So there were plenty of nights that we would watch a television show that makes the noise Dun Dun throughout it. We would follow the witnesses as they discover the victim and continue as the process carried right through the sentencing of someone who may or may not be guilty and may or may not be found so. It usually had some degree of closure and most episodes tied up the story, sometimes neatly, other times as messy as the audience could except. Dick Wolf has continued to bring up Law And Order in many fashions over the longest running television crime series ever so it would make sense that eventually they would make a video game and try to recreate the experience we had watching the show but take it one step forward and make us part of the show. But are fans of the show ready to step up?
Law And Order: Legacies will include a total of 7 episodes covering multiple cases and does not restrict itself to the most recent casts of the Law And Order shows but makes all star match ups so you can get a feel for how they would work together. As a player you take the role of the investigators both in interviewing the suspects and checking the crime scene for evidence and sometimes the evidence can be a bit harder to find. Once you collect all the information and evidence you turn it over to the prosecutors and then take their place in the courtroom in what amounts to multiple choice answers about a section of testimony you just heard or a question that should be asked. When it comes down to it that is pretty much what you do through the whole game but your choices have actual results on the way the story plays out with multiple story lines and multiple endings. It seems most of the time that the better answer is obvious or that if you listen closely to the testimony you can object at the right time with the right objections but sometimes it gets into a grey area and you really aren’t sure which might be the best way to go with the questioning or objections. Ever so rarely a real mind twister will pop up and you might find yourself jeopardizing the case.
I mentioned there are 7 episodes but at launch there are only 3 so that, much like a real television season, the episodes will release one by one and you will have to wait until the next episode for your fix of animated justice. The characters are well rendered and even without openings taken right off the TV series you easily recognize the faces and voices. And of course the infamous music and Dun Dun! which I began to predict during the many nights my wife and I watched it together and still makes her laugh even while I did it to the game.
If someone likes the show this game is a seriously fun fix and could be played together so that different people make different decisions, maybe assigning characters so that it can be as interesting as the television show but more like the game night. This kind of brings up a point, the audience of a game of this type and this subject is older for the most part so there is the problem of hitting their target audience. The people behind Law and Order teamed up with TellTale games who target toward the younger and older generation which this game would be great for, kids learning a bit about the legal system and decision making and folks who have watched this series since it began and will love to get to participate in the action.
Last Call:
Fans of the show will no doubt enjoy Law And Order: Legacies and just like the television show they will start with a couple episodes, get hooked and have to wait for the next episode of the season to arrive. If the right word gets out about this game and the audience responds right I could see this becoming a long lasting series to rival it’s record breaking television counterpart because there are so many crimes, and these are there stories… Dun Dun!
