CSI Dark Motives (PC)

By PETER ELEY

(Herald rating: * * * *)

CSI, short for Crime Scene Investigation, has been a major TV hit, and last year, Ubisoft released a game based on the show.

Such games present companies with a challenge: they can make them accessible to the sort of people who watch the show, or they can make them for people who spend a serious amount of time playing computer games.

The first category want easy-to-play games that reflect the show or the movie, the second want something challenging and edgy. Ubisoft took the first route with CSI, making it look and sound like the show, but setting the difficulty near novice level.

You play a rookie cop with the Las Vegas CSI unit, and solve five complex crimes with the help of the show's Gil Grissom.

Grissom is overly keen to help and this takes much of the challenge out of the game, but it does keep things moving along.

Dark Motives is the sequel and plays in much the same way but it looks a bit better, thanks to slightly higher technical requirements.

The environment is basically static, only coming to life when you click and zoom in on an area of interest.

It works well, though, and means the game does not require cutting-edge systems to run.

Again, there are five cases and you help to solve them using the state-of-the-art forensic technology featured in the show.

Much like the first game, the clues may seem obscure at first, but Grissom is there to help.

Much of the game's fun is the interaction with the show's characters, and the dialogue has been written by show scriptwriter Max Allan Collins.

Dark Motives comes bundled with the original CSI and the package costs $89.95.

* Ubisoft

* M15+

* Email Peter Eley