Casual adventuring: CSI: NY and Nancy Drew Dossier
Another year, another CSI title arrives, another Nancy Drew game released. Not much new there… or is there? Actually, this time there is, as for the first time in the history of both popular franchises, the games in question have gone the casual route instead of offering up full-fledged adventures. In doing so, neither CSI: NY nor Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses! will get the graded review treatment here, either, but it’s worth noting how the new games differ from their predecessors and determining whether or not they’re worthy gaming experiences in their own right.
CSI: NY
In some ways, the first CSI game based on the New York spin-off series has become its own worst enemy. For reasons unknown (but easily speculated), Ubisoft simply… neglected to mention in any of the advance materials that the game is a casual title. Who knew that phrases like “more user-friendly interface” and “improved gameplay” actually meant “strategically streamlined for casual audiences”? While always veering towards rather lightweight adventuring fare, the five previous CSI installments have nevertheless fallen squarely within traditional genre boundaries, with the freedom to explore crime scenes, request warrants, and search for clues that actually relate to the cases at hand. And with word that Legacy Interactive was at the helm of the new iteration, there was reason to believe that the former developers of the Law & Order games would bring a refreshing approach backed by proven experience.
They did that, all right, but the experience came more from their recent work on other casual titles like The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes than their older adventure series. Is that a bad thing? As it turns out, no it isn’t, but it’s likely to be a BIG disappointment and major point of contention to any that play the game with false expectations going in. With the correct ones, however, there’s actually a fair bit to like about CSI: NY.
Aside from the whole totally-unexpected-genre thing, the most obvious difference in the new game is the move to New York. Past games have featured the Vegas and Miami casts, but now the series has finally landed in the Big Apple. All the key characters from the television show lend their likenesses and voices to the game, from Gary Sinise to Melina Kanakaredes, Carmine Giovinazzo, and Eddie Cahill, to name just a few. Aside from a few wooden deliveries (bored indifference to unearthing a dead body probably isn’t the way to go) and consistently over-acted confessions, the voice work is generally good from both lead and supporting cast alike.
The fact that players get to directly control detectives Mac Taylor (Sinise) and Stella Bonasera (Kanakaredes) instead of an anonymous CSI rookie was highly trumpeted before release, but actually has little impact on the game, which plays out in first-person. In fact, you’ll see them more often when you’re playing as the other, as they show up to make helpful contributions to your investigation. The rest of the cast similarly turns up as you proceed through each case with visits to the morgue and crime lab, creating a solid connection with the show.
Where a disconnect may begin to occur is in the game’s art style. Rather than the attempted realism of earlier games, CSI: NY opts for a distinctly hand-drawn graphic novel look. It’s not unattractive, though it’s a little heavy-handed in its bold black outlines. But at the very least, it is a huge change for the series and may be an acquired taste. It also doesn’t do much justice to the static character portraits. While modeled after the program’s actors, the likenesses aren’t overly precise. If not for the accompanying voice work and context, I might not have been able to place them. Where the new style clearly bombs out is in the city transitions between locations. As this mimics the show more than anything, it stands out in its striking inability (or unwillingness) to resemble its TV counterpart.
You’ll be getting many good, long looks at the artwork, too, as a central component of the game is its “hidden object” gameplay. To be sure, CSI: NY offers way more different game elements than most seek-and-find titles, but even so, you’ll do a fair bit of random object collecting. Locations are often fairly generic, displaying the likes of offices, homes, and restaurants, with an occasional welcome trip to the Empire State Building lobby and the circus thrown into the mix. Naturally, these areas are filled with lots of excess items, but they’re generally limited to suitable objects.
In a rather bizarre move, however, the game opts to present you not with a written list of objects to find, but graphical images of them. In some cases, this makes the exercise as easy as it sounds, removing the challenge of not knowing the particular depiction of the objects in question. To address this imbalance, the picture list begins blank and only slowly starts to fade into full focus. I suppose the point is to encourage players to think about what items to look for, but in practice it’s a pointless waste of time. Like most hidden object games, there isn’t much rhyme or reason for the items you’re looking for, at least any that you know about ahead of time. So either you simply click random items early and hope that you’re right, or wait for the pictures to appear and then locate their environmental counterparts. There’s no time limit, so neither solution seems to have any unwelcome repercussions. If you’re really stuck, there are hints available, but it’s unlikely you’ll ever use one unless for the odd nondescript item that’s hard to distinguish even from its picture.
Having said that, where most hidden object games are primarily true to their moniker, CSI: NY is far more diverse in its gameplay. I’m reluctant to venture a percentage, but I’d say less than half the game is spent on scavenger hunting. The remaining gameplay consists of an assortment of “minigames”. I’m quoting the game’s own lexicon, though many of them aren’t minigames at all, but rather standalone puzzles that don’t want to call themselves that. (Wouldn’t want to scare people off, after all.)
The good news is that many of these puzz… minigames are quite satisfying in small doses, and there are enough of them to go around to minimize the sense of repetition. Oh sure, by the eighth or ninth tile puzzle or pattern-sorting exercise you’ll be wondering if there isn’t more to life, but fortunately most are doled out in smaller samples. Better yet, they’re often quite cleverly integrated into the gameplay. It’s not exactly detective work like they probably teach you in CSI school, but whether decrypting files, identifying X-ray discrepancies, matching fingerprints, reconstructing bone fragments, creating facial recognition portraits, or running physics simulations, you’ll still feel like you’re contributing to your own investigations. And these represent just a few of the twenty-plus different activities you’ll encounter. A few types feel shoehorned in, like the odd Sudoku puzzle or Concentration game, but they’re fairly rare, and since they tend to be a bit more challenging than the investigative tasks, they’re usually welcome.
The game largely plays out in a standard point-and-click fashion, though some of the exercises do require a degree of hand-eye coordination. Nothing that will prove too taxing for even the most jittery of gamers, mind you. Then again, nothing that will prove much fun, either. At times you’ll need to be inexplicably quick to tape dusted fingerprints, pointlessly trace blood stain outlines with a swab, or draw lines between clues without touching any others. Variety, yes; good, no. There are even a few inventory puzzles of the most basic type, either to be applied to an obvious object or asked about in your next interview.
Dialogue with witnesses and suspects is something of a puzzle in its own right. At the start of each conversation, you get an empty “Progress” bar and a full “Credibility” bar. By clicking on the appropriate topics and inventory items, you’ll be rewarded with progress updates. Highlight incorrect topics or items and your reputation takes a hit. There are never that many conceivable options, so it’s unlikely you’ll fail. In fact, I never did even when I began trying, though it may be possible if you really REALLY try. I’m presuming most people won’t. About the only consequence to blundering your way through is in your CSI rating. Each case evaluates you on your effectiveness in several categories, though there seems to be no obvious benefit for higher ratings beyond self-congratulatory bragging rights.
Of course, one of the big draws of any CSI game, and one of the frequent letdowns in casual games, is the storyline. Fortunately, CSI: NY presents a fairly interesting set of cases to solve. With writers from the TV show on board, that’s no surprise, but it was good to see that the game didn’t skimp in this regard. Each of the game’s four cases includes numerous twists and turns, surprisingly diverse characters, and enough intrigue to keep players interested throughout, whether investigating an urban climber’s impossible fall or a teenaged blogger’s death on web cam.
Now, I said four cases, but really there are five, and how you view this next point will settle the glass-half-full, glass-half-empty debate. The game’s fifth case, you see, is not only inaccessible until completing the first four in order, but not available at all until "early" 2009, and only then by download. All you get in the meantime is a link to the game’s official website and an I.O.U. Stalling tactic? Cheap marketing ploy? Who knows. But what goes around comes around, so if the publisher isn’t in a hurry to offer up the full game, perhaps gamers won’t be in any rush to pick it up. It’ll soon be a moot point, but at time of launch, it’s presuming a lot.
Related somewhat to the missing last case is the game’s cost. While completely in line with the previous CSI games, it’s a good deal more than standard casual titles, which may discourage both camps. I put in about five hours on the four cases to date, and with very little replay value, that’s not a lot of bang for the buck. But there is more to come, and once I adjusted to the simplified gameplay, I enjoyed my time more often than not. If you’re considering a purchase, then, be sure to read the fine print before you do, as sometimes the answers aren’t easy to see.
Update: The "bonus" episode was released in March 2009. It is accessed through the game's auto-update feature and requires registration at Ubisoft to download. The new case is an entirely standalone episode (played as Mac) with no connection to the previous storylines, and adds a little over one hour's game time and one new puzzle type.
Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses!
Whatever the preconceived notions of a new CSI title, they’re nothing compared to public expectations of a new Nancy Drew game. Her Interactive’s reliable formula for the plucky teen detective has become as predictable as it is successful, firmly established in the longrunning mystery series now numbering 19 strong and counting.
Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses! is not one of those games.
Fortunately, the developers showed the courtesy of using a distinctive title, as what a difference a single word makes. The Dossier soon-to-be-series-of-its-own is a much different experience than the full-fledged adventure titles that have come before it, with a clear focus on casual gameplay, albeit with enough similarities to likely appeal to Nancy’s existing fanbase.
As with CSI: NY, the changes in Lights, Camera, Curses! are evident right from first glance. Gone is the realistic style of its adventure game predecessors, replaced by hand-painted artwork more closely resembling a graphic novel. This is supplemented by comic-like cinematics to complete the effect. The only exception is the character models during dialogues. These semi-animated talking heads, while nicely designed, look like they’d belong perfectly in a Nancy Drew adventure, though here it means they simply clash stylistically. They’re not at all unpleasant to look at, simply a strange departure from the game’s overall aesthetic.
While most casual-ized non-adventures go the “seek and find” route as the basis for gameplay, LCC forsakes the hidden object foundation in favour of something a little more organic to the storyline. In fact, this game is by far the closest to a traditional adventure I’ve yet encountered among casual titles. But definitions aside, make no mistake: it is indeed incredibly streamlined for casual markets, so anyone looking for a substantial mystery won’t find it here.
What you will find is a lightweight case that sends Nancy to a Hollywood movie lot where the remake of a classic called Pharaoh is currently being filmed. Production has been beset by a series of unexplained “accidents” and it’s up to the teen sleuth to investigate. The more she digs, however, the deeper the mystery, as it seems the original movie was plagued by unsolved tragedies of its own. Naturally, there are a handful of suspects in the current affair, including the ditzy starlet, the snake-loving director, the harried producer, and the desperate studio mogul whose back is against the financial wall. It’s a typically cheesy tale, but it’s served up at a nice pace to keep the intrigue alive.
Many longtime adventure fans will be pleased to know that actress Lani Minella reprises her role of Nancy in LCC. Personally I find her equally miscast as ever, sounding more like a dumbed-down adult woman than a super-bright teenager, but there’s something to be said for series continuity. There isn’t quite the same amount of dialogue involved in this game as the standard Nancy Drew adventures, but more than many casual titles and it’s all fully voiced, so the acting quality is important. Thankfully, each of the characters is performed skillfully, injecting just the right personality to suit the role.
Dialogue between Nancy and the supporting cast represents one of the game’s puzzles. Rather than simply clicking through barely-interactive topic trees, conversation in LCC includes a series of quiz questions sprinkled throughout, testing your memory on details you’ve encountered so far. You can’t fail, as the only consequence of wrong answers is a lower point total when you finally get them right. Just about everything Nancy does is assigned a point value throughout the game. The higher your point total, the higher your rank at game’s end, but the only practical benefit is the promise of a “special ending” if you attain the highest rating possible. This ending amounts to a few seconds of different cinematic footage and an alternate voiceover during Nancy's summary, and isn't as easy to attain as you might expect.
Accruing the majority of your points is done by sleuthing through the environments, from stage sets and wardrobes to hotels and harbour docks. The task in such scenes is to find important objects and then pair them with a suitable match. Such objects are not revealed to you ahead of time, but sparkle as you pass the cursor over them, similar to a hotspot highlight in a normal adventure. These items all fit their locations, so you’ll be clicking on generator gas caps, safe dials, and glass fragments rather than trying to spot randomly concealed junk. You can de-select any hotspot if you haven’t yet identified its generally intuitive partner object (with only a few sporadic eye-rolling combinations), leaving an icon reminder of its presence until you’re ready for it. In this way you can easily have as many as a dozen items marked at any given time. Of course, even that means there are only six pairs so matching them never feels like rocket science, but solving them still adds a welcome “aha!” element that many casual games lack.
The only real frustration with the item matching is that sometimes they simply need to be “paired” with your action icons. The game always makes it obvious when Look and Take (and the very occasional inventory item) are needed, and if it’s not one it’s the other. The problem is, point totals rely heavily on bonuses from stringing together consecutive successes, and it’s aggravating to blow a hard (okay, easy-to-medium)-fought sequence because you guessed wrong as to whether you should look at or examine something that could go either way. If you want that special ending, then, prepare to swear at the action icons every so often (the game’s title isn’t lying!). And since the game auto-saves and allows for no replaying its individual 26 chapters, those errors stick with you the whole game long.
Matching items isn’t the only task to accomplish, but it’s by far the most interesting and the most fun. Like any casual game, however, there are a variety of other minigames thrown in for good measure. Somewhat surprisingly, many of LCC’s are timed and slightly action-oriented. Or maybe not so surprisingly, since the Nancy Drew adventure games do the same thing. Here they’re more pronounced, mind you. There’s still nothing to worry about for most people, but the less dexterous or easily flustered can probably expect to redo some of the lockpicking and pattern matching exercises. The former is one of many variations that present a Tetris-like objective, while the latter aren’t as generously timed as adventure gamers are used to. That’s not to suggest they’re difficult, and again you can simply replay them until you succeed, but they’re repeated several times throughout the game and are certainly a change from the otherwise relaxed pace. For better or worse, there are few other conventional adventure-type puzzles included, though you will need to break some codes, develop photos, and decipher some hieroglyphics along the way.
Once you’ve completed a minigame for the first time, it becomes available from the main menu to play as a standalone exercise. I’m tempted to say that none of them are fun enough to bother playing again, but some may find them more fun playing on their own instead of periodically disrupting the easy rhythm of the main game. The central mystery itself can easily be wrapped up in under five hours, and offers little replay incentive apart from score increases, so it’s nice to have the option available at least.
I haven’t played enough casual games to guarantee a truly unique experience in Nancy Drew Dossier, but I can certainly say that it’s quite unlike any other game I’ve played, resulting in a refreshing experience. If you’re looking for an adventure as fulfilling as Her Interactive’s regular series, move right along. Similarly, if you’re hooked on hidden object games and hoping Nancy delivers more of the same, there’s… uh… nothing to see here. Instead, it’s more a distinctive search-and-match title that requires (or at least allows for) a keen mind as well as a sharp eye. Its lack of difficulty will discourage some, and a greater selection of puzzle-based minigames would have made for a better-rounded title overall, but if you’re a fan of Nancy Drew or simply looking for something light and breezy to carry you through a couple afternoons, Lights, Camera, Curses! is a pleasant little casual matinée.
