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Sometimes, expectations for a second swing around the love nest can result in less than a satisfying rendezvous, and such is the case for this fizzled out flame that once burned brightly.

From Television Series to Computer Game

The familiar first two chords resonate and I find myself on a journey of remembrance suddenly looking at the television screen shots that start Law & Order. L&O was a show I use to watch faithfully, but somewhere, somehow I got the infidelity bug and wandered off having my attentions turned to other shows that had caught my eye.

This time around however, I am not watching the show, I am playing the game. Since Double or Nothing popped up on the radar I thought I’d give an old flame another whirl. Seeing that the show was now dressed up in brand new PC gaming duds, I thought it might rekindle that watered down flame from the past.

Then again, sometimes, expectations for a second swing around the love nest can result in less than a satisfying rendezvous, and such is the case for this fizzled out flame that once burned brightly. Try as they might, Legacy just didn’t pull this title off with the zip it needed. To begin, the premise of the story was not anything novel, not to say that it is bad, it just was never compelling enough to ever really draw me in to the story from the onset.

In the game the player participates as both an assistant to Senior Homicide Detective Lennie Brisco (Jerry Orbach) during the investigation portion, and as an assistant to Serena Southerlyn (Elizabeth Rohm) the Assistant District Attorney in preparing the case for trial. The basic premise of the storyline involves the player assisting in the murder investigation surrounding the death of a renowned scientist.

From that point the story progresses and unfolds as the player uncovers the background of each character that has had some involvement with the victim. One thing that Legacy did do well with, was putting twists and turns in the storyline so that the path to the final arrest of the suspect is not as easy as it would appear.

Since Legacy was able to capitalize on the Law & Order franchise, they were able to secure top-notch voice acting since the original actors from the series are behind the voices in the game. Somehow, I did get a cheap thrill out of that since I love Lennie Brisco and his callous sense of humor. What did not go over so well with me was the commercialism within the game with company advertising that that was blatantly obvious. I understand it is a catch 22 for a company to generate sponsorship, but I have to say, as a player, I don’t want advertisements in my game and felt a sense of repulsion by this gimmick.

Graphics were an amazing feat of this title. I was honestly blown away at how well the characters matched their real life counterparts. Lip sync was on queue, and occasionally there were facial expressions that really made the characters come to life. I would have liked, however, to see more facial animation in the characters and a more realistic approach to the characters in their emotions. Other than a few incidents, characters really didn’t respond to the situation at hand and it hurt the realism that the game had strived to create.


You have the right to remain silent

Law & Order II suffers from disorderly conduct that makes it worthy of doing some time behind bars. The game suffered from a host of glitches that should have been worked out prior to going to market. The quality control on this game was definitely lacking, which made the experience less than what it would have been without the technical problems.

Throughout the game I experienced a lot of voice stuttering, or else somehow all these actors have had some major speech impediments and I just never noticed; I think not. I also ended up with a couple of game freeze ups, a problem that was also present in the first title as well.

Seems you always notice the faults more the second time around and the new clothing wasn’t doing it for me. The game comes with two screen playing options: full screen or centered. For the record, my thought is that you shouldn’t offer something you can’t deliver.

When I began playing, I originally thought the game was ultra tough, but it turned out in reality that in full screen mode the files you need are not accessible because the tabs are on the top, which oddly enough doesn’t seem to fit into the full screen so you can’t access them no matter how hard you try and cram your cursor up to the top.

Additionally, if you happen to use Norton Internet, the full screen mode ends up sitting skewed off to the side. Unfortunately while shutting off Norton may have helped center the screen, it didn’t do anything to bring the top file tabs into view.

The game interface felt clunky and awkward. I didn’t like the fact that I had to hit the space bar every time I wanted to go to the area map, get into my files, or to check my phone messages.

Equally bothersome was having to hit “done” every time I finished talking about an item to someone and then hit the “X” key to exit out of the discussion entirely, then hit my space bar to get back to the main menu if I wanted to go to another place on the map… and repeat, repeat, repeat. This became a larger annoyance if I accidentally went into the wrong file, which meant having to exit and then…oh you get the picture!

Inventory was acquired via pictures; therefore, if you needed to use a key to open something, you would have to click on the picture. I have to say that less time on gathering Hollywood sponsorship and more emphasis on quality and character depth could be a step in the right direction if this series is to continue.

Overall the title for me was average at best. No there won’t be another flaming romance and I won’t be returning back to my old love. I may run into L&O on television every now and then, but the feeling is just one of friendship and memories of a past. I hope Legacy can improve on quality since their next attempt is to put out a game based on the hit show ER…now there is one hot show!


Review by Michelle Whicker.