With offbeat titles like Trauma Center, which casts players as scalpel-wielding surgeons, the touch-sensitive, dual-screened Nintendo DS has become the console of choice for avant-garde interactive entertainment. Justice for All, the newest chapter in portable courtroom drama series Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney, picks up where last year's cult favorite predecessor left off. This anime-styled Far Eastern adventure, starring a goofy, self-delusional cartoon defense attorney with aerodynamic hair, proves just as weird and engaging as you'd anticipate. In this story-driven narrative -- heavy on text and light on action (although flush with typically overzealous Japanese melodrama) -- you attempt to get several suspects off the hook. You'll comb crime scenes for clues, interrogate suspects, search for discrepancies in witness testimony and uncover evidence that proves clients' innocence.

Gripping stuff it's not; typical handheld game players may tire of each case well before they've finished tabbing past an endless array of static images or parsing pages of crucial transcripts. Fans of the original (or primetime potboilers such as Law & Order) who don't mind a little tongue-in-cheek comedy with their he-said/she-said murder mysteries will be pleasantly surprised. There's not much impressive about new features like "Psyche-Lock" challenges, in which you batter down secret-hiding individuals' willpower with guilt-proving facts and probing questions until they cough up the goods. Yelping "Objection!" into the DS microphone gets old fast, and the game feels more like an expansion pack than a proper sequel. Here's hoping the inevitable next installment delivers a more compelling verdict.