No matter what your personal views, you'd have to agree that crime pays. From the early days of detective serials and Agatha Christie to the modern classics of Cops, NYPD Blue, Homicide, and a few hundred varieties of Law & Order, it's obvious that crime is big business. There's an entire channel dedicated to it on Foxtel, and at any given minute of the day, the odds are one station will be showing something criminal, and before you ask, our definition does include Bert Newton & Kerry Anne. So it comes as little surprise that Crime Scene Investigation, a Jerry Bruckheimer fuelled "howdunnit" that focuses on the heretofore ignored gritty details of forensics, would take off like OJ Simpson's Bronco.

So with three TV series, a swag of novels and even its own comic, it doesn't take an ace investigator to surmise that CSI would inevitably spawn one or more videogames. Two games revolving around Gil Grissom and the CSI: Las Vegas team have been released from custody to a mixed public reception, and now both these titles are being shackled together to form a cross-platform chain-gang destined for our favourite console. And after examining the Xbox evidence and processing the scene thoroughly, the verdict is in.

CSI is a throwback to the true old-school of PC gaming, namely the point'n'click adventure genre made so famous by Sierra and LucasArts back in the day. It's a tough market at the best of times on computer, and translations to consoles are few and far between. So when such a game finally makes it to our beloved box, licensed on an extremely popular TV series, it's bound to generate some excitement. But as Grissom teaches us, guesswork, speculation and enthusiasm count for nothing: the evidence will speak for itself. So is it any good?

The simple answer is no, unfortunately, but to understand why an autopsy is required, so that you the jury can render your verdict. Being a point'n'click adventure, CSI has very little action: there are no enemies to blow away, platforms to jump, or multiplayer action to enjoy. This doesn't make CSI a bad game however, quite the opposite in fact; it makes it accessible. This style of game allows casual gamers- and even friends or family members who would never consider touching a controller- an easy and enjoyable introduction to the world of Xbox.

At least, it would be these things if it wasn't horribly glitchy and riddled with bugs. The PC version had problems too, but having played both it's obvious that during the conversion process, the Xbox incarnation was infected with all manner of nasties that plague an otherwise enjoyable experience. These technical terrors come in both benign, irritating forms and malign, case-breaking variations. It's a small mercy that most of these issues are of the annoying kind- things like pictures of DNA strands/fingerprints not matching up where they should. It's frustrating, but just clicking every single option will eventually right the wrong.

The case-breakers are much less forgivable, and tend to involve evidence showing up where it shouldn't, or new information and direction not activating. In one particular case, for example, clicking the fingerprint dust on a woman's bloodstained shirt (which should yield nothing but a scolding from your CSI partner) inexplicably sends 'detonator print' to your evidence log- an item you shouldn't even know exists until later in the case. It may seem like a minor quibble, and it's hardly an Xbox destroying crash or something equally dramatic, but little things like this can totally spoil a case and give away the identity of the perpetrator and their motives.

CSI is cobbled together for the Xbox using the ten cases from the two PC games, with five cases apiece. The latter five, from the Dark Motives game, are vastly superior and also less problematic in the bug department, but you have to slog your way through the first five missions to get to them. In fact, progress is entirely linear, meaning that if you get stuck on one particular case you *have* to work it out before you are allowed to take on a new one. This is a frustrating design, especially since there is no real connection between the two sets of five missions. After becoming a CSI in the first game, its back to being a new rookie in the Dark Motives set, which is quite confusing at first, and it also means a lot of hand-holding and tutoring in the first case.

The cases themselves range from ordinary to intriguing, with the latter five being the real standouts. Expect to uncover ancient Indian remains, track down an abducted Komodo dragon, and solve your usual slew of straight-up homicides. Sadly, the cases tend to rely heavily on red herrings, and after the first few you'll have a fair idea of who the culprits are simply because all the evidence is pointing conveniently at someone else. Nevertheless, there are some clever twists and amusing moments along the way.

Much of the cleverness and humour comes from Max Allan Collins, regular writer for the TV show, as well as the novels and comics. He has a real grasp of the character's personalities, and the dialogue rings true to the show and adds a veneer of authenticity to the experience. All the actors from the series provide their own voices too, and while performances go from ham-fisted to perfect; it sucks you into the CSI experience. As for their appearance however, well, it's hard to tell if it all looks wrong because of poor graphics or lack of likeness rights, but the cast appear to be more of a 'slightly-inebriated artist's impression' than anything else.

Believe it or not this is your lesser visual concern, as overall CSI is an extremely disappointing lacking game. It lacks the style and edge of the TV series, and by edge we mean not only gritty flair, but also hard lines, as the game comes off as quite muddy and blurry. Much of the game consists of static crime-scenes and other various locations, which don't look too bad, and some of the areas are pretty cool. The problem lies in the panoramic locales, which are 360 degree crime-scenes that you must survey and search as part of your forensics-finding duties. Sounds like fun, except that rather than being a three dimensional space to explore, these panoramas are essentially one 2D image that wraps around your vision to give the illusion of turning.

The end result feels like some sort of preschooler's attempt at virtual reality, with people and places warping in size and length as you rotate your view. It's embarrassing to watch your modern console display sights like this, and you might almost find it forgivable if these sections weren't also riddled with graphical glitches like lines appearing at random and characters ceasing to animate. It's also worth noting that the static screens are not free of problems, and it's not unusual for the entire screen to display a corrupt image *except* for the hot-spots containing evidence to be collected.

The most frustrating thing is that underneath all the rotten eye-candy and enough bugs to require a fumigation tent, CSI is a pretty entertaining game to while away an hour or so every now and then. Each case will take between 45 to 90 minutes to complete, making it ideal for achieving things in bite-size chunks. Sure, it relies a lot on random point'n'click guesswork and spamming your forensic tools from time to time, but fans of CSI and casual players with a monk-like patience will be able to find some fun here, and there's plenty of unlockables for those inclined to achieve them. Mostly it's concept art and such, but there's also a few really interesting segments with CSI author Max Allan Collins and the show's actual forensics consultant, who describes life as a real CSI and even demonstrates how to lift prints from various surfaces! If only CSI: Crime Scene Investigation had more of this and less bugs and glitches.