Case Files: Behind Closed Doors (PC)
In the first Case Files game, The Death of Paulette Williams, the “interrogation simulation” concept had promise, the full-motion video footage helping to sell its attempt at a realistic depiction of police work. Unfortunately, the weak subject matter of the case and the lack of interactivity held it back, but a second go at an idea is a chance to improve. Case Files: Behind Closed Doors is a big step up in terms of building intrigue and valuing player input, it now much easier to truly appreciate the idea the series is going for.
Case Files: Behind Closed Doors focuses on the murder of Daniel Murphy, the player a detective working on the case with officer Martin Ruiz to determine which of four possible suspects are responsible. Right out of the gate the game makes it easy to suspect any one of them, primarily because the murder happened shortly after an incident of domestic abuse where Murphy hurt his girlfriend Emma Richardson. Emma is one of the suspects Ruiz will be interrogating, but you also have her ex-husband Charlie Humphries, her daughter Rebbeca, and her neighbor Janice. It’s immediately easy to believe any one of these four would want to prevent further abuse, and while Janice does sound like the odd one out initially, it doesn’t take long for her criminal history to come to light, balancing out her lower personal investment with a clearer capacity to be the kind of person capable of murder. However, these four people aren’t sneering ne’er-do-wells, and what’s more, they all have reasons to clam up under scrutiny, especially when even the innocent ones start fearing the murderer could be someone else they care for.
Detective Ruiz will be the one conducting all the interviews, the player watching live recordings on their computer and weighing in at key points when Martin believes he’s hit a snag in getting more out of someone. Before the interrogation begins though, Case Files: Behind Closed Doors allows you to look over a range of hard evidence, police reports, photos of the murder, text message logs, and even security footage outside of Daniel Murphy’s house laying down concrete facts that prepare you well for starting to spot fishy statements or contradictions. Initially, the only control you will have over things though is advising Detective Ruiz, answering yes or no questions on whether to press certain subjects or if you consider the testimony authentic. Sometimes these might not be the expected kind of angles for an interrogation, Ruiz asking you if you think someone else thinks something feeling like an abstract line of attack, but this does feel like a somewhat reasonable piece of the interrogation simulation angle. You need to make judgment calls on how to proceed that do sometimes involve trying to get a read on a person’s behavior, and while the interviews are played first live, you can rewatch them, pause them, rewind, and even get two different angles on them so you can better watch the facial acting of the four suspects.
The cast of Case Files: Behind Closed Doors mostly does a good job of playing their roles, special mention feeling like it should go towards the late Lacy E. Bingham for her performance as Janice Burkes. Her belligerence and irritation is believable but not overblown, and Lacy’s expressions and motions feel like realistic behavior for someone in the uncomfortable situation of being questioned by cops while still on probation. On the other hand though, Charlie Humphries’s actor Donald L. Novak is mostly a soft-spoken fellow and yet he’s given the one moment of genuine fury in the story that doesn’t feel like it gels with the rest of his performance. A bit more fire in his usual behavior or a more subdued yet chilling fury might feel better in line with his character, especially since mostly the interviews feel pretty grounded and avoid explosive or dramatic behavior to seem more authentic. When you do start putting the screws on the guilty part, it is a bit impressive that the deflection techniques that person uses line up well with what you’d expect from someone similar in real life, helping to make watching the behaviors of the suspects closely feel worthwhile if you do feel you have a detective’s eye for such things.
Where you just working on the yes or no questions though, Case Files: Behind Closed Doors would feel a bit basic, but in the second half of the game, you’re given multiple chances to point out when someone’s statements contradict other evidence you’ve collected. These are definitely the most effective moments in this game’s format, partially because it’s not always as straightforward as whipping out something that obviously refutes it. You will need to pay close attention to each person’s testimonies, with sometimes a single key sentence someone said being the way you expose someone else’s falsehood. Thankfully, it does feel reasonable when a singular statement is so important, although the game includes a note-taking feature you may want to make use of for any time you hear something peculiar. There are some moments in the early game too where Detective Ruiz identifies a contradiction on his own and calls it out, these feeling like missed opportunities to get the player more involved, but your input is key in both halves of the investigation. If you don’t pick the right interrogation path you might miss crucial details, and while picking the right evidence to prove a contradiction isn’t always straightforward, you don’t need to get it right on the first try. There’s enough evidence in the pool to discourage brute forcing it but the leniency makes up for times when you do need to pull those more specific statements from your memory.
Case Files: Behind Closed Doors comes out to be about 4 hours long before you factor in any potential reviewing of footage and there is essentially one true path through the story. You can arrest any of the four suspects in the end, but one actually leads to the truth being revealed, although there is still an interesting choice to be made after that. Admittedly, it can be quick to get on the trail of the true culprit early on, the game perhaps needing to do a better job of getting you off the scent, but it isn’t the kind of early revelation that makes the interviews a waste of time since there are still missing details and some potential swerves that could lead your thoughts a bit astray. If you do pick wrong and want to retry though there is an option to skip the videos despite the autosave usually locking you into choices to avoid cheesing interrogations. Generally though, the game does point you well in the right direction, delivering on foreshadowing and suspicious elements more important than leaving you guessing when it comes time to lock in key decisions.
THE VERDICT: A big step up from the previous Case Files game, Case Files: Behind Closed Doors delivers on its “interrogation simulation” concept with a mystery where each of the four suspects feels like a possible culprit and enough twists keep the video watching format engaging. Spotting contradictions can involve picking up on small but crucial details while also proving to be a stronger payoff than the times you spend advising your fellow detective on how to proceed with questioning. It could do a better job of throwing you off the trail of the true guilty party, but there are still details you’ll need to unearth to get the full picture and lock in your choice, Case Files: Behind Closed Doors doing a good job of keeping your interest until you give your final verdict.
And so, I give Case Files: Behind Closed Doors for PC…
A GOOD rating. If you don’t buy into the interrogation simulation angle, Case Files: Behind Closed Doors can feel a little low energy at times, but that makes it more believable as well. This game feels almost like the Phoenix Wright series in some ways as you try to figure out how to press the suspects or spot where they slipped up in their cover stories, but that series happily embraces absurd and over the top reactions while Case Files seems to lean more towards subtlety. This is why a performance like Donald Novak’s feels like it needs adjustment, his soft-spoken side easy to believe as is his moment of anger but they don’t quite work on the same character. The suspects don’t need to overact to properly lay down the seeds of suspicion and the tapes usually aren’t too dry because enough important details are gradually rolled out. There are definitely some slower interviews where little of note is said that make it teeter towards merely being Okay, but the contradiction system was well-handled in that it provides those satisfying gotcha moments where a detail you’ve been waiting to whip out becomes relevant or something you hadn’t realized was important suddenly surges to the forefront. It could be nice to have a searchable transcript of each interview although that could make spotting contradiction a bit too easy, and the game does usually do a good job making sure no single chat is too long so you can quickly review them if you feel a bit lost.
The murder of an abusive boyfriend was a smart topic for this second attempt at the Case Files formula, it far easier to buy anyone as the culprit and the situation is set up well for deeper drama to unfold as people start admitting the truth. For a game leaning towards realism it wisely avoided leaning towards any strange diversions or moments that pointlessly sowed doubt just to preserve the mystery. There is room for it to be a more robust and layered mystery for people looking for a more challenging case to crack, but for players who want to conduct a rather realistic official police interrogation, Case Files: Behind Closed Doors captures that concept well and makes sure your role in unraveling the crime isn’t too passive this go around.