User Reviews (1 - 11 of 55)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Challenging and very Entertaining!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 71 / 72
Date: October 31, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Law and Order: Dead on the Money is one the best role playing games I have played in a long time.

It reminds me a little bit of the good old times when Sierra's Police Quests were around.

However, this games requires a bit more thinking and investigating to get through. Its one of those games when you get stuck you don't want to exit the game and move on to the next one. You try to go back and figure out how to advance in the case.

The game is really entertaining. I've spent three to four days trying to solve the case and a few more on the courtroom trial.

When you play it really feels like you are inside one of the Law & Order shows. Their online demo really gives you a good taste for the game. They graphics and sound is really great. I had no problem installing and running the game on the Windows XP system.

It is a really good value for the money. I hope Legacy Interactive will come up with more Law & Order games such as this!

I've really enjoyed playing the game. It actually has a good and realistic plot, unlike most of the other games out there. Throughout the course of the game things actually start to make sense and with your good investigation the case unfolds itself.

If you like this game genre you definitely will not be disappointed.

A great idea but some flaws in implementation

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 68 / 72
Date: December 26, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This computer game is based on the popular TV series. The gameplay does a good job of having you feel like you're in an exciting episode of the show.

The characters and voices are right from the TV show, so you really feel like you're part of the action. You head out to the crime scene - a woman was killed while jogging in Central Park. You search the scene for evidence, and then start talking to various suspects.

You can choose your strengths, so you can know which questions not to ask, or you can get help finding evidence by having them highlighted. You have your crime lab and research lab examine evidence, and your surveillance team watches the people. As you find more clues, you track down more people to talk to. Get enough evidence, and you can request a search warrant, and eventually accuse someone of the crime.

That's when things get turned over to the lawyers. Now you try to prosecute this criminal, calling witnesses, discussing evidence, objecting to bad questioning. If you do a good enough job, you can nail the perpetrator!

The game definitely draws you along, You eagerly await the results of the tests you request, and wonder what the people you are talking to are hiding. You have an inkling of what you are looking for, and dig around until you track it down.

On the downside, the game is extremely single-threaded. The only way you can talk to person X is to investigate item Y - but you have no idea that it's item Y you need to submit out of the 50+ items you find at the scene. You can't carry them all, and you get scolded for picking up each item or submitting too many to evaluate. Where in a normal crime scene you'd figure the crew would gather up all evidence and sift it for you, here you get deducted moments for each "thing" on the ground (you don't know what it is until you pick it up) you even look at! So it almost forces you to play each half of the game many times - a few times to figure out what all the items *are* and which are important, and then a last time to actually just touch the items you now know "by osmosis" are important to your case.

The same is true during questioning of various people - questions that seem to be quite related end up causing the person not to answer questions that you actually need. They randomly decide at a point not to talk to you further - even if you have more questions for them. For example, a cleaner has his cart parked on a key point of evidence. But ask him the wrong questions and you cannot ask him to move his cart, even though he's still standing right there!

Finally, even though I use my system for many, many games of all types, this one crashed on me very frequently. It just meant even more frequent saves and restores, beyond what the gameplay already forced on you through its single-mindedness.

Recommended to a fan of the show, and a great concept. Hopefully future releases will address some of these issues and give the game more open gameplay, as in real world detecting.

Better than I expected

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 43 / 45
Date: December 14, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I had way more fun than I thought. This game starts out like the tv show, a crime happens and you're there to help put it all together. I became so addicted to solving the case I was loosing track of time. I love this game because it isn't easy to solve and it seems so real. Here are a few things you might need to know to have successful game play.

1. Go to the site that made this game. There you'll find all the patches and upgrades that you might need to play this game. People seem to miss this part. You'll also find cheats, help with any problem your game might have, wallpaper, support, etc. This site is where I got my video upgrade from. It wasn't like a normal upgrade but one I think the game makers put together. [URL]

2. System requirments are (you need at least): pentium 2, 400 mhz, 96 mb ram, 12x cd-rom drive, 8mb video card, sound card, 700 mb available hard disk space, keyboard, and mouse.

3. read the booklet that comes with the game. It gives you what you need to know. Some people seem to over look this...and this is where some of your answers are at.

4. you can't have an old computer for this.

What I wish the game had was more than 1 case. It would have been cool if maybe 20 or 30 extra cases were included. But then again they would have charged us more for it. Other than that I love this game. I didn't give it 5 stars because the screen went black a few times.

This Game is FANtastic!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 24 / 24
Date: October 25, 2002
Author: Amazon User

As an avid L&O fan, I was excited to try out this game. I had high expectations and 'Dead on the Money' certainly delivered. The game follows the format of the show by picking up a topic ripped straight from the headlines and running with it. The game has interesting plot twists and ambiguious characters/suspects. This unfolds along with a presentation of the case from crime scene to courtroom. The animation is sophisticated and the virtual sets are very sleek and stylized. Actors from the show provide the voiceover making for a realistic and familiar feel for fans. Intellectually the game is challenging and I've played for nearly 20 hours in just 4 days! I've played a few other role-immersion games and this one ranks up there with the best. If you like L&O, you'll LOVE this game.

Great game for L&O fans

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 19
Date: October 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Wow! I love this game. If you are a L&O fan (and who isn't) you won't be able to stop playing. The game is very similar to the show -- you find a dead body and spend the first half trying to identify a suspect with Det. Lennie Briscoe as your partner (real voice of Jerry Orbach). Then you spend the next half of the game as an Assistant D.A. with Serena Southerlyn (voice of Elisabeth Rohm) trying your case in court. Lots of twists and turns to keep you on your toes. And if you don't find a suspect in time, Lt. Van Buren (voice of S. Epatha Merkerson) will take the case away from you. I still haven't won a conviction yet, but I'm getting close!

Good Game with Technical Shortcomings

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 19 / 22
Date: December 26, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game is a good attempt to capture the feel of a Law & Order episode. The story unfolds at a reasonable pace if you are very thorough, but can quickly become frustrating if you overlook an important detail. The game seems to be somewhat linear--though you can vary the order of witness interviews and area searches the same sequence of clues must be discovered in order to progress. One disappointment is that the game consists of only one case, limiting play time to a couple hours tops. For $25 we expected a bit more...perhaps downloadable expansions?

We experienced several technical difficulties. Two patches available were required before the game would display properly. These files were pretty large--6MB and 7.5 MB zipped! On Windows XP the game will not play correctly unless you have applied Service Pack 1. The vendor recommends setting the graphics to "fast" mode within in the game. This means that evidence that you have to comb 3D crime scenes for appears blurry and is more easily overlooked. Follow these guidelines and the game is playable, but occasional lock-ups occur. Once out of every 15 plays or so the game crashed altogether.

Overall, a good idea that could have been implemented tighter.

A good adventure game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: October 03, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I like adventure games, and I am also a fan of the Law & Order show, so I was looking forward to playing this game. I think it is pretty good, although it took me a long time to figure out some of the puzzles. They are logical, though, and not so obscure as some adventure games. I think the writing is better than average for a computer game. I didn't have any technical problems, but the computer requirements are pretty steep. All in all, it is definitely worth the money, especially for someone who likes the show.

Great! Just like the TV show!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 17
Date: November 20, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I've been a big fan of the TV show for years, but I was still wary about buying this game. I loved it! The story line runs exactly like the show. The makers did a good job in integrating the two halves of the show into the game. The key element was how they incorporated the typical L&O twist into the game. Every interview led you to a new piece of the puzzle.

The game runs smoothly and is largely intuitive unlike other games where I've spent most of my time going on-line for tips. The voice acting is excellent - Briscoe has the same cheesy lines as on TV! I liked the way the game gave you the option of what skills you wanted to excel in (i.e. evidence, questioning, teamwork, efficiency). My only criticism is I wish they could have developed the story and its characters more. It is largely in line with how the show runs, but I think they could have expanded on it more.

Other than that, great game and I can't wait for the next one to come out!

Love this game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: October 05, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I don't usually play computer games, but I couldn't wait to try this since I love the TV show. Now I'm addicted! Most of what you do in the game is talk to witnesses and hunt around for evidence and try to find who committed the murder in central park. I still not finished yet, but I can't stop! I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes the show or who likes crime stories.

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.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next 

Actions