Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law is essentially five interactive episodes of the show, so it is a great thing that its presentation delivers on all fronts. Most of the show's original voice talent makes appearances, including Gary Cole as Harvey, Peter MacNicol as X, the Eliminator and John Michael Higgins as Mentok the Mindtaker. The only disappointment is that Stephen Colbert, who pulls double duty as Harvey's boss, Phil Ken Sebben, and Reducto isn't around. The stand-ins do an okay job at sounding the part, though some of the minor nuances of each character are a little off, which probably won't be noticeable to anyone but the most hardcore of Birdman fans.

Visuals also remain true to the show. Characters look and move exactly like they do on the show and could easily pass for an episode were it not for the pesky interactive sections that pop up every minute or so. The number of well-known figures that pop up is one of the game's better surprises. In addition to characters like The Blue Falcon, Peter Potamus and Secret Squirrel, Capcom characters also show up, like Street Fighter's Guile.

Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law follows the life of former superhero-turned-attorney Harvey Birdman. Rather than fighting crime with his powers, Harvey now fights for justice using his dubious legal skills as he defends many of Hanna-Barbera's more well-known figures, like the Flintstones, Scooby Doo and Magilla Gorilla, in some truly ludicrous trials. As with the Phoenix Wright series, or really any point-and-click adventure game, the experience is only as strong as its story. The writing manages to capture the show's general feel and really plays towards the audience that is most likely going to be interested in the first place. There are numerous in-jokes aimed clearly at videogame players and Internet savvy people, many of which are laced with innuendo and double entendre. Jokes stay well within the game's Teen rating, though if you're the type that is really vigilant about what younger ears hear (or don't hear), consider yourself warned.

The game is split up into five trials featuring one of the aforementioned Hannah-Barbera characters who Harvey must defend. Gameplay is split into two parts - Investigation and Trial. During investigations, Harvey must find evidence to help prove his client's innocence. Once the investigation is complete, it is on to the trial, where you listen to testimony and attempt to find problems with their statements. Again, gameplay mimics Phoenix Wright's gameplay idea-for-idea, which isn't necessarily a bad thing unless you're a fan of the DS series; if this is the case, Harvey might be a little too similar in some aspects and a little too shallow in others.

One of the game's more pressing issues is length. Though they run a little longer than the length of each show, episodes rarely last more than 45 minutes, which means that the entire game takes less than 5 hours to play. After that, there really isn't much incentive to go back unless you really like a specific trial.

Though much of the game revolves around successfully defending clients, puzzles are the heart of the overall experience and where the game eventually fails. Puzzles aren't poorly constructed and, as bizarre as they seem, actually make sense within the context of the cases they accompany. However, puzzles are way too easy to figure out and are practically fool proof. There's no way to miss a piece of evidence since you aren't allowed to proceed unless you've collected everything in an area. This makes the actual trial a snap; the only way to lose is by presenting the wrong piece of evidence at the wrong time, which is impossible to do since the game does everything but automatically present the evidence.

In addition to length, another of Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law's issues is its gameplay, or rather the lack of gameplay. The interface is completely point-and-click driven and not as involved as the Phoenix Wright games. The actual investigations are easy and take little effort to complete. Everything is plainly laid out for you and obvious.

Trials are thankfully a little more involved and mostly involve picking through dialogue trees until you get the response you want out of a witness. This mainly breaks down to pressing the witness on everything until you have a chance to present evidence. Again, choosing the correct responses and evidence is fairly obvious, which does take away from the fun.

Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law does a great job at capturing the look and feel of the show, but as a game it doesn't work out that well. The writing is great and the plots of each trial are just as absurd as anything you would see on TV, but aren't so good that they make up for the absent gameplay, mindlessly easy difficulty and $40 price point - which makes the game more expensive than a DVD of the show. At best, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law is a great weekend rental.