CSI: Hard Evidence announced
 

Oh Joy another CSI, Law & Order style game.

Just what we need.


*snore*


I know it's from Telltale, but is anyone else bored silly with the CSI game template.

They were never that great to start with.

P.s i'm in a grumpy mood

*shrug*

I never played a Law and Order game and the only CSI game I played was the latest one by Telltale. I'm looking forward to this.

Problem with these games is that, like episodes of the TV show, they are all the same. Cloned at birth. You can watch any of the CSI episodes in any order and pick up what is going on without needing a giant storyline catchup.

There is no real overall story just individual cases so you never get the feeling of involvement, The characters from the show just stand or sit there and don't do much unless asked a question and then info dump so you never get to know them or give a hoot anyway. They are just window dressing.

There is no challange to the games. They are dead easy.

I'm sure it's probably handed down from the TV people that they need to stick to a set formula. The one that keeps selling the game even though it always gets middle of the road boring reviews. The one that sells the game just because it has CSI on the title so why bother trying something new or innovative.

So I don't blame Telltale who are making it because it pays the bills and i'm sure will try to make the script intersting to cover up the inadequces in the gamplay.

I'd rather they made another Bone game though.

If they did one that was focused on the morgue and post mortems, that would be cool. Well it would be for me... :o

I love the CSI games - there doesn't need to be a complicated plot to them because the whole point is solving murders!
And, anyone who says they are too easy is obviously using a walkthrough :)

They have reasonable voice acting, cool sequences involving flashbacks and medical procedures, and whilst they may not be long or memorable games, they are a pretty cool distraction from some of the more serious games out there :)

I've played CSI Dimensions of Murder demo and I found it very boring. It's like to be working instead of playing. Very weird feeling. :p

I was given the second CSI game as a gift, it was okay, but not something I'd pay for.

The games lack any semblance of atmosphere. One thing I really disliked about the gameplay, was that I didn't feel like I was actually doing anything. All I had to do was click around a little bit and the game practically unfolded itself.

I don't think we need any more games of this type, unless they find a way to radically overhaul them.

I play them, only to curb my cravings - for however brief/disappointing a moment - for a new adventure game.

Something else to add to their list of mediocrity is that every single sodding character talks in the same way. Everyone, young or old, talks in shorthand, or use phrases that sound cool, but add little in the way of real character development.

Noone says, "I left at 6:00", instead they say "I bailed round 6:00". I've never met anyone who 'bailed' in their life! I wouldn't mind if there was variety, but there's never any real characters, just endless facsimiles.

I appreciate it’s a fairly specific complaint...

For some reason I have a good feeling about this game. I'll definatly keep my eye on this one, Telltale are getting better with their games. :)

If anyone in the San Francisco area is interested, Telltale's going to have a focus group for the new CSI game on Saturday. Send me a PM if you'd like to participate.

Does it involve bumping off Dasilva and then trying to solve the crime?

Are you trying to get his Wii fund? :D

I hope this game is a bit more like the series with having some sort of back story going on with the characters instead of just focusing on the murder.

CSI games suck.

I never played the first CSI game.

I played CSI Dark Motives and I enjoyed it. Then I played the CSI Miami game and was less enthusiastic about it. Then I played 3 Dimensions of Murder and gave up in the second case. Not only was it just too easy, it was boring as hell with long and I mean LONG tedious dialogues. It was all predictable and not in the least challenging.

I played one of the Law & Order demos, and I really don't get it. Seems like all you do is scavenge a crime scene (i.e. pixel-hunt), then interview witnesses and suspects (i.e. exhaust dialog). These are the worst gameplay elements of the adventure genre.

That kind of work is meticulous in real life too. Not every piece of evidence in a real crime scene is going to stand out. ;) If that kind of thing rocks your socks, the L&O and CSI games are great fun. If not, then you try something else.

And that's why demos are good, you didn't spend money on a game that isn't your style. :)

The thing is, in real life you don't know what you're going to find - if anything. In the CSI games you know if you click around enough all the clues you need are going to be there. That removes any challenge and leaves the game feeling empty, for me at least.

I'm basing this only on the pre-Telltale CSI games, but anyway...

I think that's the real point. Investigating a real crime requires thought (one would presume), whereas playing a CSI game requires you to click on every available hotspot. It's not about thinking about where one would search (unless you turn off the smart cursor, at which point the game becomes stupidly hard because the hotspots aren't always well placed).

I'm sure that there's so much more that could be done with this format.

(Note that this isn't meant as a criticism of Telltale; I have no idea how much control, if any, they have over the format.)

word dude...
soooo booring games, no good story etc...

Don't buy this....

Let's make it better...
 

Kevin here from Telltale...

I'd be interested in knowing what's the 1 or 2 top things that would make our CSI games more appealing to you guys. Realize that the CSI games are more of a casual adventure game vs. a hard core game. With that in mind, what could we do to make a new CSI game show up on the "hype-o-meter"?

I'm already hearing better stories, but what kind of stories do you guys consider better?

Thanks,
Kevin

Well for me it would be:

1. Characters: The TV show is built on the work and personal interaction between the characters. (as well as the fancy forensics). You get very little of this in the games. You don't even play as one of the characters instead you are an anonymous rookie.

The characters from the TV series are totally underused (possibly due to the cost of voicing) and are more or less just window dressing and wooden window dressing at that. Grissom does nothing but sit behind his desk, the various other stars stand there at a crime scene doing nought unless you ask a question.

In the TV show you always see 2 or 3 of them at the crime scenes interacting with each other etc.

I want to be one of the characters in the TV show, I want to be able to interact more with the other characters and various suspects etc.

2. Far too Easy: Possible due to the game being made more for the TV audience than the Adventuring market.

However I would like to see a harder challenge.

The games tend to follow a fairly standard pattern. Pixel search the scene, interview the 3 suspects (isn't there always 3 of them) back and forward, run the evidence through the machines that more or less do all the work. Why can't there be more puzzles in the evidence lab instead of just scan fingerprint and visually match against 4 other samples etc.

There doesn't seem to be much chance to cock up the investigation. Miss clues, use the wrong tools and corrupt the evidence, forget to get a warrent before searching a location.


Story doesn't seem to be the problem imo. The stories in the last one were fine, but it still fit into the 5 cases/3 suspects paint by numbers game development that is probably demanded by Ubisoft.

Mind, I have never played either a CSI or L&O game -- the only "commercial adventure" that I've played is a Nancy Drew game that a friend gave me -- but the main thing that stops me from it is the seeming unimportance of the characters. Plot, characters, and graphical prettiness are the main three things I personally enjoy most about adventure games. Whether I find plot or characters more important changes depending on my mood, but in the case of these commercial adventures the lack of interesting characters seems most glaring. Like that Nancy Drew game I played -- she was flat as a pancake, completely nonexistent, and totally uninteresting! Unless it's a game like Myst, where the player is the main character, I like to get the feeling that the characters are real people.

This is a problem that might relate directly to the TV show that inspires the games. Most people who play CSI probably have a preexisting interest in the show, which means a familiarity with the characters, something that automatically seems to require that less time is spent developing them. After all, we all theoretically know who they are. But the in-show characters are boring to begin with, and don't translate over to gaming well. I have never found any of the CSI characters even remotely interesting, and feel the same about almost every single one of the other detective shows. I couldn't even tell you their names, and I watch these shows all the time with my mother! The show of this sort that I like best is Law and Order: Special Victims Unit -- and all because of the main detectives.

If there were one distinctive main character who really appealed to me, I would buy every single one of these CSI games.

I just got back from Telltale. While I was there for 3 or so hours, I played the first case from the new game. I didn't play any of the other CSI games but I certainly enjoyed Hard Evidence. I think it's definitely worth taking a look at. I don't know how much I'm allowed to say so I'll stop there :P

The games stay more or less to the same formula the television show does. That is collect the evidence, process the evidence, question the suspects and then issue an arrest warrant to the guilty party. I happen to like the CSI games.

Just for clarification, can you do these things to mess up already or is that something you'd like to see?

Interesting point. I think this is what Legacy tried to do with Law & Order: Criminal Intent, by making the player character someone from the show rather than an anonymous rookie. (I don't know how successful it was because video card problems prevented me from playing the game.)