Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3195 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Focus Multimedia Ltd
• Released on: 2007-10-12
• Platform: Windows XP

PC GameZone
"This game is a wonderful cerebral exercise, and is also addictive and fun. "8.3/10 PC GameZone

Customer Reviews

Interesting
The game was too short and had glitches/bugs towards the end. Shame, because I love CSI and expected this game to be better than it was.

Don't bother
This comes across as a cynical, half-finished attempt to cash in on the success of the TV series. While the story is as good as anything on the series, the execution, other than the voice acting, is very poor.

The graphics are dismal for the age of the game - pre-rendered low-quality backdrops, and superimposed characters that do little more than blink expressionlessly and move their lips. Glitches abound. On a few occasions the characters were completely obscured by large white rectangles, and the screen suffered from tearing when panning. To further hinder the illusion of involvement, one often has to wait for an animation sequence to finish before the mouse cursor becomes active. Clicking three or four times on something before the selection is detected really breaks atmosphere. The gameplay is rudimentary and, for what is basically a point-and-click adventure, would have been obsolete fifteen years ago: run the mouse around a scene until its cursor changes colour (given the blurred backdrops, spotting evidence visually can be problematic); click to zoom in on the evidence at that location (at which point the graphics become really pixellated); apply the appropriate tool; rinse; and repeat. 'Interviewing' suspects is simply a case of clicking through a list of pre-selected responses until everything has been asked (no need for thinking), and analysing evidence just means dragging it over the appropriate machine in the lab. Case files and evidence tags update automatically, so there's very little in the way of challenge. The only skill required is finding the evidence in the first place... and since the detection zone for the mouse cursor is huge, this isn't usually a problem. Even a little attention paid to the details would have helped. To take but one example, when chatting to the pathologist to determine cause of death for the latest victim, the corpse on his table is always the same. How much effort would it have taken to make the body match the victim found at the crime scene?

Replay value is non-existent. A percentage score is given depending on how many hints you ask your CSI partner for and how much evidence you uncover, but since this has no effect on the game other than to unlock concept art (and given the standard of the graphics, who'd want to?), there's no incentive to revisit a case once completed.

The software itself, while it installed fine on my Vista Home Premium machine, wouldn't detect my graphics card (so no DirectX or OpenGL acceleration). The game only runs in one fairly low screen resolution, with no option to change this in the preferences. It also needs QuickTime installed to run the video interludes, so if you object to having this piece of bloatware on your machine, unfortunately you'll be left with no choice. The only patch available crashed the game completely. Apparently the entire thing is written in Flash... and it shows. Do yourself a favour - don't bother.

Frustratingly addictive.
Here we get the chance to shadow our favourite team of crime scene investigators(CSIs) in the first of the CSI games.
Even though on each case you will be assigned to one of the CSIs (with the likeness and voice of the character in the show) so they can help you on your way, it's best to start with the tutorial to learn a few things that your shadowing colleague won't tell you.

Look at an area zoom in on that area with a magnifying glass add some powder or some UV light to reveal trace evidence unseen with the naked eye.
As you progress watch cut scenes of the unfolding story and witness flashbacks of the crime taking place as you build your theory of what might have happened.

An amazing first attempt at bringing the hit TV show to video games. The only draw back is it runs in a very non-linear progression and requires that things are done in a certain order before going any further. When you need help ask your CSI colleague for hints and tips.