It’s clearly been ported straight from a PC with mouse control assumed. There are frequent situations where using more of the controller buttons would make things much easier.

As to the gameplay, well it’s pretty simple. Most pieces of evidence have only one thing to be done with them and it doesn’t matter if you try the wrong thing. When you question suspects you eventually want to ask all the questions and it doesn’t matter which order you choose. The cases are essentially linear and there’s no way to mess up. You get an evaluation at the end based on things like how many hints you used, but that’s it. For those who care about such things the “Achievement” scores are awarded simply for solving the case, regardless of your rating.

All that probably makes CSI: Hard Evidence sound like a frustrating and pointless experience. Which it is. Yet it’s also surprisingly compelling. Maybe you have to be the sort of person who watches crime shows on TV trying constantly to work out what’s going on - I am. The fun in CSI Hard Evidence comes not from the gameplay but from the story and from trying to mentally stay one step ahead of the game. It’s essentially a Whodunnit with a degree of immersion. The perps tend to confess far too easily, but that’s par for the genre!

Then, just when you’re getting really into it, it’s over. There are only five cases in Hard Evidence, nowhere near enough. Given the lack of graphics quantity or quality there’s no reason for not including at least twice as many, even in a budget game. There’s also no significant replay potential. I suppose you could try and play each case again to try and avoid using any hints, but what would be the point?

Despite all the gripes above I found playing CSI: Hard Evidence an enjoyable experience. However I’m glad that I rented it rather than buying it.

February 5th, 2009 Reviews, XBox 360 | no comments