Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law – WII – Review

Adult Swim’s Harvey Birdman,
Attorney At Law follows the legal adventures of the titular Mr. Birdman, once a
60s-era superhero on Hanna-Barbera’s Birdman and the Galaxy Trio. Years after
Harvey stopped fighting crime hand-to-hand, he and his sidekicks become a legal
team at the law firm of Sebben and Sebben, using their (nebulous) legal skills
to help various other 60s-era Hanna-Barbera cartoon icons, including the
Flintstones, Scooby Doo and the gang, and many more. If this sounds like the
setup for a courtroom point-and-click adventure game, then you’re thinking just
like the folks at Capcom, who have brought us Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law
for the Wii.

The game is composed of five cases.
After a short cut scene introduces the situation (usually a crime of some sort
has been committed, and Harvey either volunteers or is forced to take the case),
you get into the gameplay, split into two parts: investigations, and trials.
During the investigation segments, Harvey moves from location to location,
finding evidence and talking to witnesses/suspects/random characters who may or
may not have anything to do with the case at hand. After investigations are
complete, the trial portion of the gameplay begins. Here, you listen to witness
testimony, picking it apart to find any faults, lies, or omissions they may be
making. By finding the right time to press the witness’s statements and/or
present relevant pieces of evidence, you can expose the true guilty party,
winning the case. If this sounds a whole lot like the Phoenix Wright games, it
should, because the game basically apes every element of gameplay directly from
that legal adventure series. Which isn’t a bad thing — the Phoenix Wright games
are incredibly fun. Still, those of you familiar with Capcom’s DS series won’t
be surprised by a whole lot of what’s here.

Really, though, the merit of any
point-and-click adventure game is going to pretty much come down to two things:
the quality of its writing and its puzzles. On the first count, Harvey Birdman
succeeds, provided you’re a fan of the absurdist humor the show is known for.
The dialogue is spot-on, the situations are appropriately wacky, and tons of
characters from the show, minor and major (not to mention an abundance of Street
Fighter references/cameos), make appearances here. Along with the writing, the
fact that almost all the voice actors from the series are present and accounted
for (with the sad exception of Stephen Colbert as Harvey’s boss, Phil Ken Sebben),
so each case really feels like a lost episode of the show, complete with closing
credits (although these are filled with hilarious non-sequiturs instead of cast
and crew names). Also impressive are the game’s graphics, though certainly not
from a technical standpoint. Each episode looks exactly like the show, which is
to say that this game resembles nothing so much as a poorly animated,
50-year-old cartoon — but I mean that in the best way possible. Suffice it to
say that the developers have nailed the technical aspects; of all the licensed
games out there, this is as close as we’re ever going to get to a playable
version of the source material.

Unfortunately, the game’s puzzles
leave a lot to be desired. Not that they’re poorly constructed, mind you; each
fits perfectly within whatever crazy circumstance you happen to be in at the
time, whether it’s trying to find a combination potato/electronic device hidden
somewhere in a prison, or proving that Magilla Gorilla couldn’t have broken into
Harvey’s offices. No, the main problem with the game’s puzzles is that they’re
too easy. Each case only has a handful of environments to explore, with a few
items in each that can be investigated. There’s no way to miss a crucial clue,
because the game won’t let you advance until you’ve got all the relevant pieces
of evidence in your inventory, so each case’s investigation segment boils down
to checking every item in every environment until the game advances. On the
occasions that there are characters to talk to, it’s the same thing, as the game
won’t continue until you’ve found out all the important facts necessary to
winning the case. In fact, the only way to lose the game is to present the wrong
piece of evidence at the wrong time repeatedly, which is made almost impossible
by the fact that the game pretty much comes out and tells you when to use each
item.

The other main issue here is game
length. I’d be the first to argue that game length isn’t nearly as important as
most people make it out to be, and I’d prefer a short awesome game over some
drawn-out, repetitive game any day of the week. Still, with only five episodes
here, each beatable in under an hour, and no replay value to speak of, I have a
hard time justifying Harvey Birdman’s $40 price tag, especially since the other
versions of the same title are 10 dollars cheaper. Sure, the Wii’s motion
controls are nicely implemented here, but they certainly aren’t worth spending
ten extra dollars for.

Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law is
consistently clever and hilarious, and really shows why the show has a cult
following. At the same time, the gameplay elements are overly simple, and the
whole thing’s over before you know it. Fans of the show will love it, if only
because it’s a collection of playable episodes, for all the random hilarity that
entails. Anyone looking for an introduction to the world of Harvey Birdman would
probably be better off catching reruns on Cartoon Network first. If the game had
come out at a budget price, it would have been a no brainer recommendation, but
as it stands, there’s simply not enough content to justify the price. While
series fans will love stepping into the shoes of their favorite superhero turned
lawyer, anyone else would be better off renting first.

Gameplay: 5.2
That’s not to say the gameplay is bad, just that there’s so little of it. Aside
from advancing the cinematics, the player’s involvement doesn’t extend much
beyond choosing replies and presenting the correct piece of evidence at the
right time.

Graphics: 8.4
They’ve managed to perfectly capture the look of the show, from the stiffly
animated characters to the static backgrounds. Seriously, though, this is the
closest any licensed game has come to preserving the look of its source
material. During some of the longer cut scenes, you might just forget you’re not
watching the show.

Sound: 8.8
Utilizing almost all the voice talent from the show (including Lewis Black,
Peter MacNicol, and the brilliant Gary Cole as the titular lawyer) makes for a
game that sounds almost as good as the show it’s based on. If they’d only been
able to get Stephen Colbert, it’d be perfect.

Difficulty: Easy
With so few environments and objects to investigate, it’s almost impossible to
get stuck. You’ve even got plentiful chances in the courtroom to find the right
piece of evidence to present, so there’s a very slim chance you’ll find a case
you won’t be able to solve.

Concept: 8.9
The Phoenix Wright-style of gameplay seems almost custom-made to Harvey Birdman
and his legal adventures. I literally can’t imagine any other way a Birdman
video-game could work. The point-and-click gameplay allows for plenty of the
show’s strongest suit (clever, absurd dialogue), without any unnecessary combat
sequences added in.

Overall: 7.5
If this game cost $20, it would be an absolute must-buy. As it stands, only true
series fans are going to get their money’s worth. Still, anyone who has a few
hours to spare and a functioning sense of humor could find worse ways to spend
an afternoon than with Harvey and the legal team at Sebben and Sebben.