By far the most frustrating thing about this game, for me, was the fact that when all was said and done, I sure felt like the single most useless detective in the history of the Las Vegas police force. It is absolutely comical the depths that the game stoops to in order to hold your hand. Your comrades, apparently, can’t be bothered to help you hunt for evidence (other than always telling you when you need to “try a similar tool”)…but once you find that evidence, don’t worry, they’ll take it from there. First, you take it to Greg, and show it to him. He’ll tell you everything you need to know about it, process it into whatever machinery it needs to go through, and take care of any pesky research that probably would have enhanced the gameplay experience for many. Once you’ve reached Greg’s conclusions, you may have some fingerprints or DNA samples to compare. Your partner, of course, will tell you when you do or don’t have an actual match. You know what I would have loved? An option to say “I have a match,” and then bring in the wrong guy. That would have ruled. But no, your partner is sure not about to let a rookie think independently.

The patronizing only gets worse from there; Detective Jim Brass is probably the biggest cop-out (excuse the pun) ever in a detective game. Any logical gaps not filled in by Greg, or by exhausting dialogue trees with witnesses and suspects, Brass will take care of. This extends to background checks, general research…and ADDRESS LOOKUPS. Yes, that’s right, this decorated Las Vegas detective gleefully takes time out of his day to look up addresses for you.

This wouldn’t be nearly as funny as it is if not for the fact that a suspect from the first case, during interrogation, tells you where he was and says, “If you want the address, look it up yourself” and makes a comment about how certainly smart cops like us know how to use a phone book. Well, apparently we don’t, because I had to march into Brass’ office and say, “D’uh, sir, where’s this place at?” and watch him punch it into his computer all smug-like, as if he also didn’t have a phone book in the bookshelf behind him. There is no excuse for this; if I’m really going to solve murders based on stomach contents and severed toes, I would like to know that I can somehow find it within me to LOOK UP AN ADDRESS. But no, throughout the game I’m treated like Detective Moose from Riverdale, scratching my head and saying “D’uh, what next boss?” Games like this can’t be good for my self-esteem.

An attempt has been made to add replayability by rating your performance at the end of each case, and unlocking a certain amount of extras based on that rating. The problem is, the game requires you to find everything before finishing a case, so there’s no way to ever get a rating other than Master! “Detective, I know that you have the primary suspect’s fingerprints on the murder weapon, his footprints on the balcony where the weapon was fired from, his note threatening to kill the victim, and his college medal for sharpshooting…but it’s just not quite enough for a warrant until you’ve matched the water drops on the balcony floor to his residential water supply.” Oh yeah? Well, why don’t you just look up another address for me, Brass. I tried as hard as I could to cut corners on a couple cases; I even asked for hints from my partner more than I should have, and still walked away with the maximum Extras. Not much replayability there.

It’s also important to note that there was a patch released to address some minor bugs that creep up throughout the game, and reportedly this enhances dialogues and other aspects. This patch was released, of course, the day after I finished the game, and after pondering whether to play through the game again I decided it’s only fair to rate the out-of-the-box product. After all, if the bugs and other problems were that well-known that they could be patched within two weeks of release, would it really have been that hard to just delay the release and put out a patched final product? But in any case, the bugs aren’t crippling at any point, just minor annoyances.

I’m being pretty hard on this game; the 2.5 star rating implies a solid thumbs in the middle, which means I’m not discouraging you from buying this game. To be sure, this is a worthwhile playing experience for fans of the show—especially with all the unlockable extras and the authentic script, which is written by the writer for the show. The cases are substantial and interesting enough that even those who have never seen the show might enjoy it if they like these sort of real-world detective games.

But in the end, CSI: Dark Motives doesn’t feel like a full-fledged sequel complete with innovation and improvement. It feels like a glorified expansion pack with five new, better cases, lots of new extras, and some tweaks to the difficulty options. The mechanics, the inherent difficulty, and the gameplay progression are all pretty much the same—for better or worse. I’d like to say that I hope these issues are addressed and changes are made for the better by the time CSI: Miami makes it to the PC screen. But license properties like these don’t cater to real hardcore gamers and genre devotees; they cater to casual gamers, who are far greater in number than us, and far less critical than crusty editors like me. There are improvements to be made, but when these games are opening up at #3 on the sales charts, why bother?