Capcom's Ace Attorney Video Game
A Non-Violent Nintendo DS Role Playing Adventure Game
While not quite a true mystery game, this role playing game where the player portrays a lawyer requires sharp observational skills to help the main character solve cases.
Nintendo has targeted a larger niche market with many of its offerings for the Nintendo DS and the Wii. The Ace Attorney series of games also takes role-playing back to its purest forms, and worries less about combat with monsters or the need to incorporate elements of high-heroic fantasy into the games.
The first offering in the Ace Attorney series is Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. When the player first powers on the game, which surprisingly, was first released for the Gameboy Advanced. When Phoenix Wright wakes up, he finds that he cannot remember who he is or what he does. Complicating the issue is that shortly after Phoenix Wright wakes up, he finds out that he must defend a police officer in a trial the details of which he cannot remember.
Ace Attorney Series: Not for Hardcore Video Gamers
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and other subsequent releases fit more into the brain training games that have been released for the Nintendo DS then they do with traditional role-playing games. The video game designers for the Ace Attorney series intended that a player to pay close attention to what the witnesses are saying and find differences between what the witnesses are saying and the facts the player knows at the time.
The premise for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney seems a little far fetched as most lawyers who suffered from amnesia would make sure their client had some other lawyer who could represent his client's interest. This can be given in the case of Phoenix Wright because it gives the game a far better storyline.
Other Ace Attorney Games
Adventure gamers who would prefer a true mystery should check out the recently released PC games that fall into this category, such as Sherlock Holmes: the Awakened. Even Professor Layton and the Curious Village is more of a mystery than any game in the Ace Attorney series, but these games might actually help someone who has difficulty picking up on details as the point of the Ace Attorney games is to find discrepancies in the stories the witnesses tell the judge and jury.
The Ace Attorney series has proven popular enough that a sequel to Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney has been released. The video game designers kept the elements of the new video games the same, although the storyline and the cases the Ace Attorney must solve are different. These video gams are worth it to check out, especially for parents of slightly older children who are worried about too much video game violence.
Resources:
Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney. Capcom, 2005.
