By carefully examining the crime scene and analyzing the bits they find, they are able to collect
conclusive proof who committed the crime and who is telling lies. This often involves comparing DNA-samples and fingerprintes, matching wounds or bruises with objects that could have been used as the murder weapon, interviewing suspects and witnesses and searching databases. There are several TV-series with different actors: the main series in Las Vegas and spin-off series in Miami and New York. Four of the games are located in Las Vegas (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI Dark Motives, CSI 3 Dimensions of Murder and CSI Hard Evidence), one in Miami (CSI Miami). In each game the player is greeted as if they were a new recruit joining the graveyard shift. One of the members of the team is assigned as your buddy. Like its predecessor 3 Dimensions of Murder, Hard Evidence was developed by TellTale Games, perhaps better known from the recent Sam & Max episodes.
Just like in the TV-series, your job is to collect all the evidence you can find and then examine it in either the mobile lab (which contains basic research facilities) or the proper CSI lab. Once you have collected all the evidence at the crime scene, you will also be able to visit the morgue to find out more about the cause of death and other medical issues that may have played a role. The ultimate goal is to establish a clear link between a suspect and the crime scene, and between the suspect and the victim. To gain access to further locations you often have to ask "Brass" for a search warrant, which he will not give if the link is not solid enough. There are several levels of difficulty available to choose from. By switching Active Navigation Hotspots, Active Tool Hotspots, Evidence Tagging, Location Tagging, Tool Assist and Auto Evidence Viewer on or off in the gameplay settings menu, every player can adjust the game to his or her preferred difficulty. You can for instance choose to have the cursor change color to indicate possible interaction (to avoid pixel hunting and randomly clicking everywhere on the screen) or to have the correct tool for what you try to accomplish automatically selected. With the Tagging options On the game indicates when you have done everything that is possible with an object or at a location.
If you are stuck, you can ask your buddy for a hint, but since the game is pretty easy even with all the options set to "Off" this will not be necessary. There are no puzzles to speak of (a couple of times bits of broken glass or a torn up letter must be pieced together) and the gameplay consists of examining the screen for anything that seems out of the ordinary, clicking on all the conversation options and comparing stuff, for instance a partial finger print with a complete one already on file. Essentially, the game is aimed at fans of the TV-series that are not necessarily used to playing games at all, let alone adventure games
that require figuring out complex puzzles. If you do ask for hints, the final score you are given at the end of each of the five cases will be lower. Extra points can be gained by looking at spots where no evidence is hidden (thoroughness points) and collecting bugs and small creatures. If you collect all that's to be found (or most of it anyway) you will be rewarded with bonus items that can be viewed from the main menu. These are usually bits of artwork from the game in development and not really worth aiming for a 100% score for.
A point of critique for the previous game was that the stories of the cases and the characters seemed so superficial. This has been improved a lot, the stories are now much more detailed and fleshed out almost as if they were episodes of the TV-series. The game is interspersed with cut scenes showing (often The game length has also increased a lot. The five cases in this game are:
1 Burning for you. A cab is found in an alley, with a dead, burned driver still behind the wheel. The damage to the car is minimal. Nick Stokes is your buddy during your task of uncovering the truth behind this mystery.
2. Double Down. In this case, the victim survived. Barely. Catherine Willows helps you find out who intended to kill this young woman.
3 Shock Rock. Warrick Brown and you investigate what went wrong with the comeback tour of a rock band.
4 In Your Eyes. A blind woman is the only witness of the murder of an eye surgeon. Greg Sanders is your CSI-partner.
5 The Peace Maker. After a gun fight in a museum it's up to Gil Grissom and you to match the bullets with
the guns to find out who shot who. Even though the stories have been extended, they still are a bit boring.
Unfortunately the graphics are a bit of a disappointment, especially the lip synchronisation and the eye movements. Voice acting is supposedly done by the actors from the TV-series, but most of them sound rather unconvincing. The Xbox 360-version we played has a counter-intuitive control scheme which
sometimes leads to frustration as you have to start an analysis over again when all you wanted was to select the next sample. The loading times when moving to a different location can also be somewhat annoying.
Lizzie
CSI 4: Hard Evidence 
