The Casual Gamer reviews Crime Lab: Body of Evidence

Polish publisher City Interactive is known just as much for its first person shooters as its adventure games, but the company's most charismatic star is Nicole Bonnet, FBI agent and leading lady of the Art of Murder PC adventure series. WIth mobile devices giving the fading adventure genre a new lease on life, City Interactive's had the wisdom to expand Agent Bonnet's area of influence to the DS. Crime Lab: Body of Evidence marks the company's second foray into DS territory (the first being FBI: Top Secret) and proves that adventure games and handheld devices go together like duct tape and serial killers.

Anyone who's played Art of Murder: Cards of Destiny will recognize the plotline of Body of Evidence. In fact, barring a couple of character changes (like the forensics lab expert who's a woman instead of an awkwardly flirty creep), the games are identical, narratively speaking. What's new to Body of Evidence is well, everthing else. The artwork has been completely redone for the DS and the individual levels rejiggered to better fit DS play. As in Cards of Destiny, you play as Agent Bonnet on the trail of a sadistic serial killer. You're still finding playing cards at each crime scene, still wrangling with a suspiciously uncooperative partner and still trying not to get kicked off the case, but this time it's all a bit more streamlined. Which isn't to say things get any easier.

Body of Evidence maintains the series' reputation for brain-teasing puzzles and you'll definitely have to have the ol' gray matter working on all cylinders to solve the case. Of course, in this version you have a rechargeable hint button you can rely on whenever you get truly stumped. You'll follow the killer from location to location, through theme parks, abandoned warehouses and graveyards, gathering clues and interviewing suspects. The game offers a good mix of situational and traditional puzzles, meaning you'll be playing mini-games to analyze evidence in the FBI crime lab, using items you pick up to break into places (something Agent Bonnet does a lot - the girl's a loose cannon!) and solving familiar tile-swapping puzzles.

Body of Evidence is thus far, the best-crafted game in the series, being at the same time tighter than the PC titles and longer (at something like 8-10 hours depending on how skilled you are) than many DS games. At $19.99, it's a great entertainment value and is available now at Amazon, Game Stop or anywhere DS games are sold.