CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

aka: CSI 1, CSI: Kryminalne Zagadki Las Vegas, CSI: ŠœŠµŃŃ‚Š¾ ŠæрŠµŃŃ‚ŃƒŠæŠ»ŠµŠ½Šøя, Les Experts: Une Aventure Palpitante au Coeur Du Crime, 侦ē¼‰ę”£ę”ˆ:ēŠÆē½ŖēŽ°åœŗč°ƒęŸ„
Moby ID: 8805
Windows Specs

Description official descriptions

This game is named for and based upon the CBS television series CSI. Solve five intriguing crime cases as a member of the Las Vegas police force and work in the same settings and atmosphere as the show. Interactive parts are voiced by the actors and actresses from the series.

High-tech equipment and tools are at your disposal and must be used in combination with your wits, intuition and common sense. During your investigation you will question witnesses and suspects, find evidence and clues and discover motives to make an arrest.

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Credits (Windows version)

140 People (98 developers, 42 thanks) · View all

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 62% (based on 39 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 32 ratings with 5 reviews)

Nice Game... Too Short!

The Good
The plot is nice. Voice acting is very good; done by the actors from the tv-series. The learning curve starts out very well. The first case is a real adventure as well as a tutorial.

The Bad
Too short. If they had released a demo, it would have covered the entire game. I played through it in about 8 hours. They try to ad some replay value by giving percentage scores to how well you've done. The higher the score, the more additional material is uncovered. Unfortunately the cases (though very entertaining the first time) arenā€™t interesting enough to play again and the bones material is just the ordinary sketch-art any normal game would give you for free or had already published on their website.

The Bottom Line
A perfect game for beginning Adventure gamers and for CSI fans. Donā€™t spent too much money on it for you wont get more than two or three night of fun out of it.

Windows · by frank rieter (146) · 2003

I was unimpressed

The Good
Since episodes of CSI have begun showing up as re-runs, I've become a real fan of the television show. So, I decided to try out all the games, starting with this first one.

The cases are varied and get a little more complex as you go along. It was interesting that two of the cases connected together, drawing upon previously found evidence and information. Hearing the voices of the real actors and actresses is definitely a plus, and they voice-acted very well.

The interface is so very easy with the absolute necessities and no frills, which I prefer. Your place in the game is automatically saved, which is nice. After you finish, you can go back and redo the cases to improve your scores (which are really an evaluation of your sleuthing performance). And, if you choose the "full installation", you can put the CDs away because they'll never be accessed again.

There isn't much music to speak of. What music there is was in keeping with the theme and played in the background.

The Bad
The graphics are not up to par, in my opinion, even for a game released two years ago. The artists tried their best to duplicate the likenesses of the real-life actors but only managed to pull it off half of the time. The locations were portrayed reasonably well, but needed more detail and exploration opportunities (even if there was no evidence to be found there).

The designers also tried to match the speech with lip movement and got close, but could not match things perfectly.

Interaction with objects and people wasn't consistent. For instance, while dragging evidence to Greg to be analyzed, one object would "light up" but the next would not. And, unlike real life, the lab results were instantaneous.

You're the "rookie" and naturally you'll need help now and then. But, asking your current team mate for help didn't give you enough information to really assist you.

After you know what to look for, actually finding it is another matter altogether. As an example, I knew that I wanted to make a cast of a tire but, even zoomed in correctly, finding the correct spot on that tire required me to click on almost every section of it.

The game's linearity had me skipping back and forth from Brass to the Lab, to the crime scene and other locations so often that it became monotonous.

The "bonus" items at the end of each case are lame. Simple line drawn sketches of characters is all you get for your hard work. I didn't even look at most of them.

I split my gameplay over several evenings, but still found it to be pretty short (say, no more than 8-10 hours of gameplay).

The Bottom Line
This first CSI game was okay, I suppose, but I wouldn't consider it a very good adventure game. Not worth 3 stars in my opinion. Certainly not up to the standards of other adventures released the same year.

Basically, I wanted more. I wanted to be able to -fully- explore a crime scene or location .. not just one room of a house, for instance. A few more lab gizmos would have been nice too. I also expected more interaction with the NPCs (the cast), and would have liked working with more than one of them at a time.

Windows · by Jeanne (75956) · 2005

Cool! You, too, can be a CSI!

The Good
Behind every good game is a great story. This game is no exception. You start out as a intern working for the CSIs and must 5 different to be ā€œevaluatedā€ on your performance. I like how this gameā€™s story is set up, because you donā€™t actually play a character from the show, you get to be a part of it. Thus, you get to see and talk to anyone you want. The cases are great and almost as good as the TV show. They are all almost tied together in some way, but I wonā€™t tell you how. The special bonus material you get after you solve a case is cool, but itā€™s just sketches of concept art and stuff. Not what I expected, but cool anyway. I also liked the simple commands to interact with the environment.

The Bad
Interacting was a bit of challenge, though. You donā€™t always know exactly what youā€™re looking for, so you end up skipping a lot of things. Well, the acting in this game is not quite as good as on the TV show. This is understandable, considering that when youā€™re just talking into a microphone, you canā€™t sound as good as when youā€™re in front of a camera. Some of the dialogue was a little, er, bland. Not quite as good as the show. The graphics are not what I expected, either. Not as good as they couldā€™ve been, but this is an adventure game, and you donā€™t really need mind-blowing graphics to have great gameplay.

The Bottom Line
This is a pretty cool adventure game. You donā€™t have to watch the show to ā€œget itā€ or understand it. Itā€™s easy to learn and fairly challenging to play. I was hoping it wouldn't be as short as it was, but thereā€™s always the sequel, I suppose.

Windows · by Mullet of Death (592) · 2005

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Discussion

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Case #10-Dragon and Dropping Rhonda Myers Nov 22, 2007

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Jeanne.

Additional contributors: Tony Van, Unicorn Lynx, Frederic Hutow, UV, Stratege, Zeppin.

Game added April 5, 2003. Last modified March 2, 2024.