Publisher: Telltale Games
Developer: Telltale Games
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 1.8 GHz Pentium IV or better CPU, 256 MB graphics card, 2 GB RAM, DirectX 9.0c, DirectX 8.1-compatible sound device, 2 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Adventure
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

There was a time when some part of creator Dick Wolf’s ubiquitous Law and Order TV franchise was on the tube almost every day in the US. Some didn’t last long (Crime and Punishment, Trial by Jury, Law and Order: Los Angeles), while the parent show became one of the longest-running scripted shows in American TV history. These days, only Special Victims Unit remains, but now Wolf and NBC/Universal are pushing the franchise into new frontiers with the help of game developer Telltale.

Law and Order: Legacies is a series of seven episodes based on the original show, featuring characters from all of the major periods of its run (plus one character from SVU to give younger players someone to recognize). Several of the characters are so old that the actors who played them have since passed away (most notably, Jerry Orbach, who played the now-beloved detective Lennie Briscow). In fact, Briscow is a major part of the game; one of his old cases forms a thread that connects all seven of the game’s episodes. In the first three, the Law half of the show features detectives Rey Curtis, Mike Logan and Olivia Benson (from SVU), while the Order half includes attorneys Mike Cutter, Abbie Carmichael and Jack McCoy (if these names are unfamiliar, don’t fret; the beauty of the show is that the characters have next-to-no backstories, so you don’t really have to know who they are to understand what’s going on).

Just like the show, each episode of the game is played in two parts. In the first, you play the detectives as they examine evidence, conduct interviews and make an arrest. In the second, you become a DA and try the case in court. You select dialogue options from a pop-up menu. Occasionally you’re asked whether or not to believe the things the suspects are telling you, using information that has been previously introduced to back up your claims (a running transcript of the dialogue is available to refresh your memory). Choosing correctly earns you stars, which raise your rank as a detective or sway the jury your way as an attorney. Additionally, in the detective phase you complete hidden-object minigames to locate physical evidence, and in the court phase you can choose to plea bargain or take the case to the jury, depending upon how your case stands with them. You also get a primer in courtroom procedure; you must occasionally make objections, and you have to pick the correct objection (text boxes describe each of the available objections and when to use them). Stories include a cellphone hacking case that leads to murder, a cockfighting suspect killed by his own animal, and a serial killer targeting prostitutes.

Legacies tries its best to give you the full Law and Order experience. You get the narrator, the teaser that ends with a line of darkly ironic dialogue, the credit sequence (complete with Mike Post’s iconic theme music). You even get the trademark “thunk thunk” sound effect. But once the story actually begins, you need to pay attention. Every off-hand statement made by a suspect can become important as you try to catch them in lies, and the more of them you catch, the more likely it is that the perp will be shipped off to Rikers, never to be seen again. The characters are modeled fairly well in that fans of the show will recognize who they are, although the animators took a few pounds and a few inches in height from Benson, made Schiff quite a bit younger and Curtis a bit older than their actor counterparts. And the writers seem to have a love for Briscow, since his is by far the best dialogue in the game. Of the two sections, the court sequences are much more engaging. You’re given more to do and you have to apply yourself much more than you do when playing the cops. Decisions you make in court can significantly alter how the case is eventually resolved.

From an artistic standpoint, however, Legacies is a disappointment. The graphics are primitive and low-rez at best, mostly owing to the extreme age of the Telltale Tool, the developer’s decade-old graphics engine. None of the original actors appear on the voice tracks, which is troubling; it’s understandable in the case of Orbach, and you’re not likely to hear pricey talent such as Benjamin Bratt (Curtis) or Angie Harmon (Carmichael) in a videogame, but it would’ve been good to hear at least one familiar voice (other than the narrator, of course). The find-the-evidence minigames can be frustrating, since certain items are buried under other items and you get a limited number of guesses before your detective rating goes down. And the interrogation sections are straight out of LA Noire, but not nearly as high-tech; making mistakes means practically nothing when playing as the cops, but it can cost you a conviction in the courtroom.

I’ve been a fan of the Law and Order franchise ever since the first show debuted in 1990, and I have to admit I smiled profusely when the title card appeared and I heard “In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate but equally important groups…”. And the first case on the docket had a twist that genuinely caught me napping. But the other two cases lack that extra creativity, leaving us with an occasionally tedious procedural that only piques our interest once we get off the streets and into court. Combine that with the ancient tech upon which the game is built and you get something that only the hardest of the TV hardcore (or budding trial attorneys) could really love. But there are four episodes left; maybe the best is yet to come.

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