Reviewed: March 23, 2004
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
Ubisoft
Developer
369 Interactive
Released: March 23, 2003
Genre: Adventure
Players: 1
ESRB: Mature
8
8
9
7
8.9
System Requirements:
Just 48 hours shy of its one-year anniversary I find myself writing about the latest CSI game to arrive from those marketing geniuses over at Ubisoft. These guys have been on a roll since last year, and the hits just keep on coming on both PC and console.
Designed by 369 Interactive, a division of Radical Entertainment, CSI: Dark Motives builds on last years inaugural PC port of one of the hottest shows on network television. For those who aren’t glued to your TV Thursday at 9pm or those without TiVo or VCR’s, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is the thrilling drama that deals with the high-tech field of forensics and the rampant crime scene in Las Vegas. They even spun a Miami series off the original for those that prefer their corpses with a golden tan.
To say that CSI has become a cult phenomenon would be the understatement of the year. Despite warnings that the real-life job is nothing like the TV-reality, colleges all over the country are tracking increased enrollment into scientific courses specifically related to forensics. Apparently everyone wants to play with DNA sequencers, UV lights, and all the other high-tech gizmos that we see on TV, and now we can all have access to this equipment without all that annoying and costly school.
The original CSI was a great experience that actually got me hooked on the TV show. While critics and gamers both agreed the game was ultimately too short and too simple, it was still a great ride while it lasted and was one of the few TV-inspired games to truly capture the look and feel of the show.
CSI: Dark Motives address nearly all of the concerns of the original. There are still only five cases but they are now much longer and much more involved offering nearly double the playtime of the first game. The graphics have been stepped up a notch and the overall presentation has been more finely tuned to mesh with the production design of the show.
Not much has changed in the way CSI: Dark Motive actually plays. It still uses the interactive 3D screens that you can spin around in 360-degrees. You move the mouse around these views to locate objects to interact with or scenery nodes to change your view, zoom in on key objects then start the search for clues all over again.
Once again, I am forced to admit that CSI often boils down to a pixel hunt, but if you put yourself into the game you will probably have a good idea of where you should be scanning the screen. Sure you can stumble through CSI by passing the mouse over every square-inch of the screen and waiting for it to turn green, but knowing that a clue likely exists in that odd puddle under the wrecked motorcycle or the skidmark on the ramp will separate the investigator from the casual gamer.
One of the key elements of the show is the flashbacks that are used to graphically depict the theories of the investigators. As you collect clues and start to formulate your case there will be flashbacks that depict possible scenarios for the crime. As you obtain more evidence these flashbacks start to add more details and elements until you have recreated the crime. CSI: Dark Motives adds many more of these animations to the overall presentation and really helps to flesh out the stories and immerse you in the investigation.
Solving the crimes consists of you traveling to various locations, searching for clues, interviewing witnesses, and generating enough information to obtain a warrant to interrogate suspects and search locations. The more you investigate the more conversation topics and locations become available to you. As you can expect, backtracking is a realistic necessity.
Modern day crime solving techniques is all about the DNA and Greg will be your new best friend. This guy knows everything about everything. Hand him the smallest sample of the most obscure item in the world and prepare for a dissertation that will amaze you. You get to use a microscope to match hair samples, a computer to match fingerprints, search databases to match shoe and tire castings, or monitor suspicious activity on crime chat rooms. Dark Motive adds several new toys to the lab and they are all neatly tied into the new cases.
There are some pretty cool “toys” you get to play with out in the field as well. These tools are broken down into detection and collection. You get a UV and IR scanner, a “sniffer” to take vapor samples; you can swab liquid materials like urine and use chemicals to reveal latent bloodstains. You can dust for prints; take tire and footprint casts, and use tweezers to recover strands of hair.
There are five new cases in CSI: Dark Motives and a new case is unlocked when you solve the current one. Each case will take anywhere from 2-3 hours to solve depending on how observant and how logical your thought process is. There were times when I had the whole thing figured out in the first 20 minutes but getting the hard evidence for warrants and such took a lot longer.
All of the cases are unique and challenging and much more complex and lengthy than the first game. Once you have completed a case you can go back and resolve that crime again. Why, you might ask? You are given a performance evaluation after each case based on the amount of evidence you found and if you had to ask for hints from your partner. It is quite possible to build an airtight case collecting less than 75% of the evidence, but the more evidence you gather the higher your ranking and the higher your score, the more bonus artwork, trivia, and other bonus content you get to unlock.
CSI: Dark Motives remains accessible to investigators of all ages and skill levels, although parents should be cautioned that the game does include some grisly and possibly disturbing imagery. Basically, if you let your kids watch the show then the game won’t explore anything they haven’t seen on TV.
Season adventure gamers will have no problem navigating the interface and finding the most obscure clues, but there is also the target demographic; fans of the TV show who might not be accomplished gamers. For them, there is the ability to ask your partner for advice, either on what to do next or with a particular piece of evidence. While these requests will affect your final score, at least the designers have given you an accessible and realistic hint system built right into the gameplay.
There are also new customizable options that allow you to tailor the difficulty to your own desired challenge level. You can toggle the cursor so it doesn't turn green over hot spots and there are options for location and evidence tagging so you are never quite sure when you are completely done with your investigation.
CSI: Dark Motives has made some slight improvements over the visuals of the first game. The character models are now much more stylized. They “pop” off the screen much more than they did in the first game and they have idle animations that keep them alive even when they aren’t doing any specific actions. All of the characters are constantly in motion whether it be a suspect nervously tapping his fingers on the table in the interrogation room, or the police chief tapping away at his computer digging up more information or obtaining warrants.
The crime locations and the other locations you visit like the lab and the morgue are all recreated with stunning detail. You’ll often feel that you have stepped onto the production studio for the actual show. There are nice touches of details like reflective floors in the lab, a Windows interface with familiar desktop icons on a suspect’s computer, and some incredible character animation.
The FMV clips are back and while they have been cleaned up a bit they still show off that MPEG graininess that is typical of movie playback on the PC. These movies precede each mission and there are also some travel inserts when you are going back and forth to new locations.
The reconstruction videos are excellent quality CG that visually recreates narrated theories or testimony. Some of the more violent clips are a bit fuzzy and flash by quickly to make them even more horrific. Something as simple as watching a stuntman’s bone break as he tells about his motorcycle wreck just makes you wince in pain. If you’ve seen the show then you know exactly what I’m talking about here.
The menu is very accessible with all of your tools divided into groups and accessed through a file tab menu system. Individual pieces of evidence are tagged as they are identified, so you know what needs to be investigated further. You can double-click on evidence to get additional info and check on the various suspects and victims in each case. All of this information is cross-linked and updated in real-time, as new information is uncovered.
The game is locked in at 800x600, which was more than enough to capture amazing details in the various environments and your little black bag of crime-solving tools. Even though the cursor changes to green when passed over an area you can interact with, most of the time this was totally unnecessary. Most of the object and location hot spots are pretty obvious. It’s up to you to figure out what’s pertinent to your case and what’s window dressing.
There is only minimal music but you can be sure to hear the theme from the show as well as some other suitable soundtrack tunes whenever appropriate to the gameplay. There is nothing distracting or out of place. There are plenty of subtle ambient sounds that drift through the visual just like you were really in the locations depicted by the graphics.
CSI really shines with the outstanding script that is professionally performed by a splendid cast of actors. Fans of the show will recognize their favorite CSI investigators and the rest of the supporting cast including witnesses, suspects, and victims are all perfectly cast and flawlessly performed. You don’t realize how bad voice acting really is in most games until you hear it done this well.
Fans of the show or seasoned gamers will solve all five CSI cases in 10-15 hours. Getting 100% of the evidence is another matter entirely. You will have to find every last piece of evidence no matter how irrelevant and ask every possible question of every possible witness. Nailing the “perp” is only half the battle – you essentially have to prove the innocence of any other suspects and follow every last lead to its ultimate conclusion. Even then you may end up with a discouraging 97% percent.
Priced at only $30, you should easily get your money’s worth from this title, and while it’s not a multiplayer game by definition there is certainly no reason that the entire family or group of friends can’t gather around the computer and live out their favorite show. Sometimes two heads are better than one, unless one of them is in a body bag.
For fans of the show and especially fans of the first game, CSI: Dark Motives is a no-brainer. If you have never seen an episode and enjoy a good investigative series then I highly encourage you to check out the show and get the game, and the first CSI game if you don’t already have it, or get the game then check out the show.
Either way, this is one of those rare franchises where the game and the show that inspired it complement each other perfectly, and if you are looking for a clever investigation style adventure game then CSI: Dark Motives is the game for you. It’s everything that the first game was and more.