Given the obvious popularity of crime shows on television, it makes sense that more and more crime-solving games are appearing for the Nintendo DS.

Unsolved Crimes is set in New York in 1976 (though it could be about any big city and just about any decade from what I’ve seen so far). When I have the time, I generally enjoy watching a good crime show, so I was looking forward to playing Unsolved Crimes and solving some of those cases for myself.

The game begins with your first day at your new job. You get to meet your partner Marcy Blake, her model sister Betsy and Captain Abbot, the boss. Your very first case is a tutorial. It is optional (so you can skip it if you’re playing through again), but I highly recommend it to those diving into the game for the first time.

Each crime (so far) begins with a gritty little video cutscene and silhouettes of the bad guys. Captain Abbot does your briefing back at the station. There’s a nice blackboard with all the case info laid out. I like it. Too bad I only get to see it at the opening of the case. Oh, you’ll walk by it again when you’re making reports to the captain during your investigation, but you can’t pull it up again. Don’t get me wrong: You will always have access to all of the files, evidence, interviews, etc. related to the case — I just like the visual of seeing it laid out on the blackboard.

There are basically two places you can travel to within each of the cases. You’ll either be exploring the crime scene (after the body has been removed) or back at the station giving an update to the captain. You’ll see other locations in the little cutscene movies, but you won’t be traveling the streets yourself (at least not up to the point in which I am in the game).

I like the freedom (to a point) that you get to walk around the crime scene and poke around (literally, with the stylus) at everything. You can easily change your camera height, which really helps with looking under things for further clues. While many of the clues are pretty straightforward, some of the things are going to require more thinking on your part and various puzzle-solving skills. At one point I found torn up pieces of paper. I get to use the stylus to reassemble the note — and then I get to figure out how the contents of the note play into the game. I will give you one specific hint on a puzzle that totally stumped me. There’s a safe you have to open. You’re given a clue as to what to do. Here’s the hint: When you spin the dial, you’re spinning the minutes – not the hours. I was ready to throw the game across the room over this one, and I want to spare you some grief.

As you explore each scene, your partner Marcy will ask you questions. Hopefully you’ve been paying attention, because if you give too many wrong answers, your little badge markers will shatter, and she’ll finally tell you to go home. Really. And at that point, you can turn off your DS and go sob in a corner, or you can restart from the beginning of the last question series or your last save point.

Here’s my main frustration with Unsolved Crimes. While you have freedom to roam the scene, there are some things that must be unlocked in a linear manner. In one case, there’s a sack of groceries on the table. The game will not allow you to go through the sack until you’ve triggered the right series of events to make your virtual self wonder about the sack. That was maddening to me. I was saying a few choice words to my DS that are not fit to print in this space. I think the tamest one was, “About *bleeping* time!”

As far as game length, there are 12 main cases, as well as the tutorial case. There’s also a subplot involving Marcy’s sister, but so far that is not one of the main cases. It kind of happens between cases. You can see a listing of the cases from the main menu. You’ll see whether a case is cleared or not yet begun. Tap on a case and you’re given a score and a rank. I’m not sure what the score means exactly; the number doesn’t have any correspondence to the letter grade. I got a score of 61 on Case 04 and a rank of B, but a score of 8 on another case still earned a C. Unless there’s a heck of a curve, they don’t seem to be related. I do like that if you’re unhappy with your performance on a case, you can select it again from the main listing and run through it again.

There is only one save for the game, so you probably won’t be sharing it with anyone. Given the subject matter, though, this is definitely not something I’d be letting kids share anyway. It’s not that the violence is gory, but you are still investigating murders, so there’s violence as well as evidence of drinking and smoking and some language issues. Bad guys are just not the best role models for our youth, I tell ya’. At least, as I mentioned earlier, it is easy to dust yourself off and try again if you have a critical fail on one of your cases. I give the designers points for that one (not literally, of course, since I don’t give games point grades).

The sound effects work well for the game. You’ll hear people typing (real typing since this is pre-computer days for most places), background talking, sirens and police radios when you’re at the office. The music is OK though I admit to playing about half the time with the sound turned off (mainly because I was in the waiting room at the doctor and didn’t want people to hear gunshots and stare at me).

The graphics probably aren’t the best I’ve seen on the DS, but they aren’t the worst either. I think the designers were going for a specific kind of look so they aimed everything toward that level. In any case, they are detailed enough that you can find your evidence and you can tell the different people apart. They get the job done. Something sharper or flashier would likely have ruined the 1970s vibe the game aims for.

Overall, I’d say the DS is a really good platform for Unsolved Crimes. I can’t imagine having the same game experience without the touchscreen. The cases start easy, but things get harder as you go along, and you are going to have to think and analyze. You aren’t going to interview any suspects yourself, and sometimes the questions your partner asks can range between obscure and silly, but you still need to be paying attention. I think the game is a bit linear, but I’ve played games that are pretty much wide open, and I think that makes them less accessible to the newer gamer. Unsolved Crimes is friendly enough that a TV procedural fan can jump in and have some fun — without having to be a hardcore gamer.

I think the crime show fan will enjoy Unsolved Crimes. Serious gamers need to be a little patient upfront, but things do speed up as you go along. Take the Teen rating seriously, parents. I won’t be sharing this one with my 8-year-old. Other than that, put your thinking cap on and have fun.