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CSI Miami

Friday, November 28, 2008

CSI Miami

As the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation brand of television continues to branch out, so does the CSI brand of computer games. With two relatively new TV spin-offs--located in Miami and New York, respectively--joining the already preestablished Las Vegas-based flagship series, it was probably only a matter of time before those spin-off shows found their way into the crime-solving PC adventure genre. That matter of time is now, thanks to CSI: Miami by Ubisoft and developer 369 Interactive. Miami is, essentially, a direct clone of CSI: Dark Motives, which was released earlier this year. Despite being a marginal improvement on the original CSI game, Dark Motives still didn't quite come together as an entertaining adventure. As for CSI: Miami, it's a copy of a previously released game that wasn't that great to begin with, but with the less-engaging characters of the Miami cast and a series of mysteries that also aren't as interesting. So if that sounds like the opposite of a recommendation, you're right on the money.

Welcome to Miami.

The setup for CSI: Miami is exactly like its predecessors: You are yet another green recruit in the world of crime scene investigation, and your new squad just happens to be the CSI: Miami team. You're initially greeted by David Caruso's character, Horatio Caine, who welcomes you to the team and gives you your first assignment. There are five mysteries for you to solve in total, all involving murder of varying degrees of foulness. In each mystery, you team up with one of the members of the cast, each of whom helps you through the process of solving a crime. The members of the team also act as the mouthpiece for the investigation. Your duties will include the manual process of collecting evidence, processing said evidence, interviewing witnesses, and so on and so forth. Occasionally you'll have to decrypt a message or put together a torn picture or something, but generally, the gameplay consists of evidence collecting and processing. If you played either of the previous CSI games, you'll know exactly what to expect from Miami, as no aspect of the gameplay deviates even slightly from the original formula. There's not even a single new crime-solving tool at your disposal within the interface--it's just that much of a copy-paste job.

And with a direct copy of the same game engine comes all of the trappings that helped sink this game's predecessor. For starters, the game is immensely easy across the board. The default difficulty is so easy, in fact, that the term "game" seems quite generous in this case. There are so many help indicators and available hints that there's practically no reason for you to ever get stuck anywhere. On the plus side, you do have the option to turn off many of the game's methods of handholding, but even so, the game still isn't very hard. Even if you don't have the evidence indicators, you'll only need to look for the pieces of scenery that seem slightly brighter or are generally more focused on, and you'll be good to go.