I've noticed some postings of boomers playing this game. It is at a local book/video/computer store and I wondered what was the general impression with the game. It looked intriguing to me, but I love mysteries and detective fiction. I have only watched the show a couple of times and I enjoyed it when I did, but that doesn't mean the game will be anything like it. So how about it? What does everyone think?

Audrey,

I'm still playing the 1st part of the game but so far I like it. The game is very faithful to the format of the TV show. In the 1st part you play an unnamed detective working with Lt Briscoe.

When the game begins, you can choose 2 attributes for your detective. They are, better inverew skills (avoids irrelevent questions, you do a better job getting the relevent info you need), teamwork (you get hints during the game from Lt Van Buren), effeciency (you use up less time on the clock), and finaly, the ability to see items you're looking for better (this brings up a magnfying glass on 'hot spots', if you don't choose this option, there are no 'hot spots', you just have to click on whatever you think is important, and see if it does anything.

I choose to play with 'effecieny' and 'hot spots'

The game is animated (not FMV) but it uses the voices of some of the real actors from the TV show. The graphics are good, but I have seen better.

You get to examine crime scenes, victims residence, etc. You can pick up items and have them sent to the lab for analysys, or to the research dept for background info. You can also order survalence on suspects or witneses. When you visit a new location, the same logo and theme music plays as it does on the TV show. If you present enough evedence, you can get a search warrent for some locations.

A large part of the game is interviewing suspects and witnesses, and getting them to give you vital information. It's a good idea to save right before each interview, if you didn't get everyhing you should, Briscoe will comment after the interview. (for example "I don't think we got as much from that guy as we could"). When that happens, you can go back and reload from the beginging of the interview and try again. Later if you get new evedence, you can go back and inverview the same people again, if you feel they've been holding out on you.

I havn't got that far yet, but eventualy, you can present evendence and get an arrest warrent. I assume after that, the trial part of the game begins.

The only complaints I've heard are some people having technical issues with the video. (mine works okay, but load times between scenes are a bit slow), and the fact that the game is timed. Every action you take uses up time on the clock that appears on the lower right of the screen. As the detective, you have 7 days to make an arrest, or the case is turned over to someone else, and the game ends. Legasy has just issued a patch to correct some of the technical probelms, and to slow down the timer, so it dosn't become a factor. (most adventure gamers don't like to be rushed, and after a number of comlaints I think the developers got the message, which is to thier credit!)

So, if you like the show, and like detective / court room games, you probably will like this one.

Louis

Even with the patch, this game did not play well for me on Win98. I didn't care for it much anyway, so didn't finish it. I hate saying anything negative.

I've been loving this game. I had to give it a hiatus so my husband could play Syberia (I think he really digs Kate Walker). But now I'm ready to go back to it. I'm going to start it over just so I can remember everything I need to do. I suffer from TMB (as well as BAAG)!!!

<img border="0" alt="" title="" src="graemlins/pacify.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="" title="" src="graemlins/pacify.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="" title="" src="graemlins/pacify.gif" />

I've been a Law & Order fan for a long time, so I was really looking forward to Dead on the Money. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I thought the cons outweighed the pros.

Pros -- good voice acting, good facial animation, pretty good story, nice music, very faithful to the TV show. The game is different from other adventures I've played. It really succeeds in allowing the player to function as a detective and then as an attorney. I spent time analyzing character and motivation and truthfulness in a way I've never done before in a game; plus there are some nice plot twists.

Cons -- too much pixel hunting, too many possible inventory items, too much waiting around for test results, way too much dead-ending. If you don't ask just the right questions while interviewing witnesses you cannot progress in the game. You'll get to a point where nothing is happening and then you have to go back to a saved game and try again.

You MUST discard inventory items -- there are MANY more items than slots to keep them in. However, some items that at first don't seem important, later on turn out to be vital. If you've discarded an item needed later in the game, you also hit a dead end.

There are only 15 saved game slots. So you may not only dead-end, you may have overwritten any previous games before you made the mistake -- and you'll have to start the game from scratch. The game also has a tendency to crash over and over at one point near the end.

Dead on the Money had a lot of potential, and I hope that the new Law and Order game (which I just saw for the first time on the shelves at EB today) will keep the pros but eliminate some of the cons.