Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law

"This game is truly awful -- but fairly entertaining."

Harvey Birdman is an off-beat television show, and this game does the show justice. It's quirky and highly random. It features the most random cameos imaginable. The plot has utterly no continuity. It makes you groan and laugh, often at the same time. If you are a fan of the show, you will probably enjoy this game -- and you'll probably say "man, that was fun, but I want my money back" when you're done with it.

The story of the game is, as you would expect, nonsensical. There is no rhyme or reason as to what happens, and you may never play a game that takes itself less seriously than this one. The characters are silly and the plot is sillier. The voiceovers are surprisingly good -- I'm pretty sure it's the same voices as the television show, and while they're ridiculously over the top in their delivery, that's kind of the entire point. (No, Stephen Colbert doesn't do voices. Sorry to inform you.) On the other hand, the music in the game is largely irritating and the sound effects can really grate on you. Graphics are.. well, the same as the television show. The style definitely fits the characters and the overall feel of the show. You don't really need to have seen the show to enjoy this game, either. I've only seen a couple episodes once upon a time and I found it pretty entertaining.

Gameplay is like Phoenix Wright -- a lawyer-based point-and-click game. You move around, examining and collecting evidence, and then pointing out contradictions in court. There's a bit of trigger-pointing, but Harvey Birdman is very minimalistic in its approach - you can only examine a set number of things per room and the triggers are never all that difficult. You can usually figure out what to do within five minutes, if that.

Somehow, the examination aspects of the game are the best part - normally, you'd look forward to the court sessions, but Harvey Birdman is such a disaster in court that it actually isn't as fun. To begins with, the positives: court is usually entertaining with some wild dialogue and weird scenes. The highlight of the game is when Harvey is prompted to answer something and you get a multiple choice question: two of the answers lead to some funny scenes while one advances the story, and the options are so ludicrous that you can't even tell which one is right half the time. It's like your own personal Choose Your Own Adventure game - in fact, the goal here is to pick the two wrong ones first, because those are entertaining as heck. Sometimes there are multiple answers that will advance the story, too.

Now, the downside. For starters, the game is highly random, which makes figuring out what to do a real task. Oftentimes, the game just flat-out doesn't make sense - the logical conclusions it wants you to draw are not sound at all, and sometimes you'll sit there guessing because the game is just that ridiculous. It's not tricky or ingenious or any of those things, it's just nonsensical. It never takes too long to figure out what to do, but the fact that there's no load option or soft reset makes the trial-and-error process a bit more tedious. On top of that, the game is so cheap that pressing 3/4s of the statements will just get a "well, nothing wrong with this statement" response. It doesn't even attempt to make something up. It's laughable.

The other problem is that the game is so random that there's no real depth there at all. Court sessions usually include presenting one or two pieces of evidence, something strange happens, and bam, you're done. It's either the end of the case or you're suddenly back investigating for no reason whatsoever. It's entertaining, but feels completely empty. Some games feel rewarding; Harvey Birdman is just total silliness.

This leads to the main flaw of Harvey Birdman -- length. There are five cases, all of which could easily be solved within one hour. You could beat this game in one day, and there's just about zero replay value here. There's a few optional scenes where you can present an item to somebody to get an extra "life", and a few unlockable secret movies with Street Fighter cameos (no, I'm not making this up), but past that there's nothing here. It's a 3-5 hour romp, maybe longer if you get stuck trying to figure out what the hell the game wants you to do. At the end of it, you'll say, "wow, what a waste of 30 bucks." The plots are superficial and randomly end for no apparent reason. The stories are, well, barely stories. The gameplay borders on being truly awful. The game is one of the most unrewarding experience you'll ever see.

But yet, the game consistently makes you laugh, and you'll have fun playing the thing. For that alone, I can't give this game a low score.

Even if it is truly awful.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/14/08

Game Release: Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (US, 01/08/08)