I recently had the opportunity to sit down with SouthPeak games to get an early glimpse at their post holiday Nintendo DS release, Crime Scene.
Crime Scene is similar to stylus based medical games like Trauma Center: Under the Knife, only with a darker twist. Using real life police techniques, you must gather fingerprints, dried blood and even bullets to bring brutal criminals to justice.
The first thing you notice in this game is the creators had no qualms with showing the graphic nature of forensic investigation. Your first case is a double murder of a fellow detective and his wife, which isn’t exactly E rating material. When asked what separates this game from other crime solving games, SouthPeak product manager Aubrey Norris had this to say:
“Crime Scene is focused on doing two things differently than other mystery titles: not watering down the content to fit into a particular age rating and using forensic tools to solve crimes vs. a dialogue/text-based method.”
The controls are simple, and rely almost entirely on using the stylus. Each crime scene is presented to you as a flat two-dimensional image, and it is your job to find the clues in the image presented. If you see a corpse on the floor, clicking on it brings you in closer where you can attempt to retrieve evidence.
Collecting evidence is done through multiple steps and mini games. For example, to collect DNA evidence you need to first collect dried blood at the crime scene. You begin using your stylus to gently apply a solvent to dampen the blood. Then before it dries you must rush to pick it up with a q-tip by scribbling over it with your stylus.
After the crime scene comes the lab work. Like being back in high school chemistry class, the blood has to be dropped onto a slide with a pipette. Once it’s under the microscope, the stylus becomes a laser to blast away materials that interfere with the DNA mapping. The end result is solid, un-reputable evidence.
The game expects you to be thorough with each crime scene and to secure all of the available evidence before moving on. You have a credibility meter that goes down when you mess up or have to ask for help, and goes up when you complete procedures successfully. If it gets too low, your fired from the precinct and its game over.
Bringing a little bit more gore to the DS platform, Crime Scene should make a big impression.
“This game is for anyone who loves to solve who-dun-its and is not afraid to get up close and personal with a gunshot wound.”
Crime Scene comes out February 2010.
Sounds interesting. Between my girlfriend’s love the DS and investigating things, I think she’ll like this one.