Law & Order: Legacies - Episodes 6 and 7
Score: 89% Publisher: Telltale Games Developer: Telltale Games Media: Download/1 Players: 1 Genre: Adventure
Previously on Law & Order: Legacies: Law & Order: Legacies - Episodes 6 and 7 wraps up not only a solid series of adventure titles that fits its license perfectly, but also completes a season-long mystery that has been lurking in the background of each episode. Episodes 4 and 5 took the training wheels off of your courtroom and streetside proceedings. Where the first episodes laid down the groundwork for sleuthing out the guilty parties, catching suspects in their lies and then running them through the courtroom wringer, it wasn't until the previous two episodes that you really felt like you were no longer in a tutorial. Those previous five episodes also hinted at an earlier case that was never resolved. Those episodes bounced back and forth between the present, with Rey Curtis teaming up with Olivia Benson, and older cases that put Curtis with Lennie Briscoe. In each of those cases, we got tidbits of information involving an earlier case that went cold. This season's final two episodes deal closely with that case. The first one makes the side characters only briefly mentioned or seen take center stage, while the last episode reveals all and finally puts the case to rest.
Episode 6: Side Effects: A kid is murdered in a weight room in a local private school. Curtis and Briscoe are called to investigate, only to realize how closely this particular case connects to what has been termed the "Preppy Jogger" murders. In fact, the teenage boy killed in that case, Harrison Bedford, went to this school, and you quickly learn that the new victim, Tagg, a spoiled brat whose family has invested a lot of money into the school, has had some major arguments with Harrison. In this episode, we not only get a good bit of background information about some of the characters in the Preppy Jogger case, but we meet a few new characters like the Harrison's younger brother, Franklin, and their father, Giles. We learn that his girlfriend, Alison, who recently gave birth to his son, is now living with the Bedfords and going to the same school. When the pieces start coming together, the possibility that the new death is connected to the old one is not hard to see. In fact, based on a phone call Tagg was making at the time of the attack, the implications that someone was killing the spoiled kid because he/she believed that he was responsible for the Harrison death are obvious. Of course, nothing is that cut and dry in Law & Order, and it isn't until the suspect goes to court that some real light gets shined on what this preppy school is all about.
Episode 7: Resolution: The events of "Side Effects" acts as a great warm-up for the season finale. "Resolutions" takes place in the present with Curtis and Benson working together to track down who is threatening Giles Bedford. It seems someone believes that Giles was responsible for Harrison's death and that person wants to let everyone know. We get an update on the various Bedfords pretty early in this episode. Alison is now the CEO of Bedford Capital, Franklin cut all ties and disappeared some 10 years back, and Giles, himself, is in the hospital after suffering a heart attack. It also becomes pretty clear that Franklin is the one trying to implicate his father in Harrison's death, but Franklin isn't exactly an ideal witness, so it will take some interesting courtroom tactics in order to figure out exactly what happened and who was actually involved in Harrison's murder.
Next Time on Law & Order: Legacies: Well, I really don't know if there will be a next time, but I do recommend this episodic adventure and hope that it has garnered enough attention to warrant a second season. The individual episodes contained quite a few interesting cases, and there were enough connections to the main season finale case to make it feel like a full game and not smaller individual pieces. Basically, now that all seven episodes are out, I can definitely say that this is worth exploring for any fan of the TV series or casual adventure titles. Based on the style of gameplay though, it might be better to play it on an iPad or iPhone rather than a PC, but since I haven't had the chance to actually test these games on an iOS device, I can't say that for sure.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
Related Links: Official Law & Order: Legacies Home Page Game Vortex’s Review of Law & Order: Legacies - Episodes 1 - 3 Game Vortex’s Review of Law & Order: Legacies - Episodes 4 and 5 Law & Order on IMDb.com Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on IMDb.com Game Vortex’s Law & Order Coverage
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