If you are a Crime Scene Investigation fan and would love to throw a crack at investigating crime scenes, then CSI: Hidden Crimes is just the game for you. Downloaded over ten million times both on iOS App Store and Google Play Store, you could say that developer Ubisoft managed to successfully release their game and make a killing. In this game you get challenged into a new hidden object game experience.
Your objectives as a player are to find evidence left behind on crime scenes, analyze it and discover the secrets hidden behind this evidence that will ultimately lead to you finding the criminal responsible for the crime. Want to make the game more challenging? No problem! You can compete with your Facebook friends and find out who is the better investigator. Rated at 4.1/5 stars, you could say that this game is well received and pretty addictive. With a helpful tutorial at the beginning and a crisp and clear UI, this game has a low learning curve and is enjoyable for both young and old.
You will start off with an option to either log in with your Facebook but it is not necessary. The game starts with a nicely build tutorial. In this tutorial you will learn the basics of the game and you basically learn what you are supposed to do.
After that you will end up on the crime scene. Investigating scenes costs energy. Your energy bar will deplete slowly but fill itself up by one energy every four and a half minutes.
On this crime scene you need to find six objects which are scattered around. The victim’s body is also on the crime scene which you must find. If you cannot seem to find a certain object, you can click and hold on the object name and a small picture will show up of how it is supposed to look like. Still can’t find it? No problem. There is a magnifying glass which will automatically locate one object for you but beware, it takes a while for the magnifying glass to reload. If your smartphone has a small screen, you can zoom in and out by pinching the screen which is also a pretty nifty feature. The faster you find the objects, the more points you earn and the higher score you will get.
After you finish investigating the crime scene, you will have to start identifying the body. By identifying the body you will find out what the victim’s name was and how old he/she is. Identifying a body takes twenty minutes but can be instant by using in-game cash.
You will also need to identify the evidence so you can find out who the suspect is. It costs one golden star to start identifying evidence pieces. You earn stars by investigating the crime scenes as fast as possible.
Once you have the gold star to examine evidence, you will play a mini-game. I had a party flyer and I had to identify what was written on it by carefully reading the words written on the flyer and after that clicking the right words given in the options.
More scenes will be unlocked once you progress through the scenario. The challenge is to complete the investigation 100%.
After identifying evidence, a suspect will appear. Talking to the suspect costs 1 star. Once you gathered enough evidence to identify the criminal, you can talk to him and convict him. This will make you finish the scenario and the next scenario will unlock for you.
CSI: Hidden Crimes is a free to play game but has an in-game store where you can purchase items which will speed up your game and/or give you a huge advantage in the game. For instance, you can purchase in-game cash, which in turn you can use to speed up the identification of the victim’s body. Normally it takes twenty minutes to identify a body, but by using in-game cash, you can identify the body instantly. You can also purchase coins which you can use to buy tools to help you search the crime scenes better or to get more points. Here is a pricelist for both the in-game cash and coins;
Cash:
1300 Cash
99,99 USD
600 Cash
49,99 USD
290 Cash
24,99 USD
110 Cash
9,99 USD
50 Cash
4,99 USD
20 Cash
1,99 USD
Coins:
650.000 Coins
99,99 USD
300.000 Coins
49,99 USD
145.000 Coins
24,99 USD
55.000 Coins
9,99 USD
25.000 Coins
4,99 USD
10.000 Coins
1,99 USD
I would also like to note that after any purchase, the game becomes ad free. So in other words, if you would purchase a pack of 20 cash for 1,99 USD, your game will become completely ad free. I would recommend a purchase like this so that your game will be more enjoyable.
CSI: Hidden Crimes is a hidden objects puzzle game where you can find evidence to solve crimes. In CSI: Hidden Crimes, you can purchase cash and coins through the app store, but this costs a lot of real money, and most players don’t want to end up spending money to help them progress through the game. If you are one of these people, then you need to download our free cash, coins, and stars hack tool, which will give you all of these items for free.
If you look at the picture below, you will see how easy the user interface is, and all you have to do is input the amounts of the items you want to add to your CSI: Hidden Crimes game.
You can download our free hack tool and it will only take about 1 minute to download, although it depends on your internet connection. After you download the CSI: Hidden Crimes hack, you will notice it automatically downloads, which should take no more than 30 seconds to complete.
After the download finishes and it installs, you will need to select which device you are running the game on, either iOS or Android. You can then input the amount of cash, coins, and stars you want to add to your account. Hit “Start” and then you will notice the hack tool will begin working, and this should also not take more than 1 minute to complete. All you have to do after that is open the game as normal and you will see the amounts of the items you added to the game, and then you can play the game with unlimited currency and stars.
Your goal in this game is to find the objects in the crime scene as fast as possible. You will however lose energy every time you do so, there for you need to focus on completing the stage faster. The most effective cheat you can use in this game is to pause the game. When you pause the game, the timer will stop counting down. From here you can use this cheat to your advantage by looking around the scene and identifying the objects that you are looking for. After that you can simply un-pause the game and click on the objects right away, guaranteeing you a fast scene clearing time.
Another cheat you can use is to make a screenshot of the crime scene right at the beginning and proceeding by minimizing your game. This will pause the game timer. Look at the screenshot you just took thoroughly and identify the locations of the objects you need. You will find out that after you find the first three objects, you will need to find three new objects. Just repeat the first step by screenshotting the screen again and looking at the screenshot to find the locations of the last three objects. After that, maximize the game again and click on the objects as fast as possible for a fast scene clearing time.
For you to maximize the usage of this cheat, you can try it with “Time attack stage” and get additional points and stars.
As mentioned before, there are stars in this game which you need to analyze evidence. As long as you have enough energy, just play the same stage over and over again. By that time you will have memorized the objects and you can clear the scenes as fast as possible to earn easy stars.
A tip I would like to give you guys and girls is to connect your gameplay to your Facebook account where you can request energy from your friends. Social networks like Facebook brings a huge advantage to you because you connect with players around the world.
The first thing I noticed about this game is that the tutorial is actually pretty easy to follow and is not annoying like in certain other games. You actually learn what you have to do by following the text on the screen and completing the objectives in the tutorial. I think the buildup of the game has been pretty thought out so that beginners will have no issue getting used to all the game mechanics and options. The animations and graphics are clear and of high quality. There is no blurring or unreadable parts and even while playing on a small screen smartphone, you will have no issue with, for example, finding objects at the crime scenes. Another nice thing about this game is, you actually make the game more challenging for yourself if you connect with Facebook. You want to get a higher score than your friends no matter what. If you love challenges like me, you will like this too.
Unfortunately there are also downsides to this game. First of all, the amount of energy you have is way too low. You use up energy every time you investigate a crime scene and from what I have seen, you lose between ten to fifteen energy for every scene. This means you can play seven or eight scenes before you run out and need to wait a whopping seven and a half hours to have a full energy bar again. Of course there is a way around this by purchasing in-game cash and boosting your energy up but I think this is a big turn off for many, if not, all free to play games.
But it doesn’t stop there unfortunately. Next to having a depleting energy bar, you also need stars to progress through the game. And you guessed it, you earn these stars by investigating crime scenes, which also cost energy. So it is like an endless loop which you cannot leave unless you have a lot of patience and can wait for your energy bar to fill up by itself.
Ads are also a part of this game like many free to play games. Luckily if you make a small purchase in the in-game store, your game will be completely ad free.
Last but not least, after completing an episode and you move over to the next one on the world map, you get prompted about a download. Every episode is a different download which can get quite annoying. When I tried to move to the next episode, I had to retry about five times before the download to actually come through without an error. Hopefully the game developers will have a look into this and fix this up as soon as possible.
Artwork: I give CSI: Hidden Crimes an 8/10 for its artwork. The artwork is pretty smooth and clear. The colors that are used fit the setting of the game. The characters are well drawn and detailed.
Music & SFX: I give the game a 7/10 for its music and SFX. The sound effects fit the scenes and make the game a bit more thrilling. The police sirens give it an extra touch. There is not much music in this game but you don’t really notice it is missing.
Story & Originality: I give the game a 7/10 for its story and originality. When you look up crime scene games on Google Play Store, there are actually quite a lot of games similar to this one. The difference is, this one plays better than the other ones and spend more time perfecting the game. Every episode has a different story which is also a nice touch and keeps you interested in the game.
General Gameplay: I give the game a 7/10 for general gameplay. The game is pretty straight forward after you get used to it. You have objectives which you follow in every episode. The more you progress, the harder it gets. Connecting trough Facebook gives the game an extra challenge which I personally like in a game.
Addictiveness: I give CSI: Hidden crimes a 6/10 for addictiveness. The game is pretty addictive, since every episode is a different story and you just want to know what happens next. The problem is, the game kind of blocks you from progressing because of the energy bar they give you. You are forced to spend real money if you want to keep playing without taking a break. It is understandable that a free-to-play game has an in-game store, but waiting seven and a half hours for a full energy bar is just somewhat absurd.
All things considered, I give CSI: Hidden Crimes a 7/10