In Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law for the Wii, PlayStation2, and PSP, the developers at High Voltage Software didn't actually make a Harvey Birdman game; they made a Harvey Birdman DVD (and UMD) episode collection that you have to constantly click through to progress in each story. Sure, there are gameplay elements, but they're largely inconsequential, an itch in each of the game's five episodes that you periodically notice long enough to scratch, yet often forget is even there as you find yourself lulled into just clicking away to get to the next story bit. That might not sound like much of a ringing endorsement, but although the gameplay may be in absentia, the comedy is front and center. If you have any love of the Adult Swim cartoon on which the game is based, you'll find the five episodes packed into this game to be as hilarious and absurd as many of the recent episodes of the show.
The Good
* Great storylines that fit nicely into the show's style of humor
* Sharp graphics
* Nearly all of the show's voice cast is on hand.
The Bad
* Gameplay barely exists, and what's there is forgettable
* You can beat the whole thing in about four hours
* No Stephen Colbert, and the soundalike actor sucks.
Score: 6.5/10
WTMG's Leo Faria: "Why do we do this? We are well aware that a specific licensed game isn’t good, yet we actually manage to be less critical, we manage to overlook its issues, and enjoy these tie-ins, these perfect definitions of the word “shovelware”, without an issue. What is it about these games that makes us more… tolerant? Is it the novelty of playing a game based on a license we like? Is it some kind of psychological effect that reminds us of simpler days? Does it mean that playing these games brings out the best version of the gamer inside of us?"
Drew Leachman writes: The From A to Z series lets our editors go back and take a look at games from past generations that are classics, overlooked gems, or just titles they remember fondly. The idea behind this is to pick five games from each letter of the alphabet, once a week to showcase. This delivers 26 weeks and 130 games to talk about. Hopefully it sparks some conversation, and of course plenty of memories.
Our second series will focus on Sony’s sophomore entry into the console business, the PlayStation 2.
Let’s continue with the letter “H”.
The lost Ace Attorney game!
