Score
Gameplay:	5
Graphics:	6
Sound:	6
FunFactor:	4
PlasmaFactor:	4
Overall:	5

Crime Stories Review
April 17, 2006 by Andrew Vawter

by Andrew Vawter - April 17, 2006

Finally an adventure game in a genre that is nearly dead. Perhaps Crime Stories could be the game that brings back the adventure genre… Read on to find out if it can.

Something Neutral, Something Negative, Something Positive

In Crime Stories you take on the role of a detective who sets out to solve the murder of one of the top leading scientific minds. Well, at least that's the premise; but first you've got to find where you wrote down the number of the mechanic who is fixing your car so that you can report to work. Thus begins Crime Stories and your adventures as Martin Mystere

Crime Stories plays like a very simple adventure game. You spend most of your time clicking on objects trying to find things. Sometimes items are just located in odd places where you wouldn't expect them to be so you'll end up just clicking on everything in the game just so you know you don't miss something. While this might be standard in an adventure style game, it just really isn't all that much fun.

Nearly everything you see in Crime Stories can be clicked on. There are usually three functions for each item too: You can take the item, examine the item, and with some items, you can combine them with another item to make a new item. However, while this might sound like a good thing, the vast majority of items in the game world either won't prove all that useful in the game or are just there because they make sense to be there. Couple that with the earlier mentioned problem of having to examine nearly everything in the game when you are looking for something and you've got a lot of very tedious clicking to do.

For those of you who don't like cut scenes outside of the ending and start of the game, Crime Stories won't disappoint. In Crime Stories there are very few cut scenes in the game, and the ones that are there merely serve to pull the story to a new area and explain the problem to you. The game tries very hard to immerse you in the world without breaking you out of the feel of the game with some flashy full motion video.

Blocky but Okay

Graphics in Crime Stories are fairly average. Character models look a little blocky and suffer from some aliasing problems. Also there really aren't any graphics options within the game itself. Indeed, your entire options menu only allows you to turn dialogue subtitles on and off. Cut scenes within the game are well done and help to maintain the storyline even if there aren't all that many. Lastly, when a character talks, there is no lip-synching so sometimes a character will look to be talking and instead you're hearing nothing.

Good Voices - Kind of Quiet

Because this is a mystery adventure game, voice acting is really important. Besides the fact that character animation doesn't synch up with what you hear, you'll also notice that character voices tend to be pitchy. It almost sounds like each sentence may have been spliced together over multiple takes, as it just doesn't sound all that great. That said, none of the voice actors were truly an annoyance. It sounds like everyone was well cast and the dialogue itself is well written.

Each area has a background theme that is well suited to what you are doing. When you arrive on the scene of a crime, the music changes to a "lurking" style theme, whereas when you are in your house, there is a smooth jazz theme. Sound effects are good, but there really aren't all that many sounds other than the occasional phone ring and door opening sounds.

Limit One Play:

I'm really reminded why the adventure genre is a dead genre after having played this game. It's not that I didn't like it, but this style of game tends to revolve around point and click. Basically once you have played through it once, you'll never load it up to play through a second time as there's no real reason to play again. Once you know all the answers and the solutions to the puzzles, you're faced with the fact that you won't have any reason to play again. Furthermore, the game really isn't all that long. It'll only take two to five days to beat it, and there are very few reasons to stick around after that.

Where is the Rush?

While Crime Stories offers many locations to visit within the game each with numerous items to interact with it just feels rather bland. No area truly offers any feeling of urgency even when you first get called in to report to work you have the feeling that you can spend 4 real world hours clicking every item in your house before you needed to report to work. I'm not a very big fan of timers but there really needed to be some way to make the player hurry through each area. If this was Myst where you're exploring a deserted world it would be excusable but your not you are in downtown New York where time is important.

 

Not Great but Not Bad

At the end of the day, Crime Stories is worth playing through and at $20 it's not a bad pickup. Still, I would only recommend this to someone who's dying for an adventure game as it really doesn't do anything all that innovative for the adventure genre, nor does it offer any real replay value. Assuming you haven't played it yet, you would be better off playing through Sam and Max. Even through Sam and Max might look worse graphically when compared to Crime Stories it at least is a lot more fun to play. Crime Stories, at the end of the day, is merely an average game with a fairly good story to keep you entertained while you randomly click your way through the game.