I was surprised by Bully.  I wasn’t by CSI: Hard Evidence. It was exactly what I expected it to be, a barely mediocre game who’s stories were compelling enough to want to finish, and game play barely an afterthought in the design process.  CSI: HE is a point and click game where you take the place of a nameless, faceless newbie at CSI’s Las Vegas offices who goes along on missions with 5 of the main characters from the show.  You travel from crime scene to interrogation, moving your cursor around until it changes colors or asking EVERY SINGLE dialogue option until you can’t ask anything else.  You also spend time in the lab, matching prints or DNA or piecing together broken things… but all this becomes moot when you realize you can’t lose.  You can’t say anything or do anything to actually lose the game, and there are an unlimited number of “hints” which spell out exactly what to do at any time.  Clearly, challenge wasn’t an issue for the designers.
 

It’s the easiest 1000 points I’ve gotten, and I would have felt kinda dirty getting them if the story wasn’t compelling…but it kinda was. It was a whole lot like watching 5 episodes of the story unfold…slowly and with lots of unnecessary looking around... I couldn’t help but get sucked into the whodunit plots, especially since they each last just over an hour. The game is rated M for good reason. The second case has you grabbing DNA samples off used condoms for instance.

Still, aside from the easy points or decent story there's not much reason to play CSI: Hard evidence.  Come to think of it… just rent a DVD of the show. Save yourself the 5 hours unless you’re obsessed with the series or you gamerscore.

Grade : D

Duke

Oh and while I didn’t play it on the Wii, I’d imagine it would be easier to “play” with the wii remonte, and the graphics are PS2 quality as it is…