Phoenix Wright - Ace Attorney
Ninendo, £29.99

Rupert White



There really cannot be many moments in a lawyer's existence when he sits down at a desk and thinks: 'You know, my life is so exciting that I cannot imagine why those people at Nintendo have failed to make a game of it.' But if you have had that thought, Nintendo has finally come to your rescue.



Picture the scene: a metropolis in which the caseload backlog became so catastrophically large that three-day murder trials were introduced. Defendants must prove their innocence in three days, or they get a serving of the very nastiest porridge. Though this may sound like an average terrorist trial in London, it is in fact the backdrop against which are cast the characters of 'Phoenix Wright - Ace Attorney', a Nintendo DS game.



Now, if you are expecting logical legal argument in front of a near-omniscient beak, spearing straight through the heart of a prosecutor's error, you will be disappointed. This is non-sequitur country, and it is a big country. If, however, you want something that resembles a cross between 'Law & Order', a Japanese comic and an Ealing comedy, you are going to be rewarded in spades.



You play newly qualified defence lawyer Phoenix Wright as he moves from defending wrongly arrested friends through to solving case after case of dastardly deeds. Your boss, the gorgeous Mia, is swiftly dispatched in your second 'turnabout' (it is pointless asking why the episodes are so called), leaving her teenage sister Maya to help you in your quests.



Here is where the true weirdness of 'Phoenix Wright - Ace Attorney' reveals itself. Maya and Mia grew up on a mountain retreat for spirit guides.



Their whole family has been supernaturally connected to the dead for generations, and Maya is a 'novice' who was removed from the mountain eyrie before she could complete her training. After her older sister's untimely death, Maya starts to channel her when you need help or advice. Eventually, this all becomes relevant.



That none of the above seems any more bizarre than much of the dialogue in 'Phoenix Wright' should tell you all you need to know - this game is laugh-out-loud funny. It is worth wandering through rather over-linear stories just to meet characters called Redd White, April May (guess what kind of girl she is...) and Larry Butz.



The translators have had a huge laugh translating - and sometimes purposefully mistranslating - this originally Japanese title, so sentences like 'our school had a saying "When something smells, it's usually the Butz"', when Phoenix's schoolmate is charged with murder, occur with hilarious regularity. My favourite was: 'What's with all this wonton winking, Miss May?'



Put that alongside waiters or bellhops appearing in court in the same outfits they wear at work, an utterly bonkers judge, a prosecutor who would make Attila the Hun look liberal, totally unreal murder cases, and the ability to yell 'Objection!' into the DS's microphone to produce an intervention in testimony, and you have a great reason to steal the game from somebody's bedroom.