Law & Order: Legacies Episode 1 - Discussion and Feedback

[Mike]

The first episode was released last night and some of you have had time to play through it already. So, what are you thoughts?

If you're a Law & Order fan in general, did it feel like an episode of the show to you? How cool was it to have all those characters from Law & Order history interacting with each other?

There's two different ways the final case can play out, so how did it go for you? What'd you think of that ending?

We're looking forward to your thoughts! Thanks!

[WARP10CK]

The first case starts of with a maid being murdered and the case takes a turn when the suspected killer is gun downed in court and then we have to prosecute the father of the victim instead, which McCoy feels should be punished. Law and order and all that :P

Anyway I only played it once and the gameplay contains investigations and courtroom battles straight out of the phoenix wright games.

Not sure if I could win the case but it seems that if did a proper job I probably would have won the case but no matter.

I was really struck by how similar it was to phoenix wright games and that´s why I liked the gameplay we have objections here too

The first case sort of starts of what I suspect is a bigger plot in later episodes.
Anyway I kind of liked it been catching up with the tv series lately as well.

So all in all not bad will be interesting to see how it progresses.

[eblocksonian]

Originally Posted by WARP10CK

The first case starts of with a maid being murdered and the case takes a turn when the suspected killer is gun downed in court and then we have to prosecute the father of the victim instead, which McCoy feels should be punished. Law and order and all that :P

Anyway I only played it once and the gameplay contains investigations and courtroom battles straight out of the phoenix wright games.

Not sure if I could win the case but it seems that if did a proper job I probably would have won the case but no matter.

I was really struck by how similar it was to phoenix wright games and that´s why I liked the gameplay we have objections here too

The first case sort of starts of what I suspect is a bigger plot in later episodes.
Anyway I kind of liked it been catching up with the tv series lately as well.

So all in all not bad will be interesting to see how it progresses.

Why did you fail the court battle? How was the "Plea" and "Objection" mechanics?

[WARP10CK]

Originally Posted by eblocksonian

Why did you fail the court battle? How was the "Plea" and "Objection" mechanics?

It´s basically the same thing as in phoenix wright if you object to things that is not to be uhhm objected. Or make the wrong call in a interrogation.

It´s a point based system and when you are in court you have a meter that shows how much the jury is buying your case. If you suck at making your case the other meter will start filling up red and that means the jury is on the other side.

[Ribs]

...Universal App! And there was much rejoicing!

[eblocksonian]

Originally Posted by WARP10CK

It´s basically the same thing as in phoenix wright if you object to things that is not to be uhhm objected. Or make the wrong call in a interrogation.

It´s a point based system and when you are in court you have a meter that shows how much the jury is buying your case. If you suck at making your case the other meter will start filling up red and that means the jury is on the other side.

How did you do the second time?

[Ribs]

I wish I had money to buy it... any chance of giveaways or somesuch? You folks have been shying away from that kind of thing recently, which has meant I've yet to play any of your games released since the last Puzzle Agent! I'm excited for it though, it looks like a really quality title.

[eblocksonian]

It's 2.99... let me look under the couch for some extra change lying around. Sending you the quarters might cost as much as the 2.99, so....

[Aisaku]

As a L&O and adventure game fan I grabbed this as soon as I found it went live.

Played a bit of the first episode, so far so good. The graphics do their job nicely and the presentation works. It does feel like the game runs on training wheels, telling you exactly when you interrogate just right after every single scene. It's not too much of a bother though, you get used to it. Still it would be nice to have a 'hardcore' setting where you see your performance only after the interview ends. Still, loads of fun.

In a L&O fan side, the voice actor behind Lenny Briscoe is doing a good job, and the actress giving voice to Olivia Benson could be Mariska Hargitay herself. Rey Curtis... it's serviceable, but his accent and spanish is definitely off. It's funny that Curtis got cast as the computer illiterate when interviewing the hacker, since he was the one who introduced Lenny and L&O in general to cyber crime. In one of his first cases, no less.

All in all, great job TT. This is a series I'll follow through to the end.

[Tjibbbe]

I'm waiting for the pc release, but I watched a little bit of the first 10 minutes of the episode on youtube, and it actually looks pretty good! The style seems to work really well, and it looks pretty fun to play as well. More comments from me when the game is released on pc!

[WARP10CK]

Originally Posted by eblocksonian

How did you do the second time?

I actually won the case and since i did well I could ask for the maximum sentence.

[jxt123]

Originally Posted by Michael Parks

The first episode was released last night and some of you have had time to play through it already. So, what are you thoughts?

If you're a Law & Order fan in general, did it feel like an episode of the show to you? How cool was it to have all those characters from Law & Order history interacting with each other?

There's two different ways the final case can play out, so how did it go for you? What'd you think of that ending?

We're looking forward to your thoughts! Thanks!

Bought Eps. 1 & 2 - playing on an Iphone 4

Pros:
- Good gameplay
- Good dialogue
- Interesting story

Cons:
- No idea how the scoring works - some of the courtroom scenes give you no points at all
- No ability to restart the game. Sometimes you just want to restart the episode but you cannot. You can only restart the scene you were on. Other than that, you have to finish the game to restart it.
- No idea what is a 'good' ending and what is a 'ending' - if you plea a defendant to murder 2 - is that the same as having the jury convict on murder 2? Do you get more points or a better ending for not making plea offers? (that is the 2 endings - but is one better?)
- Red herrings - there is no explanation if finding a red herring is a good thing or bad thing to your game
- Objections - not all of the objections available are explained. Also Ep 1 allows you to withdraw your objection yet Ep. 2 does not - it seems like this game was rushed past QA to make a deadline rather than really looking at the gameplay and checking to see if it made sense.

Improvements:
- Allow you to quit and restart the game - rather than just the scene you were playing on
- Allow you to turn off the transcripts - make the player rely on his/her memory when playing
- Make the answers randomize - make users pay attention when going thru the game again
- Give a better scoring breakdown - let the user know where the points came from - the law side and the order side
- Let the user know if he/she found the best ending

I hope that helps. I am still on the fence if I will get the other episodes.

[Jayeffgee]

Originally Posted by Michael Parks

The first episode was released last night and some of you have had time to play through it already. So, what are you thoughts?

If you're a Law & Order fan in general, did it feel like an episode of the show to you? How cool was it to have all those characters from Law & Order history interacting with each other?

There's two different ways the final case can play out, so how did it go for you? What'd you think of that ending?

We're looking forward to your thoughts! Thanks!

I'm stuck in the first scene. I know, at least I think I know, where the notebook is, but I can't get it. Can anybody help?

[RyanKaufman]

Originally Posted by Aisaku

It's funny that Curtis got cast as the computer illiterate when interviewing the hacker, since he was the one who introduced Lenny and L&O in general to cyber crime. In one of his first cases, no less.

Ha! I'm glad you caught this! This was a little inside joke about Rey Curtis, and how he's gotten older and out of touch with the FTPs over time. It's inevitable... During the 1999 episodes, he will still be schooling Lennie about the internets.

[RyanKaufman]

Originally Posted by WARP10CK

I actually won the case and since i did well I could ask for the maximum sentence.

I'm interested if you went all the way to the jury, or if you used your advantage to plea bargain.

BTW, if you are at 90%+ Jury Confidence, the jury WILL always find the guy guilty. (It's not totally accurate to real juries, but we wanted a way to guarantee success if a player had really worked hard for it.)

[Nightlight]

Originally Posted by Jayeffgee

I'm stuck in the first scene. I know, at least I think I know, where the notebook is, but I can't get it. Can anybody help?

If you keep scrolling across to the left, you'll see Rachel's handbag. Circle that, and it's in there. It's pretty dark though.

[WARP10CK]

Originally Posted by RyanKaufman

I'm interested if you went all the way to the jury, or if you used your advantage to plea bargain.

BTW, if you are at 90%+ Jury Confidence, the jury WILL always find the guy guilty. (It's not totally accurate to real juries, but we wanted a way to guarantee success if a player had really worked hard for it.)

I took the plea bargain and did so well that I just asked for maximum sentence. I did another playthrough and there the jury just found him guilty.

[RyanKaufman]

There's no better feeling than when the jury returns the Guilty verdict. BOO YAH!

I admit I bite my nails even when I know I've got it in the bag.

On a side note, I'm hearing that lots of people are taking the plea bargains right away. I thought it would be a more 50/50 split between people making deals and people trying for convictions.

[Grunty]

Being the biggest Phoenix Wright fan in the world, I am glad there is a courtroom game that is nearly as good instead of godawful *STAY AWAY from the beauty lawyer Victoria games and Harvey Birdman is only good for watching the cut scenes*

Law & Order franchise has two shows *SVU and Criminal Intent* that are in my top ten favorite tv shows and the original show is great too. Love that Telltale dropped the LA bit and is doing a 'best characters get together' kind of game. The first episode seems to take place after the first show and in between the last two seasons on SVU since Stabler just left the department.

Guess other episodes will take place in the past since Lennie Briscoe is in at least one of them. Guessing its set in the early days with him and Logan.


Just a few complaints though

-Its dang choppy sometimes on my little iphone

-I HATE the circling method of this game, it barely gets it any of the time at all.

-Benson's voice actress did an awful job. Mariska Hartigay just has too distinct of a voice.

[JJoyce]

Ok, I'm somewhat late to the party, but...

I'm a huge L&O fan (main series, anyway) so I was anticipating seeing this on PC. An incident with a pool and a phone meant my Samsung Focus was out of commission, so...Wound up back on an iPhone until contract renewal time.

So...Caved in and picked it up on the app store.


Overall, I'm mixed on my take of it, but generally I like it with reservations.

The overall writing and presentation is very much L&O. Feels like it's pulled directly from a season of the series. Dunno if NBC gave you access to their writers to help out, but either way, great job.

One of the immediate negatives I noticed is the thing's incredibly slow and/or buggy at times. The iPhone 4 isn't the newest iDevice out now, but it seemed like every third cinematic/transition was choppy or the audio lagged. Dunno if it's a matter of lacking optimization, IOS 5 or that it's simply intended for the dual core devices, but....

Gameplay wise, it was....different. Like another said, I was never sure whether the "red herring" dialogue choices which were pretty obvious were intended to be a negative or a positive for selecting.

Some of them were definitely entertaining as was the case with Curtis and the FTPs.

The question/answer aspect I initially didn't really like too much as it reminded me of the earlier Sherlock Holmes titles from Frogwares where gameplay consisted largely of "end of chapter" quizzes. It grew on me somewhat as the case went along.

The trial section was very well done for the most part.

I'm impressed that Telltale actually makes an effort to introduce and explain basic objections to testimony (shades of Legacy Interactive), although the system for objecting bothers me a great deal.

It's not so much in the selecting an objection and what not, that's great. It's more Telltale's decision to place "objection" checkpoints usually after the witness has answered the potentially impermissible question.

Just annoys me since it's kind of a moot point to object to a question after it's answered unless the witness veers off into diatribes or wanders beyond the scope of the question.

I was also a little disappointed that there was effectively only one crime scene to "investigate", although given the investigation mechanics, I guess it's not a huge loss. Just was a little jarring, is all.

Overall, though it's definitely enjoyable for what it is. Wouldn't call it a typical Telltale game (at least not as that used to be understood), and I suspect it's going to draw a lot of ire for the lack of traditional gameplay mechanics, but....Hell, if I wasn't worried about the complaints about double charges or purchases not working, I'd go ahead and buy the other 6 episodes.