Directed by Allison Liddi Brown
Written by Anthony E. Zuiker, Ann Donahue, Carol Mendelsohn, Tim Dragga & Adam Scott Weissman
"Kill Screen" is the 15th episode of Season 8 and the 177th overall. It originally aired April 6, 2012.
A process server is found dead in an alley, but he's dressed as a referee. The case turns out to be connected to a high-stakes video game tournament.
Tropes for the episode:
- Cool Code of Source: Someone is using a hack to cheat in the tournament and the team finds the hand-written coding.
- Hit Box Dissonance: The cheater reduces the size of his own avatar's strike zone by half, but doubles those of his opponents.
- I Don't Know Mortal Kombat: Averted by Mac. The others, particularly Adam, don't think he'll be good at their video game, but he and Jo both kick Adam's butt as soon as they start playing.
- Playing Games at Work: Hearing Danny & Adam talking excitedly, Mac investigates & finds them playing Gears of War 3. Adam explains that they discovered Hit Box Dissonance and proceeds to demonstrate the difference in difficulty of killing opponents for Mac.
- Second Place Is for Losers: Mac has a Eureka! moment when he realizes the runner-up in the tournament had the most to lose and says, "Second place is the first loser."
- Subculture of the Week: There's some derision of people who play video games for a living, but the referee's murder, and the motive that lead to it, are taken seriously.
- Terminology Title: Gaming term for a bug or other malfunction preventing game play.
