Introduction:
 A murder has been committed and you, the story's prosecuting
attorney, are to interview the witnesses, review VCR tapes, view documents, and examine
crime scene pix. When you feel that you have completely examined everything and everyone,
you head off to court to try and convict the suspect with a charge of 1st Degree Murder.The Review:
To begin, I want to say that this was a really good game. Both my wife and I enjoyed
playing it and wish we had more time to do such. I felt that the quality of the graphics
was superb! The still pictures are crystal clear, like watching TV, and the video tapes of
previous conversations are smooth and realistic. This realism added quite a lot to the
game. In the cut scenes, the newscasters on the television set appeared to be real
newscasters and I think this really helped me get into the story. The sound quality was
equally good on both counts - detailed and realistic. However, sound is sound so I can't
say much more about it.
The user interface of In the First Degree is designed
differently for different parts of the game. During the interviews, selected topics are
presented at screen bottom and when you select one the suspect gives audio and visual
replies. The questions about the topics can be previewed "in your mind" before
presenting them to the witness, which allows you to get a better understanding of how your
character is going to say them. Dirty Harry's famous quote wouldn't have been quite as
intimidating if he had said it with an imposed question. The preview allows you to get an
idea of what type of inflection should be put on the statement. You may ask why this would
be so important. The reason is that every question you ask changes the way you interact
with that person. Just like in real life, if you push a person too far by asking the wrong
questions, they will just refuse to talk. It was a really complicated decision branch.
They even went as far as to make the questions vary depending on which person you
interview first.
By clicking on Tape Mode you can view edited blips
that are relevant to the case. When you select a name from the list, another list of
topics appears to pick from. The tapes are recordings of interviews or conversations that
were taped earlier in the game, and will help you get an idea of what happened in the
crime.
The Documents section reveals pertinent information about the crime
period before, during, and after the event. This will assist you in deducing who really is
guilty. The pictures are very clean, and the written documents clear and concise. They
also looked very real - a smudge here, a coffee cup ring there - also adding to the
overall game.
The only problem I found with this game is one that
makes it embarrassingly similar to a good mystery novel. You get so caught up in trying to
figure out "who done it", you forget to look for evidence to help you prosecute
your suspect. You are so busy trying to see the bigger picture that you fail to look at
your one goal, which is to get the sucker in jail. I don't know if this is a problem that
real prosecuting attorneys have, but I know that it was one for me. I would also like to
commend the game on the fact that it was actually difficult. The replay value on it was
not really high, but it was high enough that I could have played it a couple more times (I
only got a theft charge on my first try).
Overall, my rating for this game is "very
enjoyable for armchair detectives" and worthy of a place in the software library.
--Jerry |
