Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law

Not all superheroes are born equal. Take Birdman, for instance - back in the 1960s (the Hanna-Barbera Era), he starred in his own science fiction cartoon featuring the stiff animation and cheesy dialogue that only children can absorb with minimal harm. Decades later, Cartoon Network revived this third-rate superhero by making him a third-rate defense attorney, and hilarity ensued. Welcome to Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law.

Don't ask what he's holding.

The TV show prides itself on parody, so it seems fitting that this game, published by Capcom, should parody Capcom's own Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series. Using the Wii Remote held vertically (or the Classic Controller), players point and click their way through the episodes. "Point and click" appears to be the extent of the game's interactive depth. Players are essentially watching original episodes of the show with bread crumbs of gameplay spread in between.

Those bread crumbs take the form of progressing to the next scene or replaying the previous one through a button press; looking through evidence and character profiles obtained throughout the episode; examining a room with a magnifying glass; and answering pop-up questions like "Potamus is...?" with branching answers like "Stupid", "Innocent", and "A mutant hippo". In that latter-most scenario, only one choice is correct, but players are not penalized for choosing the others. Instead, they'll be treated to extra clips of comedy and maybe unlock a secret movie. At the very least, these elements don't hinder the pacing.

Players will gather evidence between scenes.

When in the courtroom, the gameplay changes slightly. Players have to scrutinize statements made by those on the stand, pressing them when information seems bogus or presenting evidence to bolster/nullify a claim. These challenges aren't difficult - anyone with decent reading comprehension skills (i.e. the show's audience) can solve them quickly - but players can only make five mistakes in an episode before receiving game over. If that happens, and they didn't save beforehand, they'll be forced to either start from the last automatic save point (which typically happens half-way through) or restart the whole case. Having to skip through scene after scene just to return to the point before failure can be cumbersome.

All of the tongue-in-cheek parodies and innuendos are here, complete with the show's full voice cast (save for one Stephen Colbert, who has been replaced by a sound-alike). Production values are on par with the cartoon, with scenes at worst garnering a chuckle and at best inducing unhealthy laughter fits. Astute gamers will even notice the occasional Capcom cameo. Barring any game overs, the first episode will last about 20-30 minutes, but the second one continues for up to 40, so the value might sustain itself at the MSRP of $39.99.

Hey, it's that guy! You know, from that game?

Certainly, there is an oddity about Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law in the approach to the cartoon-to-game tie-in. The developers mixed passive and interactive entertainment in an interesting way, but does the method ultimately work better than other designs? Come back for Stage 2 for that discussion.