Review: Again (Nintendo DS)

Usually I'm the one talking about other people's reviews. In this case, I decided to take on a review and tackled CiNG's Again, which could be the last American-released title from the now-bankrupt development team. If you've never heard of them, you might have heard of Hotel Dusk: Room 215, the 2007 DS sleeper hit that turned your handheld into an interactive mystery novel. In Again, you play as J, an FBI agent who's hunting down Providence, a serial killer who's been dormant for 19 years. You're armed with a badge and the ability to see both the past and the present in the same space.

Here's a sample of my thoughts:

"Without spoiling the plot too much, each of Providence’s crime scenes is structured like a stage. As you discover the events of the past, a connection to the successive murder opens up. J’s psychic abilities are the main hook of Again. Once you’ve finished questioning witnesses and victims’ family members, you enter the location of the crime -- usually conveniently preserved since 1991 -- and through careful deduction, piece together the killing as it occurred. Mechanically, the deduction splits the action into the past (left screen) and present (right screen). Your mission is to scan the latter-day scene for psychic links to the old-time locale. It’s a unique idea in theory, and starts off with plenty of promise."

Does Again deliver all of the thrills of a CSI episode, or does it end up more like a bad Law & Order spin-off? Click here to find out!