CSI: Miami Heat Wave Brings Horatio Caine and His Sunglasses to Your Facebook Page

By Hannah Sentenac Thu., Sep. 6 2012 at 11:12 AM

Categories: Television

via Facebook

See CSI: Miami is Canceled, but Horatio Caine's One-Liners Will Live On Forever.

If you've been feeling forlorn since Horatio Caine's infamous sunglasses and godawful acting made an abrupt departure from network TV when CSI: Miami was canned earlier this year, you're in luck. The king of cheesy one-liners and his motley crew are back -- this time, as Bratz-looking cartoons controlled by your keyboard.

Ubisoft has announced the creation of a new Facebook role-playing game dubbed CSI: Miami Heat Wave. According to VentureBeat.com, this free-to-play game starts you off as a rookie crime scene investigator, inspecting various elements of a room. You expend energy with each task, and can score tools like a camera, Luminol (a chemical used to detect traces of blood at crime scenes), and more. When you find something, your energy increases. There are also optional "side quests."

And of course, you can buy virtual goods with actual cash -- hence the game's monetization prospects.

Image via CSI: Miami Heat Wave's Facebook page

The game's producer, Adrian Price, told GamesBeat that the new title builds on its predecessor, CSI: Crime City, which has an audience of about 810,000 monthly active users -- not bad for a two-year-old game. Looks like they're hoping this latest diversion will be the hottest new time-sink for Facebook's 955 million monthly active users.

The game makers will also be giving away an "Exclusive VIP Gift Pack" (no word yet on what that includes) on launch day for people who like the page, and they've already reached 36,717 fans. ;The game is currently in closed beta testing and there is no firm worldwide release date. According to the FB page admins, it's available now in Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Mexico, South Africa, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark.

Now if David Caruso could only step in for some voice-over action, we'd be all over it. Until the launch, however, we'll just have to make do with this: