LA Noir

[ffc]

I'm in.  Gameplay looks more challenging than just watching for shifty eyes.  Driving around from mission to mission looks boring but there is an option to just warp to the destination.  The running chase scenes look straight out of an old movie.

Neat online feature uses "intuition points" to see what other players picked during an interview if you need help reading a perp.

[Velorath]

If this doesn't make it out for the pc within a year, I'll probably have to get a PS3. Fiancee's eyes got all wide and she looked at me excitedly...and I told her 'not for the pc'. Rockstar's been decent at 'console exclusives' coming out within a year for the pc (except Bully, which took forever), so I'm still hopeful. Looks awesome.

After the whole PSN thing you'd still go PS3 over Xbox? This isn't an exclusive.

Doesn't the PS3 version have some bonus content?

[Velorath]

This is next on the list after Witcher 2, provided reviews are favorable, which is likely. 

Reviews are pretty positive so far.

[MuffinMan]

Best Buy's doing a midnight release with a $10 gift card, I've got a $5 certificate, might as well.

[SnakeCharmer]

Yeah, I'm onboard.  Hoping it's more RDR than GTA4, knowing that it's neither.  Looks amazing and very atmospheric. 

That's kinda where I stand.  I thought about waiting a week or two to see how it plays out, but I'll probably end up buying it tomorrow.

[Jeff Kelly]

I hope it's neither RDR nor GTA IV. Both have had more flaws positive things.

RDR is also an example where the ending retroactively destroys the whole enjoyment of the game by being basically a big "fuck you" to you. I also hope that LA Noir refrains from having NPCs call me constantly to try to get me to do stuff with them.

[Velorath]

RDR is also an example where the ending retroactively destroys the whole enjoyment of the game by being basically a big "fuck you" to you.

Personally I thought the ending redeemed the story quite a bit (I liked the story quite a bit, but it dragged in a lot of places like most R* games).

[Hawkbit]

Personally I thought the ending redeemed the story quite a bit (I liked the story quite a bit, but it dragged in a lot of places like most R* games).

Completely agree.  I never once thought it could have ended any other way.  It ended perfectly, imo.  Mexico dragged a lot for me, though.  Too much time was spent being fucked over on missions for information, only to end up empty handed. 

I do hope Rockstar learned their lesson about the GTA phone for 5 though...

[Rendakor]

Picked this up at midnight last night and logged a few hours; it's fun but very unique. Most of the game is spent talking to people and searching for evidence, and there's relatively little combat; I'm not sure how the typical R* fan is going to like it but I'm having a blast. My only complaint is the driving controls/handling, but you can make your partner drive (fast travel) for everything except the chase scenes. I hope the facial scanning tech catches on; I'd love to see something like that in an RPG, or even a modern cop game.

[Hawkbit]

I'm about 45min into it and I don't like how the game (spoiler just in case)


Otherwise, it's an amazingly beautiful game and it looks to be a lot of fun.  It is the closest to "playing a movie" that I've seen yet in games. 

[Margalis]

On the fence about this. I love the style and the overall feel but watching a live-stream the actual gameplay seemed a little too simple and lacking. It doesn't seem like either investigation or interrogation is particularly involved. Will wait for more opinions.

[Rendakor]

Hawkbit, that's just a tutorial. You do a few missions as a beat cop just to learn the various mechanics (combat, driving, investigation, interrogation); once you get promoted to Traffic the proper cases start.

[NiX]

I'm about 45min into it and I don't like how the game (spoiler just in case)


Otherwise, it's an amazingly beautiful game and it looks to be a lot of fun.  It is the closest to "playing a movie" that I've seen yet in games. 

Interesting to hear.

As for your last comment, did you play Uncharted 2?

[Gruntle]

or Heavy Rain?

Basically I loved both of those games, and this looks pretty damn good so far.

[Rasix]

Yah, this sounds like something I'd possibly really, really enjoy.  I'm pretty sure they'll still be selling it in a month, so I can wait a bit.

[Velorath]

Yah, this sounds like something I'd possibly really, really enjoy.  I'm pretty sure they'll still be selling it in a month, so I can wait a bit.

Yeah, after Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat both went on sale for half price 2 weeks after release, I'm very hesitant to pick up anything on release day right now (aside from Dark Souls and Mass Effect 3).

[Ingmar]

It was $10 off at Fry's today, so I figured "why not."

[Gruntle]

And I'm one of those dumb suckers who buys early for the pre-order bonus (stupid I know, especially if it'll all be in the DLC eventually)

[Rendakor]

And I'm one of those dumb suckers who buys early for the pre-order bonus (stupid I know, especially if it'll all be in the DLC eventually)

This is me, with the added hilarity of having it on the PS3 so I can't even use my DLC codes.

[SnakeCharmer]

I keep getting stuck in aim mode (ps3) while in combat.  Anyone else or is my controller shitting the bed?

[Rendakor]

Hasn't happened to me so I'm gonna go with your controller.

[fuser]

No news for two days.

Friends have commented the game isn't a real sandbox but on rails for them. You can just sprint around crime scenes till your controller vibrates and you search for clues at that point. Another gripe is you either fail or pass the interrogation with no impact on the story(it seems). This was up to and around traffic cases.

[Rendakor]

It's definitely on rails, not a traditional R* sandbox. If you fail the interrogations or don't find all the clues, you might not have the evidence to convict (or even discover) the right guy. Hell, there's even a case where the "good" choice is to charge someone who ISN'T the murderer because he's a complete scumbag. Basically, the story of each case (and your rating at the end) varies based on how well you do in the interviews/clue hunting.

[fuser]

It's definitely on rails, not a traditional R* sandbox. If you fail the interrogations or don't find all the clues, you might not have the evidence to convict (or even discover) the right guy. Hell, there's even a case where the "good" choice is to charge someone who ISN'T the murderer because he's a complete scumbag. Basically, the story of each case (and your rating at the end) varies based on how well you do in the interviews/clue hunting.

So you cannot convict the wrong guy just a plain failed?

[Rendakor]

Yes you can convict the wrong guy, no it does not give you a "failed".

[Hawkbit]

One of the reviews mentioned turning off the clue indicators.  Makes it a little more hunt and peck like an old adventure game, but might be more immersive.  ymmv.

[fuser]

Yes you can convict the wrong guy, no it does not give you a "failed".

Excellent! 

[UnSub]

Yes you can convict the wrong guy, no it does not give you a "failed".

Just like real life then.

[Rendakor]

One of the reviews mentioned turning off the clue indicators.  Makes it a little more hunt and peck like an old adventure game, but might be more immersive.  ymmv.

The clue indicator you're talking about is just controller vibration, and it doesn't necessarily signify that something is a clue; it only tells you that you can interact with it to SEE if it's a clue. The only time you can see exactly where your clues are is when you use your intuition points.

[Miasma]

This is playing havoc on the old OCD.  I can't leave an interview until I get all the correct answers so I have to quit the game and resume, go through all the (unskippable) dialogue, recollect the clues, reanswer all the right questions until/if I screw up a later one.  Then I have to rinse and repeat.

In some places if you run away far enough from the crime scene it auto saves so that helps but if you try that in other places it assumes the interview is over and fires up the next storyline scene...

I hate autosave is basically what I'm saying.  I also find the "revolutionary" facial technology creepy and awful looking.

Aside: I liked red dead redemption but by the end I was just playing it to finish the damn thing.  And seriously fuck whoever thought cougars that jumped out of nowhwere to one shot your horse and then one shot you as you're dazed on the ground was a good idea.

I keep getting stuck in aim mode (ps3) while in combat.  Anyone else or is my controller shitting the bed?

I don't suppose you could be confusing aim mode with the cover system?  You hit either r1 or l1 (I forget which) to take cover and then hit it again to leave.  If you mean you're just always aiming your gun and it doesn't go away when you release l2 then yeah maybe your controller is shot.

Edit: Oh, also:

[Margalis]

The more I hear about this the more I feel like the negatives outweigh the positives for me. CSI sounds like a pixel-hunt if you turn off hints or just nothing if you leave them on, and interrogation sounds too trial-and-error.

I feel like a Heavy Rain approach might have been better. Instead of scoring cases and encouraging you to do perfectly just let the player fail or succeed and keep going, with whatever the result is changing the story.

[ffc]

I turned off clue indicators and am not pixel hunting like in adventure games. With indicators on I was just waltzing around waiting for rumble but with indicators off I am paying attention to the environment and only interacting with things that look fishy. If I miss some bullet casings, oh well! I know that OCD pixel hunting feeling but I left that back with said bullet casings.

Everything outside of clues/interviews is a snooze. Driving is as boring as I thought it would be so I'm fast traveling everywhere and avoiding all side-missions. Shooting/fighting is terrible and chases are so scripted it hurts.

Interviews are fun though. There's real tension trying to get the questions right based on what you've found and how the interviewee is acting. However, the Doubt interview option should be renamed to Lie Hunch; the first time I picked Doubt I expected to hear a subtle question but instead I heard something along the lines of "YOU LYING FOOL I WILL SHOOT YOU HERE AND NOW!"

Hopefully the cases get interesting enough to outweigh the repetition of travel --> clues --> interview. But even with all the negatives no QTEs puts this leagues above Heavy Rain. 

[koro]

I've been playing this off and on with my girlfriend, taking turns doing cases. We were both raised on adventure games (Sierra for me, Lucasarts for her), so we were really looking forward to this. I have to say, I seem to be one of the few who isn't really digging the game at all. It's incredibly repetitive, the driving is godawful (after one "street crime" side-mission, we vowed to never do one ever again), and the (blessedly few) shooting sequences are among the worst I've ever seen in a game. I also tried so very hard to like the characters and writing. The characters just feel so soulless and stilted; the writing simply fails to grab me at all.

The main problem with the interview sections is that while you're meant to deduce what the correct answers to their responses are based on vocal tone, their facial expressions, and their posture, there are actually quite a few instances where the scripter's choice of "correct" answer does not readily match the POI's mannerisms, leaving you to simply guess what it is.

It's a pretty ambitious, interesting, and unique game, but the whole just does not outweigh the sum of its parts for me. I think it's a rental at best, or maybe at a very deep discount later on. I could not justify spending $60 on this, and I'm thankful my girlfriend didn't (store credit).

As a bonus, here's what a QA guy from 2k who worked with the game thought, from an IRC channel I talk in when I started mentioning my experiences with the game so far:


Seemed to match up with my experiences pretty well.

[Miasma]

Basically if they are making any sort of eye movement you know it is either lie/doubt, then if you have evidence for the question you pick lie and hope you pick the right thing.  You would think lie would always have more facial clues than doubt but no, it doesn't.

I don't know if the game starts out like the GTA series where your first section of the city looks kind of crappy but I don't much care for how the city looks so far.  They also, for some reason, omitted the path finding function that all their other games have so if you are driving you constantly go to the options menu, choose map, hunt for your destination and then determine the best route.  After a few times of that you will just have your partner drive you everywhere...  I agree that the streetcrimes suck, sometimes they are incredibly far away too.

I still like the game but it could have been so very much better.  At least it's something different.

[Rendakor]

I agree that the driving is awful, but I hated it in the GTA games as well. The lie/doubt thing is also annoying, since I've even had times where I have the evidence for Lie but the correct response is Doubt. I've mostly been using the strategy guide for the conversations since I'm pretty bad at them, and I care more about the story than the challenge of guessing what shifty-eyes is supposed to mean this time.