Apartment of Jim Saighman
Little Rock, Arkansas
Friday, Oct. 1

FedEx man arrives
with my copy of Legacy Interactive’s third L&O game, Justice
is Served at 1:43 pm.  I install it immediately, but can’t begin playing it for a couple of
hours because L&O runs on TNT from 2-4:00 pm local time, and I don’t miss L&O on TV if I can help it.  I
note that the game comes on two discs, one for installation and
one used for actually playing the game.  To my surprise, I find
that JiS also includes the first L&O game, Dead on the
Money, as a bonus.  Better’n a slice
of pepperoni pie and a jelly donut.

Saighman computer room
5:17 pm the same day

An
hour into the game now and I have to set it aside to go to work.  First thing
I noticed is the different setup.  The first two L&O games
required the player to choose between a list of skills to make
some parts of gameplay easier and others more difficult.  For instance,
you could choose “Teamwork” and get hints from Lt. van Buren, but
that might come at the expense of choosing “Evidence Gathering,” which
would preclude your cursor from lighting up over hotspots.  All
that is gone from JiS, as is the annoying limit of how many pieces of
evidence you can collect.  This may sacrifice realism and even
difficulty, but it sure enhances gameplay.

Other immediate
point of interest is that S. Epatha Merkerson’s Lt.
Anita van Buren is gone this time around.  Instead, we get Jesse
L. Martin’s Det. Ed Green as well as
the ever-dependable, ever-sardonic Det.
Lenny Briscoe (Jerry Orbach).  The character
modeling of Green is the best yet of any of the L&O game
characters, and the writers have finally found the perfect touch
with Briscoe’s dialogue.  (I found the constant references to his
ex-wives a bit repetitive in L&O1.)

The
plot so far is both original and yet familiar to both fans of
the TV series
and to those who follow sports:  a young female tennis phenom is found dead in the locker room on the eve of the
U.S. Open.  The medical examiner quickly determines two interesting
facts: 1) the girl was injected with a lethal overdose of steroids
and the angle of the injection indicates that it wasn’t self-administered,
and 2) she was 5-6 weeks pregnant.  Suspects range from her competition
to a bitter former agent to her “secret” boyfriend to an obsessed
fan.  I have my own theory and will try to pursue it when I get
back home from work.

Saighman apartment
patio
Saturday Oct. 2, 2:24
am

Pacing
and thinking as I smoke.  My initial theory doesn’t seem to be panning out.  I
got warrants to search the apartments of the vic and
the obsessed fan.  Along with some evidence, I encountered… puzzles!  That’s
right, there are a good number of puzzles in this newest L&O game!  Most
of them involve finding the right combination to open locked doors,
lockers, safes, etc.  In general, these are fairly easy, with the
necessary clue always in the same location as the lock puzzle itself.  In
addition, there is also one fairly well-designed music puzzle and
perhaps the first slider puzzle that I’ve ever enjoyed.  I gotta give
a big thumbs up to the designers for finding a way to integrate
a slider puzzle into the game and make it seem both logically placed
and interesting.

Anyway,
I’ve now
talked to the dead tennis player’s coach (played by tennis star
Patrick McEnroe), her career-driven mother and spoke on the phone
to the lawyer who handled her will.  Seems like there may be a
lot more suspects than I originally thought.  Waiting on lab results
for some of the evidence I’ve collected and some background checks.  In
the meantime, it’s back to pounding the pavement.

Saighman apartment
patio
Oct. 2, 6:37 am

One
last butt before I hit the sack.  Jeez!  How could I have thought that the developers
had “sacrificed difficulty” in this newest game?  While they may
have removed the “skills” which made certain parts of the game
easier, they made up for it by giving us red herrings galore and
lots of avenues of investigation that turn out to be dead ends.  Fortunately,
any time I am completely at a loss about how to proceed, Det.
Green will offer a little hint about where I should take the investigation
next.  I now have nearly a dozen suspects and have only managed
to conclusively eliminate a couple of them.  I think I know
who the perp is, but I’m gonna need
more evidence.  Gotta come up with some
probable cause so I can get a search warrant for his place.  Maybe
if I have the surveillance unit put a tail on him….

No doubt about it;
this is the longest, hardest, most complex of the three L&O games
so far.  Not that I’m complaining.

Saighman kitchen
Oct 2, 11:56 pm

Making
a celebratory beverage… I arrested the perp!  The
surveillance on one of the suspects led the investigation in
an entirely new
direction that paid off.  My total playing time for this first
half of the game: about fourteen hours.  This compares with a total
of about six hours to play the entire first L&O game.  Next
comes the “Law” section of the game.  I play as Assistant District
Attorney Serena Southerlyn, portrayed
by series regular Elisabeth Rohm.  Now
that I have all the lab and surveillance reports, background checks
and evidence, I have yet more investigation and interviewing to
do as I prepare the case for trial.

I guess that means
switching from Italian food to take-out Chinese and giving up rum
for scotch.

Computer room
Sunday Oct. 3, 2:41
am

I
was stuck at the end of the first day of the trial.  Had to do a bit of investigation
that wasn’t really logical or apparent.  However, a hint from the
D.A. pushed me in the right direction.  Ready to move on to day
two now.

Gameplay in the
trial phase has been almost identical to the first L&O game,
which is both good and bad.  I had to collect the witnesses, evidence
and documents I wanted into a subpoena folder and submit it to
the D.A. to get his go-ahead to start the trial.  This meant more
investigation and interviews.  Once the trial began, I could choose
in what order I wanted to put my witnesses on the stand and what
questions I asked.  Asking an improper question (leading, vague,
asking for speculation, etc.) results in an immediate objection
from the defense attorney.  Similarly, I can object to any of his
cross-examination questions, though doing so improperly leads to
my rating being lowered.  There is a computer in Serena’s office
that contains a legal database concerning improper/illegal cross-ex
and testimony issues.

The down side is
that my favorite part of the trial phase from the second game (Double
or Nothing) has been abandoned.  In L&O2 there were
occasions when, after an objection, you and the defense attorney
were called to the bench for a sidebar with the judge.  You each
argued your side of the objection.  This forced the player to have
actually read through the data on the law computer and be able
to cite the relevant rule of law.  According to my contact at Legacy,
a lot of people found this bit too difficult, so they went back
to the original easier format.

Saighman patio
Oct. 3, 1:14 pm

Time
for a drink and cigar—I convicted the perp!  Although
requiring more time and investigation than in the first two L&O games (and even another puzzle), the trial phase of the game was
significantly shorter and easier than the police investigation
phase.  I ended up with a prosecutor rating of 97%.  Not bad, eh?

Now
I can take some time and reflect back on the experience while
I sip my scotch and
puff my stogie.  Legacy Interactive has given us, in Justice
is Served, perhaps the first game in the franchise that is
truly satisfying for adventure gamers.  It is longer, harder, deeper
and more complex than the first two entries in the series.  Writer
Suzanne Oshry managed to produce a plot
that is both convoluted and logical, perplexing us with lots of
false leads and red herrings, sprinkled with little bits of wit
and sarcasm.  In other words, she makes us feel like we
are actually participating in an episode of the TV show.

The
voice acting was generally great.  Jesse L. Martin was particularly
good in his series debut, and Jerry Orbach was
his usual reliable quality self.  My only complaint was with the
actress who played the victim’s mother—her Russian accent sounded
about as authentic as mine, and I’m Irish-American.  The character
modeling was decent if not outstanding.  Det.
Green looked particularly good while a couple of characters were
merely adequate.  There were occasional distracting “looped” actions
from some of the characters, but this is a minor quibble.  After
all, you aren’t really playing this game to be dazzled by the graphics.

Overall, Justice
is Served is far and away the best of the series (so far)
from an adventure gamer’s perspective.  Because
the game will (I assume) be marketed on TV during/after this
fall’s telecasts of Law & Order, there will likely
be many non-gamers who end up purchasing JiS.  They
might find the puzzles and complexity a bit daunting.  However,
the inclusion of the much shorter and easier Dead on the Money as
a bonus with Justice should give those folks the background
experience they need to enjoy the newer game.

If you are even
an occasional fan of the series, Justice is Served is an
absolute must-play.  Even if you have never watched an episode
but enjoy mystery/detective adventure games (or those few legal/trial-based
games that are out there) then I can pretty much assure you a good
time from Legacy’s newest offering.

Final Grade: A

System Requirements:

• Windows 95/98/2000/XP