NCIS

Another game included in the Gamescore push, NCIS offers a similar style of gameplay to CSI, albeit more dumbed down. The story follows the characters from the series in what I can only describe as a light-hearted fight against terrorism in the United States.

Like, CSI you have to play through various investigations which are inherently linked to a plot to detonate a nuclear bomb and kills lots of evil Americans. The characters are the best bit in the game for me but only for the first two episodes. After that, the self congratulatory one liners, of which each character has only one, really begin to destroy any kind of likability they have built up to this point.

The gameplay elements are about as close as ‘click here to solve’ as possible and I thought CSI was quite basic. There are two elements to investigating a crime scene. You have to take pictures of everything. In NCIS, taking a photograph can delve through a wall to obtain bullets, collect forensic evidence from bodies and take moulds of anything that could assist in the investigation. In CSI, you had different tools for all of these things. If real forensic scientists could get their hands on an NCIS camera, it would make their work much for efficient.

In addition to the crime scene investigations, there are also interrogations which are simply laughable. In order to extract more information from witnesses, you have to press A to ask them a further question. The further question is normally, ‘Are you sure about that?’ which then causes the witness to completely change their previous statement under next to no pressure whatsoever.

The worst aspect of the gameplay is the deduction board. After analysing all the evidence, you have to make it work so that the evidence points to a suspect. So instead of working it out from the evidence, the game makes you go through the deduction board to piece it together in exactly the way the game wants you. It takes it way too far as well. You have to combine the evidence by selecting two bits at a time, however if you select the two in the wrong order it won’t let you compare them and asks you to try again. Comparing ‘B’ to ‘A’ is the same as comparing ‘A’ to ‘B’ no matter how you look at it, so fuck off you fucking game.

When you successfully manage to combine the two items in the right order, you then have to pick from four statements picking the correct link. Some of these statements mean exactly the same thing just worded differently, so being punished for picking the wrong one was a amazingly patronising from a game as complex as a ball and cup.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 26 Achievements

There’s not really a lot to say here. There are 26 achievements and I think they are all impossible to miss on one play through of the game. There is no additional challenge and due to the nature of the gameplay, it becomes very irritating having to listen to the characters’ dialogue very quickly.

That said I reckon the whole thing can be wrapped up and tossed aside within three hours so for quick achievement hits, it’s second on the list behind Avatar: TLA: TBE.

Downloadable Content – N/A

So it’s a quick game and easy achievement points for this one but it’s not going to be the cause of a game revolution and is the weakest game in a sparsely populated genre. The characters could have saved it but their underdeveloped personalities and dialogue destroyed what could have been the game’s saving grace.