Casebook Review

By Ruff Bismonte

Watching CSI, it's always a wonder how the investigators can easily search for clues and evidences on every impossible corner without even breaking a sweat. Playing Casebook, I now realized that I should have known better, because this game will really put you on a CSI's sweaty shoes, nothing like the ones who have it easy through the TV series.

The story of Casebook started after the Birchermann children were kidnapped for ransom. The game introduction's FMV shows their nanny trying to wake them up for morning breakfast before she realized that Harry and Greta were gone, and their room left in shambles. This is your first assignment as a forensic investigator, and with a kidnapping case, it seems that your department is really in need of more manpower.

Armed with your trusty digital camera and knack of finding evidence, your task in this game is find traces and clues leading to solve the kidnapping incident and possibly putting the culprit behind bars. The whole game will have you taking pictures of likely evidences and have them processed in the labs through a computer. The labs will be happy to process evidences for you and will keep you updated on their findings. Once processed, all you've got to do is to link the evidences together using your handy dandy case folder.

Playing CSI in Casebook also means processing clues yourself. Most of the time, you're off dusting for fingerprints and trying to find who owns them, or trying to split genes coming from the DNA samples you gathered from possible suspects. Actually, these are the mini-games presented by this adventure, and just like actual forensic work, it can get pretty hard processing evidences too, especially when you can't even visualize the print that you're looking for.

One thing's for sure, the game does have very good FMV sequences. All of the cut scenes are filmed using real-life actors and actresses playing their parts on actual crime scene locations. In fact, your evidence-gathering is also done on 360-degree views of real-life scenes. Now, that's pretty unique in itself, eh?

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