Forensic Gaming

Deciding that it might be wise to not put all my Valentine's Day eggs in one basket (wait... eggs are Easter; perhaps I should find a better analogy before I publish this), I got the PC game version of another of my girlfriend's favorite procedural crime dramas: CSI Miami.

At first glance it looks like it will be a pretty cool game; the characters look pretty much like their RL counterparts (though perhaps under the influence of something?) and it appears that this time Ubisoft actually managed to secure the services of all the actual actors for the voices...

...but then I start getting into the gameplay and I realize that this is probably another example of exactly what I've been looking for: a game less suited for a semi-experienced gamer like myself and more suited for my non-gaming GF.

The thing I instantly found disappointing was that questioning witnesses and potential suspects really doesn't require any actual attention at all; if I had a little automated device to click my mouse button for me it would work just as well. The game gives me a single question I can ask and the character gives me a single answer; so like, what's the point? See, if I had designed this game, the player would be given a list of possible questions to ask the suspect and the information the suspect would reveal (or not reveal) would be dependent upon whether or not I had asked the right questions. But alas, such is apparently not the Ubisoft way.

Wait a minute... was that the late Bernie Mac?

Next we have a picture of Calleigh, a dead alligator and a severed human arm. My options are to click on either the alligator or the arm to collect the evidence, or to click Calleigh to ask for her advice as to what to do. I'm bewildered by the choices! They could have at least hidden a piece of evidence under a bush or something and made me look for it, but no such fun to be found here.

Then I get to take all my hard-earned evidence back to the morgue for Alex to examine and tell me what's up. Ooh, the suspense is killing me...

Okay, I'm not going to bore you with any more of this. Suffice it to say that this is another game that can be played entirely with just the mouse and, as far as I can tell so far, requires very little actual thought to play. If my GF can't manage to play through this one, then I might as well give up all hope...