Review Law & Order: Criminal Intent Developer: Legacy Interactive Publisher: Legacy Interactive Genre: Adventure Release Date: November 2005 Platform: Review by Ryan Casey November 21, 2005		Buy this game at Trade for this game at:

When Law & Order first aired on September 13, 1990 (before I was born, mind you), Dick Wolf never expected that it, just another attempt at primetime crime TV, would become the longest-running crime series and second-longest-running drama. 15 years later, the show has given birth to 3 spin-offs, all on NBC. The most popular, however, is Law & Order: Criminal Intent, which began in 2001. This companion show exposes the high-caliber crimes from the perp’s perspective, which is more or less why America is so fascinated with it. Legacy Interactive – who previously presented three games based on the original series – now tackles Criminal Intent in adventure form.

The game wastes no time setting the stage; you play Major Case Squad Detective Goren, and immediately three manila files are tossed onto your desk, leaving you to decide which one to take on first. Although the plots for these cases are generally thin, they link together at the end (a lá the CSI games) to present a fourth case. I have never favored this format and it still feels unnecessary, but it does make the game feel a bit longer, for the average gamer will not take very long to complete the game.

Your primary crime-solving tool is your Nokia PDA, which has five different features: an interactive map, a briefcase storing evidence, suspects, and documents, phone numbers and messages, notes, and link to the main menu. It stays in the top left corner of your screen and will maximize for use when clicked. The Criminal Profiler laptop at home base is another helpful device that will use the evidence you collect to build an accurate physical and mental description of your killer. It’s a shame we don’t have something as great in real-life, because this thing works miracles for puzzled detectives! You also have a set of options available when you click on a person or item: look, use, analyze, collect, and talk. The analyze button will send a piece of evidence for in-depth examination by Jennifer at the Records & Research Unit. There are also two cursors used throughout the game. One is a disc-shaped thing that controls where you move. The other is a white-gloved hand which you use during conversations and with the interaction toolbar. Overall, the interface for the game is attractive and user-friendly.

A new feature to this Law & Order outing is the suspect questioning. As usual, you have a list of topics on your notepad which you can discuss with the suspect. But there are five different ways in which you can approach each one: confrontational, deceptive, flattering, straightforward, and empathetic. Depending on who your witness is and what the question is, you must choose one of Goren’s facial expressions (which match the listed question styles) to interrogate the suspect. There are two round meters next to the notepad: one fills up with red every time you make the suspect nervous or angry, and one fills with green every time you get the suspect to answer a question no problem. While certainly a clever idea, there are some questions where it’s hard to figure out how one would ask it in a certain manner – for example, think about asking someone what time it is. It’s hard to think about asking that in so many different ways that sometimes you just have to experiment to see just how Goren will ask it. Overall it plays well into the theme of the game and proves an interesting mind test for the gamer, but it does get old after some time.

In some ways, the questioning process makes up for the lack in sophistication of puzzles. Given that both Law & Order and CSI games aren’t known for their great puzzles, I don’t want to be overly harsh with this area. Finding evidence itself involves either pixel-hunting or looking for objects that are different in their graphic style. The other puzzles involve the basics: locks, anagrams, jigsaws, etc. Some are them are quite fun (like trying to find a certain brand of cigar in a room of many more), but others lack common sense (like piecing together a photo where the pieces overlap). Not that I didn’t expect this, having played the previous Law & Order games, but I hope that developers will someday find a way to integrate more mature puzzles into such a mature environment.

Graphically, the game is the equivalent of a slightly dull gem. This is a game where stopping and observing the scenery is worth your while. The artists also add many nice touches to some of the scenes; for example, you’ll see a small flock of birds soar above you when you’re outside. These additions really show the effort that was put into each and every background. The character sprites are probably the weakest aspects stylistically; they look great in cut-scenes, but they’re a bit blocky during gameplay. And although it’s more of a programming fault, the way the characters behave (as you’ll see in the next paragraph) makes them seem all the more unattractive. Their lip-synching is off, and their hand gestures are slow. Speaking of lip-synching, the voices provided for the suspects break even, with some very good and some not-so-good. Vincent D’Onofrio and Jamey Sheridan lend their great talents to the game, as well, but they tend to have bouts of emotion-lacking and aren’t totally consistent throughout the game; when they’re top notch, however, they can really pull off a great scene, no matter how awful the voice is of the person they’re interviewing.

The biggest mysteries to be solved in this game, however, are the technical problems. As great as it is to have beautiful graphics and realistic noises and other great miracles of technology, they are taxing on computers, and mine isn’t even three years old. Everything but the main menu moved at an almost excruciatingly slow pace, the cursor inching along and making it hard to click on things (especially since the interaction bar disappears after a few seconds if you don’t use it). Goren often gets “stuck” in his position, like a CD skipping, and it takes awhile for him to orient himself and get to wherever you’re clicking. All of the characters have a strange habit of jumping up and doing calisthenics every once in awhile; they’ll put their arms straight out and then relax again. Others, if you look in the background of some scenes, walk in slow-motion, which looks rather funny. The bottom line is that if you have an old computer – old here meaning more than 2 years – you’ll experience a lot of difficulties with this game. They won’t make you quit – or maybe they will, but I didn’t persevere just because of this review, you know! – but they’ll be awfully annoying at first and you’ll get used to them after the first case or so.

In all, this is a game particularly for mystery fans (and perhaps those who haven’t had enough eye candy recently!), and it won’t disappoint if you look past the grave technical turmoil and poor character graphics. I am looking forward to another outing with the Major Case Squad, but there is plenty of room for improvement.

Final Grade: B
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System Requirements:

• Windows® 2000/XP
• 800 MHz Pentium® III processor or equivalent
• 128 MB RAM
• 2 GB available hard disk space
• Sound card, keyboard and mouse
• 64 MB DirectX® 9 compatible video card
• DirectX® 9b or higher
• 12x CD-ROM drive