My CSI:Hard Evidence review

[Blotched Blogger]

My Review of CSI: Hard evidence for Xbox 360! By Botched blogger,

Okay right off the bat, I don`t want to hear from you damn fan boys. ”OMG, how can you say that, etc...." this is my opinion about the game, if you liked it, fine by me, your choice, however I was REALLY disappointed with this “game”.

For starters, I went to my local EB games store to pick my pre-ordered game on the Xbox 360, realizing this game was expensive, for a title that wasn`t really anticipated, besides the fans of this series, I felt sort of cheated. But for the sake, I loved the other games, guess it`s fine. I popped in the disk, checked the achievements (like I do with my other games) and came to realize...there`s only 5..and worth 200 each? Wow, Tell tale didn`t put any effort in the achievements what so ever, I mean c`Mon guys…could you have at least made it so you have to work harder for them? That was just lazy implementation, but easy 1000 points, no effort! Well, the pain didn`t stop here, I’m going to break into 5 sections for the review, so you can understand my disappointments:

Presentation: 6/10
Menus are easy to access, give a good vibe for the game, does it justice to the original series, cut scenes are impressive for what they are but besides that nothing really punches me.

Graphics: 1/10
Okay...This is a though one, so many bad parts to complain about, since I do know how to make models, textures a, bump and normal map, I have the right to say something about it. But I have to ask: why was this put on a next gen system?

Looks like the character models we`re done by armatures (and I really loved the ones for Sam & Max), they are just badly modeled, you can actually still see the polygon cuts in the characters, they look square and very unfinished, just looks very rushed and low poly for a next gen system (and I did argue about this with designer Greg, I understand, you guys don`t know how to do normal maps), and you can`t blame this on lack of employees, the modelers just had to work harder (have you guys heard of mesh smooth?) But they still retain the shows charm...has Nick gained some weight?

Textures themselves are blurred out, muddy in certain areas, what`s up with the square fruit? Looks like the textures break in the environment models and I don`t understand why, 360 supports texture resolutions of up to 2048X2048, these look like the old generation`s 512X512 sets, this could have been easily fixed, and the game would have at least look allot sharper.

Now for the lighting, this looks extremely strange, weird blue lighting on the face we`re there is not light source there, light maps do not match background ambient light, it just doesn`t look convincing.

Tied into that…the shadows….there are none…why is that? All other games on this system have real time lighting and shadowing, why is there not shadows underneath each character, they look like they`re floating in the air! This could be because of their game engine…but c`Mon, update it! This game looks like an old Xbox game, no effort what so ever *shakes head in disappointment*

Animation: 5/10
This part is okay, I especially like the animation for the cut scenes, they`re well made, but besides that, nothing really heads, head moves here and there, that`s it, nothing dynamic.

Sound: 5/10
Music and sound effects, sounds pretty cool, besides on case 3...just a terrible song...god. And the dialogue is TERRIBLE!!! Every sentence has a cheap joke related to the case you`re working on…why? Not even the show has this many! But at least this game has most of the voices from the show.

Game play: 7/10
It`s a point and click adventure to its core, and it does it well, but at times it`s hard to find evidence and you can get lost very fast (don`t believe me? Look at the forums) But again, only 5 cases (and some that don`t make an ounce of sense...WARNING CASE 4 SPOILER Like a blind women killing her husband? How?)

Replay value: 2/10
After finishing it once, that`s about it! The only thing that made me go back for more is to get master in every level…which is really easy, I actually clocked myself and finished this game under 6 hours, but besides that nothing more to do, not worth 40$ more like 10$.

Overall: 4/10 (not an average)
This is a rental, unless you`re a hardcore fan, like all the people on this site, this game will be unfortunately swept underneath all the other AAA titles being released this year, like the awesome Halo 3, just a very bad release time. Yes my review sounds harsh, I’m not a yes person to the company, so I’m allowed, but I was really anticipating this game allot! I really loved 3 dimensions of murder for my Xbox, and expected a next gen leap for this franchise; instead I got a downgraded expansion pack. Shame on you Telltale, seems like you guys put 0 effort into this game, you just wanted to cash in on a profitable franchise, shame on you!

[Dangerzone]

yeah.... i dont mind the missing realtime lighting or the decreased texture resolution on the pc version.... they are trying to reach a wider audience, who may not all have top spec computers
but the character models are horrible, and this is still my only complaint.... carried over from last year, they made SOME improvements on SOME of the characters.... but they all still kinda suck

as for the xbox version.... yes, they should have improved the game assets for the console versions, and while i do not have an xbox360 i do have a PS3..... and i feel quite left out in this round

as for the envoroments themselves, and the storylines..... i actually liked them, highly detailed... and a lot of it was detail only seen once or twice in some of the locations, so props to them for that

and all of the storylines made sence.... WARNING: CASE 4 SPOILER if you paid attention, you would realise the wife in case 4 was not entirely blind, she saw well enough to finish a crossword puzzle and what does seeing have to do with anything? what, you cant kill someone if you are blind?

and as for the gameplay.... this was the reinvention of the pixel hunt, some of the evidence was in plain sight... but navigationg some of the scenes was a pain, even if i knew where i wanted to go, and some of the things in the game were not explained very well either

but overall.... an improvement from last year, the added featues are cool, and this is definately a nice addition to the series.....

my conclusion, telltale should have released it back in march, and skipped the console versions all together

oh and some of the processing errors... made my skin crawl (being a trained fornesic investigator myself) in case 5 with the lasers.... they go in the bullet holes and point to the shooters location to tell you where they were standing.... not vice versa, in case 5, the stands were where the shooters was, before you knew where they were standing.... you dont spray a steel sink with lumonal, and a bunch more

there were also many story points that were easly skipped over and could have been used to make the cases longer.... WARNING CASE 2 and 4 SPOILERS the fibers from connies dress in case 2, we could have found them on someone.... the marks on the poolhouse, and the screwdriver in case 4, you could have made that into a storyline (did someone break in and frame the family)

and in case 2... WARNING - CASE 2 SPOILERS i did not find everets gun untill AFTER i got connies gun and matched hers as the gun that fired the bullet into the wall.... and i also got everets dna after i confirmed who the blood on the floor belonged to.... you should have pointed at him right away, and then pointed at shane and connie after everets gun and dna were cleared as not being at the crimescene

and i also noticed that the location and character modeling were outsourced.... so what did telltale actually do in this game? (besides programing)

[Blotched Blogger]

Originally Posted by Dangerzone

yeah.... i dont mind the missing realtime lighting or the decreased texture resolution on the pc version.... they are trying to reach a wider audience, who may not all have top spec computers
but the character models are horrible, and this is still my only complaint.... carried over from last year, they made SOME improvements on SOME of the characters.... but they all still kinda suck

as for the xbox version.... yes, they should have improved the game assets for the console versions, and while i do not have an xbox360 i do have a PS3..... and i feel quite left out in this round

and i also noticed that the location and character modeling were outsourced.... so what did telltale actually do in this game? (besides programing)

seriously i don't know why they didn't make a ps3 version, they're cheap, it's not like an exclusive. and yeah i'm really wondering what they did, the company they outsourced should be fired..just plain terrible

[Skaven]

To be fair it is their first outing into the console market, although some of them were originally from LucasArts. CSI isn't really a mainstream game, so its a good one to test the waters so to speak.

[Blotched Blogger]

Originally Posted by Skaven

To be fair it is their first outing into the console market, although some of them were originally from LucasArts. CSI isn't really a mainstream game, so its a good one to test the waters so to speak.

well here's the thing, the only difference between pc and console, is that, they have restrictions, but the 360 can do alot, and so does pc's, this game just doesn't cut it to today's standards

[Jake]

The port to the 360 was added into the mix well after 99% of the primary game art was created, and on top of that it is retailing for $20 less than the standard going rate for a new 360 game (CSI is $40 instead of $60). Just a few things to think about.

[Udvarnoky]

Blotched Blogger, what it comes down to is that the game looks great and you can't recognize that because you equate technical graphics enhancement with good art. I loved the visuals for the game, and just because geeky tech effects didn't contribute to why they looked good doesn't change anything. Would I have taken them? Sure. Does their absence hurt the game? Not at all.

What I imagine most people look for in a CSI game is crime scenes that are artistically pleasing, atmospheric, and reasonably detailed - Hard Evidence has that. Time that could have been spent giving the engine all of kinds of slight graphical enhancements that would have done the game no good were instead used toward the storytelling aspect, which makes sense when you consider what kind of game this is and what kind it isn't.

The people who are going to buy and enjoy CSI aren't going to give a damn about normal mapping, polygon count, texture resolution and the use of dynamic shadows - they're probably happy not having a clue as to what those things are (aka they aren't snobs). The previous games looked as good or worse than Hard Evidence from a technical perspective, and yet enough people have bought them that this is the 5th CSI game Ubisoft has published. So it's obvious that even a game this terrible has an audience, it just doesn't include you.

You think the graphics are dated and disappointing; fair enough. But your assumptions about the work ethic and intelligence of Ubisoft, Telltale, and whatever other companies might be involved is pretty stupid, as are your apparent expectations for what the game was going to look like, especially considering that you loved 3 Dimensions of Murder which had the same or worse graphics capabilities as this one. (It also wasn't released for Xbox - which version did you play?) Also a good way to encourage civil discussion is to insinuate that people who like a certain company's games are a yes person to that company, so good job on that.

Originally Posted by Blotched Blogger

this game will be unfortunately swept underneath all the other AAA titles being released this year, like the awesome Halo 3, just a very bad release time.

That remains to be seen, and I think that the audiences for Halo 3 and CSI are so different that they're not going to affect each other. You might want to note though that the "very bad release time" that Ubisoft selected for this game is, completely coincidentally I'm sure, the same as the premiere of CSI Season 8.

[Emily]

That remains to be seen, and I think that the audiences for Halo 3 and CSI are so different that they're not going to affect each other. You might want to note though that the "very bad release time" that Ubisoft selected for this game is, completely coincidentally I'm sure, the same as the premiere of CSI Season 8.

I like to think of CSI as the Xbox game Mom buys for herself when she's out picking up Halo 3 for her kids.

[Dedlok]

Originally Posted by Blotched Blogger

My Review of CSI: Hard evidence for Xbox 360! By Botched blogger,

Looks like the character models we`re done by armatures

No offense, but I think you mean amatuers (someone who has little to no skill) not armatures (a skeletal framework)

Tho it would be kinda intresting to see some armatures design a game

[Blotched Blogger]

Originally Posted by Jake

The port to the 360 was added into the mix well after 99% of the primary game art was created, and on top of that it is retailing for $20 less than the standard going rate for a new 360 game (CSI is $40 instead of $60). Just a few things to think about.

that is true, still doesn't answer my previous questions, why can't companies risk certain things to make a better product?

[Blotched Blogger]

Originally Posted by Emily

I like to think of CSI as the Xbox game Mom buys for herself when she's out picking up Halo 3 for her kids.

that's what i'm thinking also, lol!

[m3kal]

has any one done case 3 cuz im STUCK.. bigtime.

[DesignerGreg]

Thanks for the honest feedback, you guys.

Actually I've seen a surprising amount of positive feedback from some other Xbox 360 owners, on some of the 360 forums.

For a game designed for simultaneous worldwide release on 3 platforms, I think the game looks awesome. It's definitely apples and oranges compared to "blockbusters" like Halo 3 and other Xbox 360 exclusive titles.

As for risk, there is an equation that each producer must figure out, of how much a risk costs vs. how much it will make in return. Ubisoft wanted to make this game available to the Xbox 360 consumers at a relatively low cost, to ensure a higher profit margin. Putting more into revamping all the graphics of the game for 1 console would indeed appeal to a few people, but perhaps would not generate enough additional sales to offset the huge costs.

Word up!

[DesignerGreg]

NOTE - I made some edits to the first 2 posts, just to hide spoilers and add warning notices.

[Blotched Blogger]

Originally Posted by DesignerGreg

NOTE - I made some edits to the first 2 posts, just to hide spoilers and add warning notices.

thanks

[Blotched Blogger]

Originally Posted by DesignerGreg

Thanks for the honest feedback, you guys.

Actually I've seen a surprising amount of positive feedback from some other Xbox 360 owners, on some of the 360 forums.

For a game designed for simultaneous worldwide release on 3 platforms, I think the game looks awesome. It's definitely apples and oranges compared to "blockbusters" like Halo 3 and other Xbox 360 exclusive titles.

As for risk, there is an equation that each producer must figure out, of how much a risk costs vs. how much it will make in return. Ubisoft wanted to make this game available to the Xbox 360 consumers at a relatively low cost, to ensure a higher profit margin. Putting more into revamping all the graphics of the game for 1 console would indeed appeal to a few people, but perhaps would not generate enough additional sales to offset the huge costs.

Word up!

thanks for the honest answer

[Maratanos]

Originally Posted by Blotched Blogger

that's what i'm thinking also, lol!

Whoa, whoa, whoa.... Everything was fine for me until you started insulting the gaming preferences of adults. That places you rather low on the relative maturity scale. Insulting the gaming preferences of ANYONE puts you there, in my book. You like FPSes with really complicated graphics. This hypothetical "mom" doesn't give a damn. Does that make her stupid? No.



And don't pull a "that's not what I meant you idiot" line here. We KNOW what you meant. You think this game is stupid, and you think that it's FUNNY that moms would want to play it. We all know what that means in regards to your opinions of female adult parent gaming preferences, so if I hear you say that's not what you meant, you're a HELL of a lot stupider than I thought.

[xenocidic]

To the devs: if you're looking for more reviews from Xbox 360 users, then check this thread from the Xbox Forums - http://forums.xbox.com/15794554/ShowPost.aspx

I'm going to repost my review here -

---

Having completed the game last night, I'm ready to give my impressions...

Length - the game is altogether too short, though perhaps this is mitigated by its lower price-point.

Graphics - the graphics could have used some polishing, especially for a next-gen game. and what's with the super-long necks on most of the characters?

Soundalikes - Let's be honest here - most of us are nerd-types who have perhaps more than once fantasized about Katherine and/or Sara. having soundalikes for the female characters really detracted from the value of this game. should've pushed harder to get the actual actresses to do the voices.

Linear - the game is completely linear with no ability to deviate from the path set out for you, except perhaps the order of operations. there's no way to fail at this game, other than getting stalled (unable to find evidence or unsure how to connect the evidence). in a nutshell, its more of a series of interactive CSI episodes than a game.

Quips - CSI/Vegas is all about the (oftentimes cheesy, but still funny) quips and puns that the characters make about the evidence or suspects. I think there should have been more of these.

Plot holes/peculiarities - an example would be that one of the characters is legally blind, yet a piece of evidence has her completing a cross-word puzzle.. in an investigative game, these plot holes should have been ironed out as the players are by design going to be viewing everything with a discerning eye. for more, see this thread http://forums.xbox.com/16130618/ShowPost.aspx

Loading times - not sure why the loading times are so lengthy, as the environments are small and the graphics undemanding.

Assists turned on by default - The game is easy-mode with all the assists. I'm not gunna lie, I played through with them turned on, but only because there was no reason not to, and this was a rental.

Achievments - This was Telltale Game's first Xbox 360 game, so perhaps they should be given some amount of leniency here, but the achievments were totally uninspired and too few in number. there should have been achievments tied to the "master rankings" , and for the insect collections, and the thoroughness points. a secret achievment for playing the piano and keyboard would've put a smile on my face as well. More achievments would have lengthened the time-to-completion, if only superficially.



Now, all that being said, I still enjoyed playing this game, for all its faults. I just hope that the next iteration of this game will address some of these problems, and perhaps allow the player more freedom (truly first person, i.e. ability to walk about and perhaps drive-to crime scenes, possibility of failure due to contaminating the crime scene or evidence, less linear, etc.), but these suggestions are perhaps best left for another thread.

[Blotched Blogger]

read these, these are funny and true!!
http://www.planetxbox360.com/index.p...ls/show/2824/2
http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/10/...-csi-hard.html
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/828/828597p1.html
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/adve...ml?sid=6180423

and why i'm i not surprised? good job on rushing a game!! go back to the drawing board!!!! dont you guys have marketing strategies?

[this_guy86]

And to the developers of Hard Evidence, I give it 6/10. It was nuthing special. U pretty much created 3DOM all over again! Why couldnt u have just called it 3 Dimensions of Murder II? If u wanna know how to improve the next game, watch a couple episodes of the show, or better yet, look at the topic I created on the Telltale board, titled Recommendations for Improvement.