GAME FREAKZ

Best serial detective game ever :

CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION - THE GAME

Don’t call yourself a detective-game lover if you never played the C.S.I game.

Crime scene investigation screenshot

The game has been released into four serials :

• CSI one : Crime scene investigation
• CSI two : CSI Dark Motives
• CSI three : CSI Miami
• CSI four : Three dimensions of murder

The CSI game is really great to play even from CSI one until the latest. Interesting storyline, great graphics, with trademark voices from the original TV series CSI.

The detective tools in the game is what making this game interesting. I got to be like a real detective, taking finger prints, detecting blood, taking samples of smears, taking footprints, collecting evidences, interrogating suspects, go to places and search through everything.

CSI Dark Motive screenshot

Not to mention the lab, where i can examine further the evidence i collected from the crime scene. And the guy in the lab also give cool information about each items scientifically.

Also the mini puzzles are fun, putting together torn letters, cracking sentences, and they even have a DNA analysis and microscope in the lab!

The morgue and the coroner, Dr Al Robbins in the morgue is also cool, where the dead victim will be analyzed from the medical point of view.

CSI Miami screen
shot

 

CSI Three Dimensions of Murder screenshot

I love the scientific cinematics the most. It just continues to amaze me looking at the microscopic inside view of our body. I even replayed the cinematics twice everytime.

Man, i am a great fan of CSI. And i will buy the game no matter what if they ever release a new series!

NEW CSI GAME COMING UP : CSI FIVE : HARD EVIDENCE

THIS SPRING!!

Crime scene investigation official website :  click here

CSI Dark motives : click here

Otherwise for other CSI games, go to Ubisoft for info: click here

 

TIPS FOR GAMER :

WHERE TO BUY AN ENGLISH VERSION GAME IN GERMANY ?

Ahh…so you are a gamer ? Just came to Germany ?  Desperately looking for an english version game ?

Well, you can hardly find any on the stores. But you can order it online from Okaysoft . And they even send it right to your front door!

Q and A

Is it safe to order online ?
Its totally safe. I ordered it all the time when i was in Berlin.

How do you pay ?
The easiest way is to pay it in the post office. So you only pay once the game has arrived in a post office nearest to your home. The post courier will send it to your home, but when you are not around, they will leave a paper, telling you in which post office you can pick up your game

Or deduct it automatically from your bank.
(I did try both payments methods)

What versions do they have ?
Okaysoft offers English version (from UK), US version (From USA) and German version. The price however, is differ from the version you order. Since US version is imported from the US, it has the highest price. So i suggest ordering the English version from UK.

Note :
The website is in Deutsch, but you can always see the game title, which is in English, and furthermore, Okaysoft have almost ALL the games in the market.
You can even order from them if it is not on the list.

HAPPY GAMING!

Okaysoft Website : click here

 

WHO’S WHO SERIES

II.  JENOVA CHEN

Who is this Jenova Chen ? In case you are wondering, I will divide the subject into two parts. That is the best thing i can do to describe Jenova.

Jenova(middle) with Spore team(Maxis)

Professionally, he is a game designer, founder of That Game Company, a successful man in the field. If you go through his resume : Jenova’s Resume , you will know what i mean by being so successful and young.

And the scary thing is, yes, he got scholarships almost all the time in his life on earth! (Man, i would consider myself amazingly lucky if i ever… and i mean.. ever.. get a scholarship. Even if it is just once in my life. (Or maybe more than lucky, but ti ‘ is a miracle~~~!)

Anyway, Jenova also is the one who created the game Flow, which is going to be produced in PS3 platform. You can find more information about the game in Jenova’s personal website.

Furthermore, his blog is really inspiring for me, through his deep insight and research about game design, i can always learn something from reading his blog. Which i suggest all of you to read too.
Especially the Flow theory.

Have you ever stop and think for awhile , what makes a game is good to play for one people but not good for the other ? Why somebody will spend hours playing and not even realizing he/she has missed her lunch ? What makes you keep on going for hours and hours ? Why the excitement ? Where is it from ?

Read his thesis about the Flow theory. You will get your answers there.

When i was reading his Thesis, I was like : "Man! Wherever he got that thoughts from ??! I never know somebody will ever thought about something like this."

Jenova Chen

And when i go through his resume i was like : " Wow..look at those achievements that this guy got! He must be 40 years

old or something." –lol

So now comes to personally, I got his MSN from ’somewhere’, cannot expose openly here. I got to ask his permission first. So for the mean time i’ll just say : ’somewhere’.

Then at first (since i thought he is an old– 40 years old guy) i called him Mr Chen. Until he told me when i asked him how old is he, then he answered : 24…I was like… totally…..unable to accept..ahahahah : WHAT!!!!??? DAMN!!!

That was in June/July 2006. When I just started my animation course. And until now, he is very humble and kind to talk to me and give me tips here and there. I really look up to him and take him as my role model. And I wanted to meet him someday.

Jenova’s Dad (More handsome than Jenova)

Even when his moody feelings comes and take over, hardly saying anything on chat, i still respect him being tired from the job (sometimes he just forgot to rest and work ’till 2 am) or busy doing something (workaholic) or playing world of warcraft (all men plays wow and addicted to it rather than to his own girlfriend).

The cool thing is, i can even relate to Jenova about my problems and he is a very positive person. I also get constantly moral support from him. Whenever i want to jump off the building from trying so hard to be in the industry, whenever i feel like giving up and cry, he will tell me never to give up.

Yes, thank you so much Jenova-sama, i will never forget the kindness, and hope that i can return it to you someday.

Well…even two full pages will never get me satisfied from writing about Jenova.

So i guess i’ll just end it here and not bore you with all the details.

Complete information about Jenova Chen and his Thesis

(Jenova Chen’s personal website) : click here

Jenova Chen’s That game company : click here 

next week on Who’s who : American McGee

 

 

SECRET FILES : TUNGUSKA

This game is exactly what i have been talking about all this time! Logical problem solving, no annoying-unclear-no hint riddles, fully enjoyable to play, great graphics, nice story.

This game is also easy to play even for beginners in adventure game. It has the search screen option on the bottom right corner as you can see in the screenshot below.

This is the feature that i like the most from this game. So if they got to put small tiny items on the floor, i don’t have to be crazy and wasting my time searching the whole scene for 30 minutes! So when i get a little stuck, instead of looking for some walkthrough, i can just click the search screen button on the bottom right of the screen.

Screen search option from Secret Files : Tunguska

Then voila! It shows all the items that are able to be examined or interact with.

This option also has advantages to both sides, from the developer’s side, they got to make sure their hardwork of all the items that is made in the game not wasted or passed by, and from the gamer’s side, yes, we don’t want to miss any of the items either!

And the cursor is representing a mouse with left and right click on it. It will be highlighted in green on the left click side if some items can be activated, or if i take out an item from the inventory and place the cursor on an item in the scene, it will also be highlighted in green on the left click side if this item can be interacted together. And right clicking if the highlighted is on the right side will make the character to examine the object.

However if the item cannot be interacted or activated somehow, there wont be any green highlight on the cursor.

So it is really pretty easy, thus making you not needing any ‘peek’ on hints in the internet.

Also, they got a neat looking journal option on the bottom right corner of the screen, where i can read back what i have gone through and the storyline so far.

The Journal from Secret Files : Tunguska

Even more helping, they give clues to some riddles or password-cracking in the game. If the question mark sign appear on left top on the screen whenever i am facing a riddle, i can open my journal and they will give me clues on how i can solve this problem.

IT IS TOTALLY COOL!

What this game missed out is, the sound of the footsteps. I can hear like… : nothing.

And the people that is filling the voice is somewhat amateurs. Also the sentences are not  correctly used to express certain situations.

But the graphics are great, and at least the character moves a bit when they are talking, not being a stone statue.

But i say the main character, Nina, is not expressive enough. She got like a dead gorgeous but ‘dead’ eyes.

Secret files : Tunguska screenshot

Even when she is on cinematics. Those beautiful eyes are dead.

And also, I get to switch character between Nina and Max later on in the game. This is some feature that i liked from new styled adventure game in the past years. (For more example you can found this feature also in Broken sword III and IV, The Ankh.)

Currently as Max, to activate Nina, i have to click on Nina picture on the bottom right corner of the screen. Secret files : Tunguska screenshot

This post will be updated when i finished the game.

Updated : 8 March 2007

Actually i managed to finished this game some time ago but only now i have the time to update this post.

The ending is disappointing. It has no cinematics at all. And no clear explanation of the whole adventure. It also seems like near the end of the game, the story is shortened a lot to make up to the finishing line.

However at ending, they promised of a new adventure of Nina and Max coming up soon.
Secret Files : Tunguska official website : click here