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Unusual Game Review: Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law |
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Written by Derek "Dewar" Harwell
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 08:32 |
I recently got the chance to sit down and watch all of the Harvey Birdman TV series that aired on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim over the past 5 years. It was a sad day when I reached the end, so I was happy to find out that a game had recently been released on the PS2, PSP, and Wii. I rented it as quick as possible and played it over the weekend.
It turns out that the game resembles the series extremely well. All of the voice actors save Stephen Colbert have returned for the game, and they try to keep the amount of lines given to Colbert’s (rather lousy) sound-a-like to a minimum. The graphics look exactly like the show, and most of all the comedy is spot on. The storyline of five cases matches what I’d expect out of a Harvey Birdman episode, and didn’t disappoint for a second. Unfortunately, the gameplay did.
It has the same basic elements as the Phoenix Wright series, except none of them are done very well. Each case is broken up into investigation elements and trial elements. The sleuthing involves going from location to location examining the surroundings and talking to different characters. There’s no real way to lose during this part of the game, so it’s as simple as walking around at random watching the comedy as the story develops . It almost seems unnecessary to have player input at all, but the experience isn’t unpleasant.
The trial portions of the game are where it all bogs down. Each time a witness speaks, you’re given a list of everything they’ve said (usually four or five lines) and you have to either press the witness or present evidence, both while referencing the correct line of dialog. Since screwing up by pressing the witness at the wrong time doesn’t lose you any lives, it makes sense to start by pressing at every opportunity, which drags out the whole process. Trying to guess which evidence needs to be presented and which statement to present it against is often unintuitive. Overall, the whole system was clunky and felt like it was getting in the way of watching the actual story.
I think I would have preferred it if they’d just published five more episodes, rather than shoehorn in some lousy trial mechanics to make the whole thing into a game. Still, at four to six hours length, it makes an excellent rental for those that are fans of the TV series. Those who haven’t would probably get more enjoyment by throwing the disk in a microwave and watching it melt.
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