Rating: Summary: Thumbs up Review: OK, let me start out to say that I'm not one of those die-hard Law & Order fans, just a casual fan. Surprisingly, the game is better than I thought. Easy to get into, but not made for dummies either. I liked that they tried to make things logical. (I have been annoyed at other games that solutions to puzzles required to read the minds of the people who made it, or even worse, an hour of trial and error.) The voices are good as it does seem like the TV show and the plot is worthy as well. Don't expect a lot of action, though (but would you really if you have ever watched the show?) as it's a lot of talking. But it works. All in all, if you like the show and like to think, I would recommend it.
Rating: Summary: Fun game, but now that I'm done, what next? Review: The answer is there isn't any next! The game has one thread, and that's it. When I received it for Christmas, I though it would sorta mix things up - that you could play it several times with different results. Unfortunately, once you get the guilty verdict, that's it. And this is very disappointing to me.Otherwise, it was fun. I thought it was difficult to see all of the clues in some scenes (like the scrap yard, it took me forever to find the crowbar). It was interesting to put together all the parts for a search warrant and arrest warrant. The graphics and characters were good too (Lenny even gets in some of his famous one liners). I've never played the first Law & Order game, but this one was fun. Very few technical glitches; in fact, it comes with a couple of patches in the event you have some problems.
Rating: Summary: A few flaws but enjoyable gameplay Review: The Law and Order series is a mystery-adventure game where you try to unravel the clues and bring the guilty party to justice. It features exceptional acting by the real cast! You don't have to watch the show to enjoy the game. In essence it's broken into two parts. In part 1, you're a detective and trying to solve a murder case. A well respected doctor is found shot in the head outside an apartment building. It's rather grisly, but you start searching. In part 2, you have tracked down a suspect and are now trying to prosecute him in court. So you use the evidence from before and question the various witnesses to prove the guy is guilty. The game is in essence the same as the first release (Dead on the Money) so the complaints and praise are pretty much similar. On the good side, you have a great cast, great acting and great plot line. So the game really does feel like you're in a well done TV drama and meeting interesting, multi-dimensional people. The puzzles are fun and challenging, and make sense in the context of the game. The ambient sounds and graphics are both rather good - when you're poking around an apartment, you hear footsteps outside as someone else heads to their room. On the downside, though, there is an AWFUL lots of mouse-waving around as you try to search every tiny little nook and cranny for things to examine in the various locations. If you don't click on the exact PIXEL of the item - even if you do have the "help" of turning the magnifying glass on - you miss it! Like real life, there are TONS of things to investigate in the room, and 99% of them are meaningless to the case. But it gets REALLY tedious to have to hear the reports of "Sorry, I examined this as much as I could and just didn't find anything." over and over again from your team. I would REALLY just like to get a written report of what was WORTHY and then be able to click on those things that were interesting to hear more about them. In the same vein, your "inventory of objects" is limited. So you have to *throw away* evidence to pick up more!! Talk about bad police work!! You spend half your case throwing away things and hoping you don't need them later on. Why not have some sort of "police locker" to store them in until later just in case? Also, some of the questions were blatantly obnoxious and not ones I would ask a witness. But the game would get to the point where the "other options" would start to cycle through questions you'd already asked and in essence they force you to ask the obnoxious one. There should be choices on how to end an interview - and pissing off your witness shouldn't be the ONLY one. Finally, I play a TON of games on my system and usually don't have any trouble at all. But the video on this kept *vanishing* completely - and it happened in both windowed and full screen mode. I would have to completely shut down and restart the game to fix it ... for a while. Eventually it would happen again. Still, it's fun to put the pieces together and figure out just who did what with who in what location. There are fun twists and turns and things aren't always as they appear to be. So I'd say when you play this game don't expect a "quick zip through" - sit down, be very patience, be prepared to reboot the game a few times, drink a glass of wine. You'll find that if you take it slow, the game is quite fun and worth the time!
Rating: Summary: Short, hard, but fun Review: This game is really short compared to an average adventure game. I spent about 6-8 hours to complete it. However, the game itself is pretty hard. At the beginning of the game, you can choose 2 strengths for your character, out of 4 possibilities. WIthout the one for "evidence collection", you'll probably go crazy going pixel-hunting for all the items that you can collect. Only 1 out of 10 items you collected are useful, and you won't know until the lab results come in. Another strength you can choose is Interviewing witnesses. Whenever you talk to someone, you have 3 options to choose from. If this strength is chosen, the game will help you out on what to pick to talk about. Unlike many adventure games where what you choose don't matter (as long as you talk about every topic available), what you choose in your dialogue matters in this game. Early on, the correct answer is rather obvious, but as you get deeper into the case, the correct choice is hard to be distinguished from the incorrect ones. The graphics in this game are decent, but because of the low resolution (640X480 I think), some graphics look a bit blocky. Finally, one very unique aspect of the game is that you can play as the District Attorney in the court trial. You choose which witnesses to call to testify and what evidence to submit. This part can get really tricky, especially for people like me who don't know much about the legal procedures.
Rating: Summary: Short, hard, but fun Review: This game is really short compared to an average adventure game. I spent about 6-8 hours to complete it. However, the game itself is pretty hard. At the beginning of the game, you can choose 2 strengths for your character, out of 4 possibilities. WIthout the one for "evidence collection", you'll probably go crazy going pixel-hunting for all the items that you can collect. Only 1 out of 10 items you collected are useful, and you won't know until the lab results come in. Another strength you can choose is Interviewing witnesses. Whenever you talk to someone, you have 3 options to choose from. If this strength is chosen, the game will help you out on what to pick to talk about. Unlike many adventure games where what you choose don't matter (as long as you talk about every topic available), what you choose in your dialogue matters in this game. Early on, the correct answer is rather obvious, but as you get deeper into the case, the correct choice is hard to be distinguished from the incorrect ones. The graphics in this game are decent, but because of the low resolution (640X480 I think), some graphics look a bit blocky. Finally, one very unique aspect of the game is that you can play as the District Attorney in the court trial. You choose which witnesses to call to testify and what evidence to submit. This part can get really tricky, especially for people like me who don't know much about the legal procedures.
Rating: Summary: The Biggest Bust Ever! Review: This game was the biggest waste of twenty bucks I have ever spent in my life. The gameplay was insanly easy and I finished the game in under six hours. After that, you don't get any more cases to solve. That is it. Two days of light playing and it goes to the road side. If you want any value for your money, go pick up a copy of anything but this. I will never buy a Legacy Interactive product again in my life.
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