Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #816 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: UBI Soft
• Released on: 2007-11-02
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: Nintendo DS

Customer Reviews

CSI: Dark Motives DS
'CSI: Dark Motives' was originally released on the PC back in 2004 and has now been recreated for the Nintendo DS, making full use of the DS's unique dual-screen and touch screen facilities.

You take the role of a new rookie CSI and work alongside Catherine Willows, Nick Stokes, Warwick Brown, Sarah Sidle, Greg Sanders, Al Robbins, Jim Brass and your mentor, Gil Grissom to investigate and solve 5 brand-new cases, based on the brilliant TV show.

Case 1: A stuntman is injured in a freak accident during the taping of a reality TV show revealing an act of sabotage, all for the sake of ratings.
Case 2: A homeless man is found dead, which soon reveals a plot involving a large family fortune.
Case 3: An accidental shooting has occurred at a casino musical, exposing an illicit affair and a jealous husband.
Case 4: An archaeologist, psychic and failed artist are the suspects in a murder case involving some hefty real-estate.
Case 5: A travelling circus turns up a missing Komodo dragon and a disturbed mortician vindicating his girlfriend's death.

The thing that I like the most about this version is the excellent use of the touch screen, All of the CSI's detection and collection tools are here and using them with the stylus makes it a lot more interactive than when using the mouse and gives it a little more realism. Just tapping the screen to also browse through all of text is also a delight. The dual screen usage is done well also, as the suspects, victims and reconstructions options are displayed on the top screen, whilst the current location view as well as the dialogue and tools, evidence and locations options are displayed on the bottom one.

The crime lab is probably the most interesting bit of the game where you must compare pieces of evidence that you've gathered either against other evidence you've collected or against fingerprints, DNA or tyreprints etc that they have on their databases. You also get the video reconstructions (which are impressive for a DS game) that differ as you progress with your investigation, giving you a better idea of what happened at the crime scene.

There's a couple of bad points on the DS such as there are no voice-overs like in the PC version, so there's lots and lots of text continuously. The graphics are also not great, and with a majority of the game being static images, you do find you'll get bored if you're in the same location for a long period of time.

Overall, this is a really good game that has been made even better by using the DS's innovative features. Each case takes a couple of hours to get through so there's plenty of gameplay for your money, although I can't see that you'd play it through again once you've finished it. When you finish each case there is a real feeling of acheivement, so this game is very rewarding in that sense, as well as being great fun whilst you're playing it. If you like CSI and have played and enjoyed the other CSI games on other formats, or games like Phoenix Wright or Hotel Dusk than this is a game that I would definitely recommend to you. I just hope that the creators decide to re-make all of the other PC CSI games like CSI: Miami, 3 Dimensions of Murder, Hard Evidence and the original CSI game, as Dark Motives works perfectly on the DS.

mystery solved
if you are anything like me and loved hotel dusk then this game is for you! it has great plots and twists to keep you entertained for hours, checking crime scenes, using the lab and analysing evidence, and interregating suspects it has it all. if you are a fan of the programme then this is the game for you!

A really enjoyable game
I really enjoyed this game, I have played a couple of CSI games on the pc before and I thought this was as good, obviously due to the DS's limitations you get written instead of voice dialouge but the game play is the same. If you like watching CSI then you will enjoy looking for clues yourself and using the tools to detect and collect evidence and using a computer or microscope to analyse it. My only criticism is that the reconstructions (cutscenes) are too fast, the graphics are on the top screen and the dialogue on the bottom so unless you can read very quickly and have superhuman peripheral vision you will have to repeat them to get all of the information, which isn't too bad until the final reconstruction which cannot be repeated so you solve the case but you don't really know what has happened. Otherwise it is a really enjoyable game and I can't wait for more.