Is it fair to say Forensics: Crime Scene Detective is the most German of German simulators? I don’t mean that in a bad way, like the sloppy German simulators; I mean the OMSIs of the German simulator. Developed by Binary Impact and Alchemical Works with the help of the Rhineland-Palatinate police, Forensics: Crime Scene Detective has you playing as the Abby Sciuto of a German police department. Though with fewer (not none) weird men attracted to you. Lift fingerprints, swab the ceiling for liquids, and take pictures of the crime scene to find the evidence, all as you’d expect.

To call Forensics: Crime Scene Detective a difficult game might be too much, but all the same, saying it is easy doesn’t pass the sniff test either. More or less, it is about your ability to do something well enough and with great attention to detail. One mistake and you’ve screwed up a case; you’re docked points from the final score (1-100), and to move forward, you need to get a decent amount of the case right. Unlike almost every other game, there is no chime to indicate you found something, and a chirp from the character saying “Hmm, a secret?”

Forensics: Crime Scene Detective is as bare-bones as it is supposed to be, which is for good and bad. You see, crime scenes are small enough that you aren’t running miles to place something, but if you pick up a tool, such as a UV torch, evidence markers, or the camera, you can’t hold anything else. Even if a torch or evidence markers could fit in your pocket, the camera would have a strap to hang it around the neck. Everything is very regimented and strict, not exactly breaking the stereotype of Germany, but given the topic, it would be hard to.

Being rather basic and (in some respects) hand-holdy in the tutorial, it is one of those “can you digest this information” tutorials rather than one that teaches well. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, but if you fail, there isn’t a splash screen with red text telling you “FAILED, Try Again? Or Quit.” The first lab tool you’ll use is to remove chips from electrical devices (phones/laptops), and if you’re not being very slow and patient with the tutorial, it is easy to damage the chip as you heat it to remove it from the board. With no easy restart, it does become quite annoying.

As does any attempt to solve some of the later cases that are a bit more “difficult.” There is a case halfway into the filing cabinet of cases called “Smash and Grab,” in which you get a handful of fingerprints on the car that is smashed up, and somehow have to figure out who the second set of prints belongs to without any other information telling you there is a second set of prints. This is the bit that might turn off some; you don’t ask questions and you don’t get to point in certain directions. You are not a detective; you are not investigating the crime scene as a detective. You’re a forensic analyst.

Meanwhile, a case before this, “Basement Blood Scare,” didn’t provide the necessary details to make the conclusion the first time, but did the second time after restarting it. Why am I saying all of this? To repeat that when you don’t find evidence, or a possible bug crops up, and information doesn’t show up the first time doing the case, you don’t get told “X amount of evidence is left” at the crime scene.

Most games, especially modern puzzle/detective games, will tell you all of this. If you walk past an area where a piece of evidence is hidden away, there is no sound effect or clue to tell you this. Sometimes, such as in one of the other cases, you need to do X, Y, or Z things to have certain forensic information handed to you by the detectives. This can and will be very frustrating, because on the surface, Forensics: Crime Scene Detective looks like any other game. It isn’t 4K ultra Ray-Traced magnificence with sexual favors, but looks no dissimilar to other investigation, crime, puzzle, detective simulation-centric titles.

Is any of this a bad thing? Not necessarily. The several hours I’ve spent sometimes fighting a bug where equipment disappears, or information doesn’t show (sometimes fighting my own incompetence), and often just sitting with Forensics: Crime Scene Detective a bit longer to see if I can look at it from a different angle. What it does, it does well. How it does it feels as realistic as you’re going to get without being too gamified.

The little “mini-game,” if you can call it that, for checking the chambering of a bullet and if it was fired from the same weapon, is really simple. The fingerprint and DNA marker “mini-games” are spot-the-difference/match-the-image mechanics. It all functions. It all does what it is supposed to in order to bring that sense of doing the job, but if you’re looking for something that’s going to tell you a curated and focused story with gameplay that will make you feel accomplished, I don’t think that’s what Forensics: Crime Scene Detective will give in abundance.

Ultimately, Forensics: Crime Scene Detective does almost everything right and brings a sense of realism without it feeling like it is in that Red Dead 2 pretentious way. All the same, it is very much a niche game that is enjoyable, but could very easily be misunderstood as not doing enough. For the right person, Forensics: Crime Scene Detective is good to great; for someone wanting more L,A Noire rather than a dry, realistic, lab-focused crime scene investigation game, I can see the frustration.

A PC review copy of Forensics: Crime Scene Detective was provided by Aerosoft GmbH for the purposes of this review.

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Forensics: Crime Scene Detective

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Gets everything mechanically sound.
• Not 100% holding your hand for everything.

Cons

• Very minor bugs.
• Sometimes could use a bit more direction in certain cases.