I find the game new game in the CSI series CSI: Deadly Intent a lot of fun, you get five delicious brand new cases written by CSI writers, cool technologies for processing evidence, and the real actors provide the voices for their characters in the game (Laurence Fishburne, Lauren Lee Smith). The music here is reminiscent of the TV show: moody, but with a beat. It's the perfect kind of thing to investigate by. Partner with the new cast of CSI Season 9 and explore crime scenes, examine victims' bodies, and follow the surprising twists and turns of the story. Winning formula! You get to feel like a real detective, although on a simplified scale. Like, when you cursor-over something important, it will turn “active” so you know that’s an important piece of evidence for solving the mystery. But the game is still challenging enough. You’ll need to know what to do with each piece of discovery. The first part of the game begins almost like a tutorial because it’s pretty easy and straightforward, but each case after that gets progressively trickier and takes a longer time to solve. Because the game is pretty linear, you won’t be able to progress the plot if you miss out an important piece of evidence or discovery. But, to assist, you get hints in the game and you can specify how much you want to be hand-held. I’m quite impressed with the plot twists. It’s a real joy to unravel something that leads to a new shocking discovery.
Crimes are typically at the centre of events, and even more typically it’s all about the investigation. Search the scenes, collect trace evidence and also interview witnesses. Useful things get added to your crime file and evidence dossier as you go. Travel to the lab to look for DNA or fingerprint matches, reassemble broken objects, analyse sound or video images or more intimately examine documents and objects. Get enough good evidence and you might be able to drag in a suspect for questioning, or get a warrant to search premises. Get even more, and you can seek an arrest warrant. Topic icons manage conversations; simply click and you get a response to the question asked. All going well, you will trip the suspect up in a lie by confronting him or her with key evidence. The game will probably make many people feel really smart for being able to solve tough cases. There will be some people who think they can be detectives after playing this game because they fail to realise that it’s a lot easier to solve mysteries in games than in real life. But I think the game does give a good insight on what it feels like to be a crime investigator.
When examining an item, say a chair, you might squirt with chemicals to look for blood traces, or dust to look for fingerprints. Back in the lab, you might be able to match a fingerprint with others that have been found, or search the database for other possible hits. The same goes for the blood or other DNA material. Each piece of lab equipment operates differently, and the process required to get a match or reveal a chemical will be different, but helpfully explained by a tutorial the first time you use the equipment (assuming you leave tutorials turned on). If you get a match on, say, a fingerprint, that particular fingerprint will be indicated with a green check mark in your evidence folder; a pop-up description will tell you what it is. The bottom line on CSI Crime Scene Investigation: Deadly Intent is that I love the show too much to pass up a chance to get into the action. Recreating faithfully the start-to-finish atmosphere of an episode is what the developers were all about. There were no doubt options to make this more or less realistic, and probably some plans on the table to incorporate a little more action, but I generally like what they came up with for the final package. All true CSI fans, turn your speakers up, put the kettle on and switch off your phone, as you get comfortable in your favourite chair.
