I watched my first ever episode of CSI today. Or CSI: Miami, to be exact, since the original CSI isn't on Netflix as far as I can make out.
I enjoyed it! It reminds me how much I do enjoy police procedurals and crime thrillers — yes, even the cheesy, stupid, unrealistic ones — when I watch them, yet it's pretty rare I'll actually seek them out. It's one of those things that I forget I like, if that makes sense, and I'll just occasionally stumble across the, and remember all over again.
As with many forms of non-interactive media, I find myself thinking that there should be more procedural games. Trauma Team on Wii was a great example — particularly from the crime scene investigation angle — plus the Ace Attorney series has always provided a neat combination of private detective-style investigation and courtroom drama. I'd like to see more of that kind of thing.
There's the Police Quest series, of course, which I'm still yet to try, though those have the dubious distinction of being Sierra adventures (i.e. already brutally difficult, and not necessarily in a fair way) that are notoriously finicky about you actually following police procedure to the letter. There's nothing wrong with this, of course — how many other "police sims" are there out there? — but it doesn't necessarily push exactly the same buttons as a police procedural drama on TV.
I'm surprised that over the years we haven't seen more games branching out into popular TV genres. We've done sci-fi and fantasy to death, obviously, because both of those are eminently compatible with the most common means through which we interact with a game world: attacking it. We've also seen crime drama through the eyes of the criminals a lot thanks to titles like Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row. But what we haven't seen a lot of is a game about being a doctor, or a policeman, or a lawyer, or a journalist. I remember having a conversation with fellow Squadron of Shame members a while back about how cool it would be to play a war-themed game in which you weren't one of the American soldiers on the scene, but instead an embedded war reporter tasked with covering the conflict from the front lines. Plenty of scope for interesting storytelling there, plus gameplay that doesn't involve shooting people with a different skin colour to your character.
We could even expand that, though. Sci-fi and fantasy games don't have to be about killing, either; how about a sci-fi "future police" game? Or a "future medicine" game? (I guess that's Trauma Center, but still.) Or a game where you play a member of the Watch in a typical fantasy city? Plenty of scope for interesting things, and yet — at least in the mainstream — we still rely on the same old stuff.
Ah well. The times are a-changin', and we are starting to get more and more interesting thematic content in our games that isn't just about stabbing and shooting. I just wish there was a bit more.
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Pete, Go to Ubisoft for CSI games. ubisoft.com Type in CSI and a list of about 9 (I think) will pop up. All of them, except CSI NEW YORK, are procedural games – crimes that you have to investigate, gathering clues, processing evidence, questioning suspects. You can start at the first one and work your way forward or at the end and go backwards or pick one at random – just not CSI NY as I don't think you will like it as it's basically a HOG. As you know I really like HOGs but this was so wrong, such a deviation from the others which were much more hands on, makingyou explore and use your logic and deductive skills. Check out my blogs about all of the CSI games on my game site to get a better idea of what they are like – I wrote very comprehensive blogs about them.
I always assumed you had seen them, and probably played them – don't know why. I still find them the most satisfying of the Crime games to play and wish more games were like them. NCIS comes close. I wish there were a way to get Ubisoft to take notice of the fact that CSI fans are sitting here waiting, waiting, waiting for the next CSI game to come out. There hasn't been one for a few years. And there doesn't seem to be a way to contact them with suggestions. Do you know of any Ubisoft people through your gaming contacts and your new job? I have written a blog exhorting the CSI fans to 'Rise Up' and let Ubisoft hear their request for more CSI games – but what else can I do?! 🙂
If you want a reporter, why not try Beyond Good & Evil, if you haven't already? Only other interesting-seeming game in this kind of genre is actually something I found on the DSi store, a game called Art of Ink where you're a tattoo artist.
I'd love to see some more games like that, the ordinary doesn't have to be boring.