Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law

(EDIT: 1/30/2013 - Changed Star Rating to reflect removal of half stars from the new Giant Bomb Site. Revised up to 3 stars from 2.5)

Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law is a point and click-like adventure for the Wii based on the Adult Swim (Cartoon Network's late night adult programming) TV show of the same name.

It's very short, easy, unusually funny for a game, inexpensive and probably best reserved for the show's existing fanbase.

Gameplay & Controls

HB: AL has very minimalistic controls and the experience for the player is a bit more like an interactive movie than a game. Harvey has 5 cases/stories to proceed through in self contained chapters that must be played sequentially. The player can more or less save their progress at any point (even mid cross examination) by pressing the + button menu.

The game essentially consists of two phases - discovery phase and trial phase. If you are saying to yourself " Hey that sounds just like Phoenix Wright!" You'd be wright err right! But HB:AL strips down the mechanic to even more basic levels and the difficulty is significantly less than the Ace Attorney games.

In the discovery phase, the player uses the Wiimote like a mouse in a classic PC point and click adventure game to interact with static environments from a first person perspective. The wiimote generally handles pretty well, but it also isn't asked to be doing much. The player gathers evidence, talks with characters and solves puzzles until enough evidence is gathered to go to trial phase. If players discover secret superfluous evidence , they can earn additional "gravitas crests" to use in trial

In the trial phase the action consists of examining witnesses testimony, which players can either "press" or "present " contradictory evidence to force a confession. If the player makes a mistake during trial and presents the wrong evidence they will lose a gravitas crest. Lose all your crests, it's game over. Fortunately the game is pretty good at making most answers pretty obvious, but conversely this makes the game a breeze.

In other words there isn't much to do and you'll be watching this game much more than playing it.

Graphics & Sound

The look of this game is pretty sharp and honest to the show. The original show was animated in Flash and the game manages to completely capture the look despite being a Wii title (which admittedly wasn't a high production value to achieve). Some of the animations look a little stiffer than the show and the camera angles look a little foreign given what the story demands for a game vs a show, but this is a decent looking Wii title.

Enough so a casual observer may not realize that it's game instead of the show at first glance.

Further adding to the illusion is the game is voiced by the show's actual cast with a couple exceptions such as Harvey's boss Phil (who was voiced by Stephen Colbert in some of the HB seasons). The game also mimics the show's sound effects and music to a T. Again not necessarily a hard achievement given that the show has minimalistic production values, but fans of the series will appreciate it nonetheless

Story

Here is where the real value of the game is to be found, which is good since the gameplay is so passive. HB: AL does a very good job at capturing the show's look and sound as mentioned above and also tells the story in a way that feels just like show episodes.

Like its' Cartoon Network predecessor Space Ghost: Coast to Coast which re-purposed Galactic superhero Space Ghost as a late night Talk show host, the Harvey Birdman: Attorney at law universe takes old Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters from the 1960's and 1970's and reimagines them in a shock value absurdist humourous legal setting. e.g. Superhero Birdman has become "Harvey Birdman" a bumbling oblivious lawyer, Birdboy is now called "Peanut" and is a Harvey's scheming amoral slacking assistant, Falcon7 is now a whimsical tyrannical slave driving senior partner at Birdman's firm called Phil, Birdgirl is Birdman's overeager gungho assistant and Birdman's nemeses are now often portrayed as opposing counsel (such as Freezoid) or judges (such as Mentok the Mind Taker). Other Hanna-barbera characters frequently serve as defendant clients of Harvey's (such as Galaxy Girl, Shaggy and Scooby, Magilla the Gorilla, Secret Squirrel and Yogi Bear).

The game has five wholly self contained cases for Harvey to defend and in typical HB:Al fashion each case takes surprising and amusing twists and turns as you see very tame G rated characters in situations you'd never imagine them being in. The Humor here is more adult and edgy than the Ace Attorney games.

By so closely emulating the show, the game achieves something really rare in games in that it's actually pretty funny. Of course this depends on whether you like the show it's based off of, so your mileage may vary.

Replay Value/Length

Virtually none. There are a couple unlockable movies but chances are you'll get them in your first play through. Even if you don't, this game might at most take you 5 hours.

Verdict

Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law is an mildly amusing game for people who like quirky story adventure games.

At new prices the game is often under 20 bucks. It's not a bad value at those prices and it can be get used for far less. That being said there isn't much of a game here and what is there is very very short. Whether you enjoy it or not will entirely come down to whether you like the show's absurdist style of humor and story or not.