Preview CSI: Dark Motives Developer: Ubi Soft Publisher: Ubi Soft Genre: Adventure Release Date: March 23, 2004 Platform: Preview by Randy Sluganski February 25, 2004

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation was one of the best-selling pc games of 2003, so a sequel was inevitable (as will be the many more that will surely follow).

The CSI games are meant to appeal to the mainstream gamer who is a fan of the popular CBS television series. Each case takes about an hour to complete which, not so coincidentally, also happens to be the length of the weekly show. This unique approach persuades fans of the show to feel as if they are actually participating in an episode.

Hardcore adventure gamers, many of whom grudgingly admitted liking the first game, also complained loudly about the ease and the shortness of each case.

It’s still too early to give an honest evaluation on whether the sequel’s difficulty level has been ramped-up, but there are now three levels of gameplay available: Beginner, Expert & Advanced. At the Advanced Level all options are turned-off – Active Hotspots, Evidence Tagging, Location Tagging, Auto-Evidence Questions & Tutorials – for a much more realistic and investigative experience. For those of you who, like myself, can be a little dense at times, the Beginner’s Level keeps all of the helpful options turned-on. Nor does it currently appear that all five cases will link together as they did in the original game, but this could change in the final version.

There are five more cases from the Las Vegas files this time around: ‘Daredevil Disaster’, ‘Prints and Pauper’, ‘Diggin’ It’, ‘Miss Direction’ & ‘Dragon and Dropping’.

For this preview, we had a full version of the game but only two cases were playable. In ‘Miss Direction’ the lead actress in a musical is killed during rehearsal when the blanks in a prop gun are replaced with live ammo (shades of Brandon Lee!).

In ‘Daredevil Disasters’ stuntman Ace Dillinger breaks almost every bone in his body when a motorcycle jump goes astray and instead of landing safely on the opposite ramp, his bike veers out of control. An accident you say? Not in the world of CSI.

We played both episodes on the Beginner and Advanced Levels and while they play the same, you definitely need to strain your grey cells on the Advanced Level. If the entire game follows suit, then concerns about the game being too easy should be resolved. Each episode, is also considerably longer in length than were they were in the original game.

Another nifty new feature is the Evidence Trinity. It describes key linkages between the three elements of a crime: the suspect, crime scene & victim and is especially useful when you are stumped

Once again the actors from the television series have lent their talents to the game so the voice-acting is top-notch. Other carry-overs from the first game include the option to replay an episode for a better score, an option to ask your partner for help (though Grissom frowns on this) and The Big Picture – a nicely animated cinematic in which the entire murder is acted out.

So dig your forensic tools out of your closet, pull on those rubber gloves and get ready to search some body cavities for clues.