NCIS

NCIS starts with the pleasant fantasy every licensed adventure game wants to deliver: you are not an anonymous rookie orbiting the cast, but the whole team. One scene has DiNozzo or Ziva combing a crime scene, the next puts Abby at the lab bench, McGee at a computer, Ducky in an autopsy, and Gibbs across from a suspect. That rotation gives its four-episode investigation a brisk, TV-like rhythm.

The trouble is that the investigation often feels more like a tour through familiar crime-game tasks than a case you are personally cracking. Searching, photographing, collecting, matching, interrogating, and connecting evidence all fit NCIS well, but the individual activities do not build enough momentum to make the escalating conspiracy especially gripping. Fans will enjoy the cast-focused structure and the show’s humor; everyone else may find it a middling detective adventure.

Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The first hour has a reliable licensed-game hook: you move from crime-scene work to laboratory analysis and questioning rather than spending the whole case in one role. Controlling DiNozzo and Ziva during evidence searches makes the third-person exploration feel appropriately hands-on. Taking photographs and collecting clues is straightforward detective work, but it at least puts you at the scene instead of merely reading about it afterward.

Abby’s forensic work supplies the puzzle-game side, with tasks such as matching bullets and comparing fingerprints. Ducky’s autopsies ask you to locate points of interest and take snapshots, while McGee handles computer hacking and satellite tracking. Each assignment makes sense for the character, and that is NCIS’s strongest design choice: the team does not feel like a set of interchangeable faces.

Gibbs’s interrogations and deduction board are meant to bring the strands together. Connecting evidence into a larger picture is the closest the game comes to making you feel like the case is clicking into place. Yet the overall loop is very familiar, and the constant handoff between specialized tasks can make the investigation feel segmented rather than deeply involving. It works best when you are happy to follow the show’s case-solving routine, not when you want demanding detective deduction.

Graphics

Crime scenes are explored from a third-person view, while the story uses video-style effects associated with the TV series. The clearest visual pleasure is simply seeing the investigation move between scenes, lab work, autopsies, computer tasks, and the deduction board instead of staying in a single static interface.

Story

What begins as a bank robbery grows into a terrorist conspiracy and a nuclear threat across four episodes. That escalation gives the campaign a proper procedural shape: start with a concrete crime, pull on the evidence, then discover that the case is much larger than it first appeared.

The story leans on the same kind of humor and video effects used by the series, so fans have a better chance of settling into its rhythm. More importantly, the script has a practical advantage over many TV tie-ins: it lets the major characters participate in the actual investigation rather than treating them as occasional cameos.

The rising stakes are serviceable, but they do not overcome the game’s formulaic structure. The narrative is most enjoyable as an excuse to spend time with the NCIS team and watch their specialties intersect; as a thriller on its own, it has less force than its nuclear-threat premise suggests.

Overall Experience

NCIS is a decent fit for someone who wants a light, cast-driven detective adventure. Its best moments come from the simple pleasure of moving through a case as the whole team: search with field agents, test evidence with Abby, examine a body with Ducky, trace leads with McGee, then let Gibbs press the suspect.

Its weaker side is the lack of surprise in that routine. The forensic mini-games, crime-scene searches, and evidence connections are thematically appropriate, but they rarely turn into a particularly absorbing puzzle experience. By the time the conspiracy reaches its larger stakes, the gameplay has already shown most of its hand.

At a 5.3, this lands as an average TV tie-in with a solid understanding of why fans like the ensemble. Give it a chance if the prospect of directing DiNozzo, Ziva, Abby, Ducky, McGee, and Gibbs through one connected case sounds comforting. Skip it if you need your adventure games to deliver sharper puzzles or a more compelling investigative payoff.