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I didn't think it was "dead on" anything

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 16 / 22
Date: December 28, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I was very disappointed with this game. The basic idea (you play a detective working alongside Lenny Briscoe and then an ADA working alongside the Jack's latest assistant) is sound, but the gameplay is a complete anathema to the TV show. In the TV show the detectives follow up blind alleys in their quest for the truth. In the game if you follow a blind alley you must immediately load a saved game or you will run out of time or simply lose.

In essence, much of the early game comprises searching for physical evidence and questioning witnesses while trying to save time. The fact that it takes 15 minutes to bag a cigarette butt is extremely stupid, since it means that to collect the right evidence and yet not run out of time you need to play the game over and over to figure out which evidence you NEED and then go back and psychically only pick up the right evidence. Needless to say, key evidence is carefully obscured by a bad user interface (e.g. a house full of drawers that don't open, and one that does but needs to be opened using a key that is in the victim's wallet but itself hidden by the user interface).

Interviewing suspects is even worse. Whether or not you should ask a given question is totally arbitrary and if you don't ask the right questions your game is over (but you'll have to figure that out by yourself). E.g. one of the first puzzles in the game involves piecing together a torn up business card; just having the pieces with the address, phone number, or name of the company is NOT enough. What's more, there's a witness nearby and the ONLY question worth asking that witness is "would you move your vehicle" so you can find the last piece of that card.

Remember, if you make a mistake, you need to restore from backup, so apparently the only good detective or ADA is psychic and knows, for example, that the mineral water has a usable print on it but the cigarette lighter doesn't. Sadly, you may be psychic but you can't get lab reports by phone or fax, or look up people's addresses in the telephone directory.

Even worse, if for some reason an interview with a witness ends without letting you ask a crucial question you may not be allowed to re-interview that witness, even if you uncover evidence contradicting one of their statements.

I'd probably have equally nasty observations to make about the ADA portion of the game, but I refuse to play it further.

Finally, some quibbles, it's not a 3d game. Everything is pre-rendered, so it's a 2D game with pre-rendered video of 3d figures instead of live actors (presumably to save money). I actually thought that the broadband online demo was considerable BETTER than the game itself, with a much less fiddly interface.

Might be a great game -- if it worked!!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 14
Date: January 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I love the TV program and thought the game sounded like a lot of fun. My husband bought it for me for Christmas and I immediately tried to install it on our desktop. No dice. The computer initially wouldn't even recognize one the CDs. I played around and that problem finally resolved itself. But then the video clips didn't play properly. I could hear sound, but there was no video. I was eventually able to get one or two the initial video clips to play, but it all went downhill from there and I was unable to get any further. I have had problems with Windows XP compatibility with other software, so assumed that might be the problem. (Even though the box says that it's XP compatible).
So I decided to install the program on my laptop (with a Windows 2000 OS). It started off fine. The opening music/theme song played, the initial video clip played (complete with sound), then the program screen shrunk into the upper right corner of my machine and locked up my laptop.
... From other's comments here, I see that Legacy Interactive has various patches on their website. However, I wanted to PLAY this game, not spend hours trouble-shooting, running diagnostics, and trying to determine which "patch" to install....

Technically flawed, boring plot

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: October 02, 2002
Author: Amazon User

First thing that hits you n this game is the incredibly slow pacing and terrible technical flaws. Once you have the game working you face what is basically an FMV game. While that isn't necissaily bad, why they used bad 3d models instead of real actors is beyond me. The 3d used for the videos could have easily been done in real time, yet they use a disjointed fmv format. The game is also extremely wasteful of system resources, the requirements are very steep for something that had been done successfully on systems half as fast as what this game needs.

Then you move on to the plot that is, at best, a bad pisode of Law and Order. This is definitely not up to the level that the show has given us.

In all, it's just not worth the aggrivation of fighting the games bugs that force to to keep replayng parts of the game until you get lucky enough to miss the bugs.

Disappointed

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: April 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'd like to know who tested this game. Maybe a frozen screen is part of the game? I better not be wasting my money when I try the second version.

One of the worst games I've ever played

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: December 15, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game is awful. First of all, the requirements to run the game are ridiculous. Even after I got it working, it still crashes every once in a while and a reboot is necessary. As for the game itself, the plot is lame, the graphics are substandard, and I find it very frustrating that if you have to drop a piece of evidence because your case file is full, and later on you discover you needed it, you have to start over from a saved game where you still had that evidence. Also, it's almost a requirement to use the efficiency setting because you will never finish on time otherwise, even if you know exactly what you need. I got so sick of replaying the first half of the game over and over...and over again, to get the right evidence that I refuse to play the second half of it. I hate everything about this game.

Does this game ever work?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 5
Date: January 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

My husband gave me this game along with a brand new top of the line computer with an upgraded gaming chip for Christmas. I was a bit worried after reading the reviews from people that weren't able to get this game to run fully, but I convinced myself that it would work fine for me because of the capabilities of my new system. Wrong! I couldn't see anything but black screens on the evidence and precinct scenes. I followed all of the instructions on the Legacy site for fixing the problem, but the problem actually got worse instead of better! This game seemed like it could be neat; the question is whether anyone will ever find out!

Technically flawed, boring plot

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 11
Date: October 03, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Technically the game is a mess. Bugs, glitches and crashes plague the game from the beginning. The gameplay is horribly flawed and much of the game doesn't get right what other games have been doing right for 15 years. They use an FMV format but ditch live actors for bad pre-rendered models.

The plot is boooring. Instead of the typical way things are presented in the show, the game is almost forcively telling you to think different people did the crime when it's obvious they did not. There is no investigation, you jump through hoops the designers laid out to force gameplay mechanics on a flimsy story. None of the charectors are intriguing, they all fall flat. Everything is cliche'd and it all screams third-rate.

Constant Lock ups

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: September 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The game itself is great, graphics, sounds, and concept is just like the TV show. The major issue I have with it is the fact that it constanly locks up. I'm running a PIII 733, 512mb Ram, 32 mb Video Card, 16 mb Sound card, and don't have such problems with other games which require a higher minimum system requirement. Due to these technical issues I've encountered with the game, I have not been able to complete it. It becomes extremely fustrating, especially if you've got something and getting hotter and closer to cracking the case. If it wasn't for all this lock up, the game would be great. The game is worth 1 star, even if there was an option for no stars, it still is worth 1 the 1 star I gave it.

Would be fun if it didn't have a time frame

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: March 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

There is way too much stuff to be picked up and sent all over the place for testing and researching and whatnot. Unfortunately, some witnesses are only "unlocked" after you submit the right item, so unless you're quite fast picking up stuff etc. you can't solve the case within the allotted time frame.

This game would be very interesting and entertaining if they didn't cut off the investigation after a week (that's game time, not real time).

Flawed

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 9
Date: October 19, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I had trouble with the game from the very beginning. I thought it was my computer and even had it looked at. Then I took the game back to the store and the person at the returns said she had three already come back that day and it was only noon.

I love the show and I really regret not being able to play the game. It looks like it would be alot of fun. I was glad to read that it wasn't just me and that so many others were having problems. I hope they can get it fixed.

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