hi
can you name some good games of that genre for me? preferable stuf fi can get via gog / steam / gamersgate / direct2drive / impulse

i am as open for games that go either direction: oldschool whodunit like agatha christie or sherlock holmes stories, or more the modern approach like CSI for example, i know that there are games for every franchise i named, but i never played them

a serious tone would be nice, but for example the tex murphy games are on my radar too, so you can still recommend other stuff as well

a game series i am thinking about getting is post mortem + still life 1+2, any opinions on that one?

Whereas Under A Killing Moon can be rather campy, Pandora Directive has a much more 'serious' tone. Highly recommended ++. It truly is a fantastic game, you cannot go wrong with PD. Truly a must-own for anyone on this forum.

Still Life was a satisfactory experience but doesn't really compare to the aforementioned. I don't recall much from Post Mortem (played it a long time ago), but I think I preferred it over Still Life.

Then you also have the Gabriel Knight series. I personally didn't like I so much (thus disagreeing with pretty much everyone here). I played II and found it an ok, but occasionally frustrating experience (granted, I'm not too far yet but I don't really see it changing much). I.e. you can be stuck in a huge world with no leads whatsoever because you missed something silly on screen #29.

But honestly, if you haven't played Pandora Directive yet you need to get your ass off of the forums and to your wallet to buy and thus play this masterpiece.
Follow up with UAKM and then Overseer for ensured maximum satisfaction.

I just woke up so I can't think of anything else than the Police Quest series.

I'll try again later.

are the police quest games all about police procedure simulation, or is there some drama / mystery behind the story?

and so far i like all suggestions :)

This is most likely not what you're looking for, but this thread reminded me instantly of Murder! I played it on the Amiga, but there was a DOS version too. I spent many hours with that game.

I love the Phoenix Wright series (Nintendo DS), although after a while it gets repetitive and the biggest annoyance is that you sometimes must find clues somewhere and have no idea where. Luckily there are like 10 screens at most but still annoying.
Not crime solving, but kinda detective, is Time Hollow (also Nintendo DS). It is short (around 8 hours, depending on how good you are in adventures, with no replay value) so better lend than buy it.

Sam&Max Hit The Road is great for humor which you don't like then, I guess. The newer seasons from Telltale are also good.

Gabriel Knight is also good, but same annoyance as in Phoenix Wright (which made me stop playing it because it just sucks if you spend hours figuring out what pixel you did not click).

I have Jack Orlando here but never played it. Might be worth a look.
Deja Vu might also be interesting, if you can somehow get it. Although it's old and I also never played it. And if you want any kind of detective/crime story, there are some good IF games.


If the crime can be large scale, XIII comes to mind (which is an FPS and the crime is conspiracy against the United States). So probably not what you want, since it sounds like you want adventures.

Further inspirations?
http://www.complex.com/video-games/2010/02/its-elementary-a-history-of-detective-video-games
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/561203

Another vote for Gabriel Knight, the first one at least. The story has quite a few supernatural elements to it, but the player has to do a fair bit of conventional, believable crime solving.

Maybe you want to check the Art of Murder series (3 games so far). I didn't played them yet, but they are on my radar. Reviews are from good to mediocre. At the moment they are on sale on gamersgate (50% off), but there is also Ultimate Crime Collection with all three games.

Edit: No one mentioned Police Quest so far? And reading the last sentence of the op post, I highly recommend Post Mortem and Still Life 1. Didn't played Still Life 2 yet, waiting for a big sale because the demo didn't worked so good on my Notebook.

I really enjoyed the CSI series.

The graphics are somehow weird from time to time, but the puzzles and storyline is really good.

If you like the TV-Series, you will like the games too.

It looks nice, I'll check it out later.

But as you're pointing at Amiga game, I have one c64 game - The Detective Game http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-uHOzefNmU

While it would be hard to get it from a store, there's remake of this game

http://headsoft.com.au/index.php?category=tdg

You just need to find Nintendo DS emulator to play it. So, as far as I know, it's all legal.

Deja Vu on the NES. Oh yes.

Also Rise of the Dragon.

Those are both insanely old-school though.

That is one of the rare series today that improved with each following title. Until the went the hidden object game route.

There are two Darkness Within games at GamersGate. Heavily inspired by Lovecraft with a lot of investigation thrown in. You read letters (underlining important words), combine mental notes like items in the inventory, discover clues and secrets. Sometimes a problem can be solved in several ways. Those might be the only adventure games now that rate your performance in the end, taking into account the time you took, the Easter eggs and secrets you found.

Google for this game "Casebook Special Edition". I played Episode 0 and I liked it a lot. As far as I know it's only sold in a few places (Lace Mamba, Gamersgate)

crime city its good crime solving game, L.A. Noire is best i have seen so far