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She makes that comment shortly before her tragic execution by strangling, the price she pays for marrying against her brothers’ wishes. Grissom’s quote becomes eerily prescient during your first case, which involves a dead woman who may have been strangled too. Based on the hit TV show and featuring the stars’ voices in-game, Aspyr Media’s CSI walks you through part of the initial investigation, getting you up to speed with the tools and tactics necessary to solve crimes and arrest the bad guys before setting you loose on your own. Too bad there wasn’t a CSI: Malfi unit around during the early 17th century to put away those who killed the Duchess.

They’ve Digitized the TV Show

CSI features four more cases in addition to the first one, and two of them tie into the final mystery, which involves Grissom’s disappearance. You’re equipped with the latest forensic equipment — including Luminol for picking up blood traces, a fingerprint dusting kit, Mikrosil for making molds of wounds and more — as you examine the evidence found at the scene of each crime and try to fit it together. Items of interest can range from the obvious, such as a murder weapon, to the more mundane, such as a charred phone with a working redial button that may yield a clue when pressed.

You can also question witnesses and suspects, allowing you to build your case file and travel to other locations where more evidence and suspects may be found. When necessary, you can visit Greg Sanders in the lab and have him analyze what you’ve found, or stop by the police station and ask Homicide Division captain Jim Brass to run names through the computer or give you other information. Brass can also bring in a suspect for questioning, as long as you think you know that person’s means, motive or opportunity for committing the crime. If you want to arrest a suspect, however, you need to know all three.

Each crime partners you with a member of the CSI team who provides hints when you’re stumped. However, Grissom monitors your performance during the game and counts such actions against you, hampering your chance of earning a perfect score on the case. You’re better off examining each crime scene carefully and thoroughly interrogating suspects. Check your case file each time you update it and see if you can piece together the puzzle.

No Do-Overs in Real Life

Grissom’s praise may not seem important, but keep in mind that perfect scores unlock all the bonus material that you can view when you complete each case; the poorer your score, the less material you get to check out. Not only can you scoop up a total of 10 images of character and set designs, as well as storyboards, for each case, but a 100 percent return on all five earns you 25 behind-the-scenes photos from the TV show. If you finish a case and you’re not happy with your report card, however, you can always retry it for a better score.

Once you’ve mastered the game, you may want to ponder this question: If John Webster was alive today, would he be a staff writer on the CSI TV show? Or would he prefer Law and Order?

Bedroom crime scene.

The Crime Scene. When you arrive at a crime scene, collect as much information as you can from the officer in charge before you start looking around.

Fingerprint analysis.

The Suspect. Captain Brass can provide you with a rap sheet for each person you deem a suspicious character.

System Requirements:

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Cheat If You Must

Workers in crime lab.

Stumped? Then you may need some help, thanks to the cheat codes that are commonly placed in most videogames. They allow you to, well, cheat and change the rules. This sometimes includes activating bonuses, unlocking secrets and new levels of gameplay.

To enable the cheats in CSI, open the Library folder in your Mac OS X user folder. Now look for the Preferences folder and open that. Inside there you’ll find a folder labeled “CSI,” with another one inside it labeled “Games.” Inside “Games” you’ll find a .ini text file with the name you used when you first started the game. (If you have created multiple identities, there will be one file for each; use the file for the identity in which the cheats will be activated.)

Open that text file with TextEdit or a similar text editing application. Replace the text at the very end with the following text, which will make the game think you’ve solved every case with a perfect score, thus unlocking all the bonus items:

[[#evd: 100, #hint: 0, #ranking: 3, #bonus: 10, #score: 100], [#evd: 100, #hint: 0, #ranking: 3, #bonus: 10, #score: 100], [#evd: 100, #hint: 0, #ranking: 3, #bonus: 10, #score: 100], [#evd: 100, #hint: 0, #ranking: 3, #bonus: 10, #score: 100], [#evd: 100, #hint: 0, #ranking: 3, #bonus: 10, #score: 100], [#bonus: 25]]