A cheeky love letter to old-school RPGs, greatly benefited by co-op capabilities (which definitely makes the game a lot easier as well as more fun) but tragically marred by the unditchable plot device sidekick constantly being an incredibly irritating asshole--and it's not the only one. Couple times I've found myself wishing I could fill that burlap ballsack with wasps and tie it to a grill, and I keep telling my buddy "I think this game should let us murder whoever we want." Besides that, we're having a good time, though we REALLY could've done without that red gigaslime boss battle.

Short and simple. Asks for a lot of suspension of disbelief regarding things like two police officers rifling through a distressed victim's handbag in front of her without warrant or protest, as well as the evidence discovery happening in stages, gated off behind connection checkpoints (though understandable for narrative convenience. Character design fantastic for the most part, except for Nate inexplicably looking like a Psychonauts character in a bad way and sticking out among a cast of gorgeous models. Some of the deductive connections feel forced or unnecessary (why would we need to link nodes containing someone's name back to their name?), and while the allowance for rearranging the workspace is nice, the programming doesn't recognize it and keeps placing new nodes farther and farther away from that nice centralized workspace, making dragging (or even discovering) them a bit of a hassle. Branched-path decisions between cases add a bit of subplot intrigue and potential replayability, and the built-in achievements system to unlock new outfits is fun.