Crime Scene Investigation 3
 

How's that, that the third CSI game is made by Telltale Games?

How did you try to be different from the previous CSI games?

Are you planning on any add on packs with new cases?

Or maybe another game based on CSI NY or Miami

Yes - we differentiated it in many ways.

Most obviously is the switch to a 3D engine, which allowed a more free flowing experience in the environments, characters, and evidence.

We also added cool cinematography techniques to make the experience more like the show. So there are more TV-like cuts, and a cinematic experience.

Thirdly we added a lot of extra CSI teamwork - so in the new games you can mull over the case with Catherine and Warrick, for example....

There's a detailed blog of even more changes we made on the Telltale site.

You can view it here.

-greg

All of the CSI games have concentrated on just the crime aspects of the TV show and put you in the shoes of a newbie.

Why don't we get to control one of the CSI characters and have a complete ongoing story like a TV episode rather than the case structure?

Or maybe the ability to switch between characters a la Bone 2.

Did I mention we made the cases longer and more involved?

We are very proud of our work on this CSI game - and we're extremely happy that people have been enjoying the new and longer cases. Of course, there are a lot of things we'd like to improve upon if we get the chance to do it again... we've got a lot of ideas to make it even better. If it sounds like I'm talking around the question - it's because I really can't say any more...

In other words... Ubisoft holds the keys. :D

I've heard that in CSI4 there are less suspects (about 3 in each case, and reviewers comment that it is a serious flow of the game) - are there any plans to have more people to be able to communicate with during the case for future CSI game (if there will be any)?

Beyond the crime itself - there are a few other critical components of the show we focused on. Among them: how evidence tells the real story, how the CSI works together as a team...

Also, there are tied in storylines across the game - characters we meet throughout the game reappear later, and the CSI working on the case get reassigned - so we continue where we left off, which is a step in the direction we're talking about.

There are benefits and drawbacks to actually controlling licensed characters. There is an immersive quality of using 1st person, which invites players to work on par with the characters they recognize.

Actually, we have the same number of suspects as the previous games.

For example, in case 5, there are 4 suspects plus 1 other non-CSI character that we interact with... and it works very well for the story.

I haven't seen the review you're referring to. We've heard many people that love our stories, and don't see it as a flaw. As when writing a screenplay, sometimes adding characters can take away from a story, rather than add.

We are all bubbling at the moment because we just found the great review on IGN!!

"The cases themselves are engrossing, much like the television shows. This is one pitch these games always hit out of the park."

"Fascinating stories, great twists, good graphics, superior voice acting, decent gameplay and the desire to now become a CSI once again is what we are left with. And that is good enough."

Woohoo!

Wow, congratulations on that!:)

I haven't bought the game yet, but I'll be getting it soon to give to my mom for her birthday/Mother's Day. Oh, and I'm going to hijack it from her when she's not using it.

3 Questions in 1 :

Condemned developed my Monolith offers some evidence hunts Ã* la CSI : it is technically astonishing but most of the time the designers failed to make these sequences interesting. I think CSI-3 was announced after the release of Condemned, did you check the game and if so, did it change anything in your project? Did you consider using the same (very expensive) engine ?

I haven't read alot of thing about this new CSI but I understand that it follows the serie : CSI dept are never wrong, they always end up accusing the right guy. Did you consider taking liberty with that and give the player an opportunity to misinterpretate the evidence, accuse an innocent person and going away with it only to be shown the truth at the end of the game?

The game looks very promising but I must say that, from the screenshots, the character design disappoints me ; it feels like a failed attempt to create realistic model of the actors and I wonder if it hadn't look better with another artistic approach. That being said, was keeping the original characters a constraint and were you allowed to take liberties with them (graphically and in term of characterization)? Do you think that what happens in the universe of the game could have consequences on the serie?

Sorry for maybe sounding harsh, and thank you in advance for your answers.

Thanks Artwking4! Be careful of leaving fingerprints and hairs nearby - your momma will track you down! Could you plant evidence to make it look like someone else took it??

I just heard about Condemned recently and I can't wait to check it out...

We have a great in-house engine that we developed, that is perfect for the CSI games... I look forward to seeing what the condemned guys are doing differently...

Mostly they just have a few sequences where you hit a few keys that ask questions to further the plot. Its not really in depth, although its nice to see a shooter trying something like that. :)

And you dont get to choose what collection tool to use, its all context sensitive

Monolith's engine in question is a visual masterpiece really. Used for F.E.A.R. and the recently released Condemned, it makes use of Shader 3.0 effects, with soft-shadowing and the like making spectacular appearances. I'd say working with this engine for anything other than a FPS would be a tad wasteful.

The show goes to great lenghts to make the CSI feel like heroes. In the game, our goal is to make the player feel like a hero... Fortunately, as you play through each case, there are many times things look a certain way initially, but we find out thru smarts what the real truth is.

For CBS, it is important for us to match the show as much as possible. So we updated all of the characters to their season 6 looks. We even changed Greg's hair midway through development because he was changing it on the show!

Thanks a lot AudioSoldier. We had a lot of fun with that. It's always fun to "write what you know..." Interesting tidbit: The original name of the Producer was "Stan Connors" which is somehow similar to our CEO's name! :D

We're excited that this is our Demo case which should be posted soon...