LA Noir

[ffc]

Soooooo with everyone in agreement the stuff outside interviews is bad, and interviews can be confusing / repetitive / not good, how is this scoring so well in reviews???  I've given up looking outside of f13 for game impressions but these reviewers must be smoking money hats and I'm standing downwind.

[koro]

Soooooo with everyone in agreement the stuff outside interviews is bad, and interviews can be confusing / repetitive / not good, how is this scoring so well in reviews???  I've given up looking outside of f13 for game impressions but these reviewers must be smoking money hats and I'm standing downwind.

a.) It's a game that's fairly unique and does something most gamers these current generations haven't really ever seen before, so the only real recent competition to maybe make a flawed comparison to is Heavy Rain. It's also something that people didn't really expect from Rockstar.
b.) It's from Rockstar. I don't think a single Rockstar game since GTAIII has scored under an 85 or so average. They're a company that gets good reviews pretty much by default.

It's not a terrible game by any stretch, and when they work, the interviews and some of the cases are extremely good. But the game has deep, deep flaws and damn near everything outside of the interviews is pretty bad. It's a pretty 70-75 game at best.

[Hawkbit]

I applaud them for trying something new, but yeah, it doesn't entirely work.  They went sofar as to create a 1947 version of LA, but took out the life of it.  I'm not even sure what the point of being able to drive around is. 

I do think it is worth playing at some point to see what they did with Motion Cap, and how you can do NPC interaction, even with the flaws. 

I hope some form of DLC offers something else to do in the city.

[Gruntle]

 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...

It does have the path function but it doesn't *show* it to you, you have to ask your partner for directions while you're driving and he'll say things like "straight on thru", "take the second left" "next right" "turn left now" which interspersed with his screaming when you smash thru pedestrians and newspaper boxes really captures the experience and inefficiency of real driving (or I suppose you could obey the traffic laws but who does that?)

[Jeff Kelly]

OK just got this and played the first missions. it's actually quite comforting that Rockstar's different studios never seem to learn anything at all from previous games.

I guess you could call it annoyingly consistent.

So let's see.

Broken, clumsy and annoying control scheme: Check (Half of the time while steering I activate the siren, that is if I don't crash into things first)
Vehicles and NPCs that handle like crap: Check
Spending most of your time driving or better bumping into other cars, pedestrians and walls: Check
Broken shooting and cover system: Check
A GUI and on screen design that makes everything unintelligible if watched from a common viewing distance for TV's: Check
Frustrating lack of save points: Check (No do overs, if you want to do anything differently you have to restart the whole mission)
Unskippable cut scenes: Check (which makes restarting missions even more fun)

This game has nearly every staple of frustrating "hurl your controller at your TV" kind of gameplay experience down, short of quick time events.

Having to restart THE WHOLE FUCKING MISSION, because I missed one clue made me ragequit the game.

Since your playing police now you aren't even allowed to run over pedestrians anymore. Which is kind of problematic because citizens of LA are every as much suicidal as the NPCs in every other Rockstar game. At least in GTA IV I can shoot somebody who cut's me off at an intersection.

LA also seems to be the city where every signal's red

I also don't seem to get what those groundbreaking facial expressions want to tell me. Most of the time it feels like a game of "guess the right answer" to me. It doesn't help that my character seems to bring out his inner douchebag every time I get an answer wrong.

How this thing got the rave reviews it did is completely beyond me. It could be a decent game. The facial expressions are quite good to make the characters believable even if they largely fail as a hint system and they have the feel of forties LA down. The first cases also seem to capture the flair of Dragnet or early noir movies even if it's mostly "where's Waldo" type clue hunting plus guessing the right answer (is it door one two or three? Let's make a deal!)

The minutes long driving from scene to scene and lack of save opportunities already get old however even though I'm only playing it for three hours. There's also very little to do in such a large city.

[Ingmar]

Having to restart THE WHOLE FUCKING MISSION, because I missed one clue made me ragequit the game.

Did I misunderstand earlier posts? I thought it was possible to miss clues, perhaps convict the wrong person but still move on in the game?

[ffc]

Having to restart THE WHOLE FUCKING MISSION, because I missed one clue made me ragequit the game.

Did I misunderstand earlier posts? I thought it was possible to miss clues, perhaps convict the wrong person but still move on in the game?

Ya you can miss clues.  He may be referring to OCD tendencies to catch 'em all.  I've accepted that I won't get all the clues especially after I turned off rumble hints.  Turning off hints made the game less boring and hand-holdy.  I'd suggest trying it to everyone.

Unskippable cut scenes: Check (which makes restarting missions even more fun)

Do you mean the cut scenes that can happen between autosaves? I have failed a few missions due to controls and skipped the cut scenes after the load at my last autosave by jamming on one of the face buttons on the controller.  

The minutes long driving from scene to scene [. . . .]

Fast travel is a must!  When approaching your car, hold triangle (Y?) and make your partner drive to the selected destination. A loading screen awaits you. Which is better than the city. The only problem is without something to break up travel --> clues --> interview, the repetitive nature of the game can become more apparent.

[Jeff Kelly]

That's not how I do it, mmmmkay?

Seriously, let me save and let me reload when I fuck up. Like Miasma I want to get it right, preferably without replaying the same shit over and over again 20 times in a row. Even though implementing real saves might hurt the sensibilities of some game designer who's afraid that I might not enjoy the game exactly as he had intended it.

Guessing the real answer from the tone and facial expression is impossible at least for me. I fully expect that if you plot the percentage of me being right the first time it will probably be around 40% (guessing with a few points of intuition thrown in). So probably exactly the expectancy value for just guessing.

Rockstar's developers need someone who smacks them over the head with a bat regularly. They should hire Ironwood for that purpose. Maybe he'll even call them cunts if they pay well enough.

[Rendakor]

Look the answers up online if it bothers you that much.

[Gruntle]

Really, when you're just guessing -- that's when it's time to use an intuition point.
What I hate is the ones where you don't know what part of their statement you're supposed to be responding to (or the few times when it's just someone telling you their intentions and yet you need to yell out you Liar!)

[Azazel]

Good stuff - I was on the verge of buying this yesterday but held off. Looks like it's bargain-bin time for you, Noire!

[Margalis]

Rockstar are the masters of gaming reviews/previews. Their PR is second to none. They do an excellent job of either inspiring or shaming reviewers into giving them great scores.

I do like that they are willing to make games in non-standard settings, something other than the typical space marine / army dude bullshit.

[Rasix]

Rockstar are the masters of gaming reviews/previews. Their PR is second to none. They do an excellent job of either inspiring or shaming reviewers into giving them great scores.

You don't usually hit the breaking point with a Rockstar game until deep into the second or third act.   Do actual reviewers play the entire game or just the first act and crib notes from a presser to fill out the rest?

[Velorath]

Rockstar are the masters of gaming reviews/previews. Their PR is second to none. They do an excellent job of either inspiring or shaming reviewers into giving them great scores.

You don't usually hit the breaking point with a Rockstar game until deep into the second or third act.   Do actual reviewers play the entire game or just the first act and crib notes from a presser to fill out the rest?

It's possible they just liked the game and some of the people here don't.  At the very least, I'd say Brad Shoemaker from Giantbomb, and Ryan Scott (currently at GameSpy, formerly of CGW and GFW) are both people I trust to give an honest review, and their L.A. Noire reviews are pretty positive.

[Margalis]

You don't usually hit the breaking point with a Rockstar game until deep into the second or third act.   Do actual reviewers play the entire game or just the first act and crib notes from a presser to fill out the rest?

A lot of reviewers don't play the entire game.

I'm not claiming that Rockstar games all deserve lousy reviews or something, just that they have the process down. They are great at making their games seem important, at points they've outright told reviewers that their newest game is going to be a GOTY contender with great reviews so dissenters better get on board or look bad. They also do a good job of not showing too much of the game early, keeping both fans and eventual reviewers hyped. And their games have a lot of initial possibilities and promise that build goodwill early - and if you don't actually play through the entire game that initial promise is that much more powerful.

They position their games as awesome AAA event games that should be judged on an 8-10 scale.

Example:

The theory then goes that McCasker received communication from RockStar Games staff, which he then published on his Facebook: "This is the biggest game we've done since GTA IV, and is already receiving Game of the Year 2010 nominations from specialists all around the world," it read.
"Can you please ensure Toby's article reflects this — he needs to respect the huge achievement he's writing about here."

[MisterNoisy]

a.) It's a game that's fairly unique and does something most gamers these current generations haven't really ever seen before, so the only real recent competition to maybe make a flawed comparison to is Heavy Rain Phoenix Wright. It's also something that people didn't really expect from Rockstar.

Sorry - had to fix this.  :)

[UnSub]

You don't usually hit the breaking point with a Rockstar game until deep into the second or third act.   Do actual reviewers play the entire game or just the first act and crib notes from a presser to fill out the rest?

A lot of reviewers don't play the entire game.

I'm not claiming that Rockstar games all deserve lousy reviews or something, just that they have the process down. They are great at making their games seem important, at points they've outright told reviewers that their newest game is going to be a GOTY contender with great reviews so dissenters better get on board or look bad. They also do a good job of not showing too much of the game early, keeping both fans and eventual reviewers hyped. And their games have a lot of initial possibilities and promise that build goodwill early - and if you don't actually play through the entire game that initial promise is that much more powerful.

They position their games as awesome AAA event games that should be judged on an 8-10 scale.

Example:

The theory then goes that McCasker received communication from RockStar Games staff, which he then published on his Facebook: "This is the biggest game we've done since GTA IV, and is already receiving Game of the Year 2010 nominations from specialists all around the world," it read.
"Can you please ensure Toby's article reflects this — he needs to respect the huge achievement he's writing about here."

I've wondered if this deserves a separate thread, but articles pointing to how publishers are starting to really put the screws on game review sites are pointing towards things getting worse when it comes to games journalism. If that were even possible in an industry where Jim Sterling is considered a wise old veteran.

[Ingmar]

Started this, since the Witcher 2 is completely failing to grab me. *Much* better. Seems like the main character is a bit of a douche though.

[Hawkbit]

I put this on hold until PSN is back up.  Seems like I'd want to snag my preorders and any DLC before I charge into it. 

[Velorath]

You don't usually hit the breaking point with a Rockstar game until deep into the second or third act.   Do actual reviewers play the entire game or just the first act and crib notes from a presser to fill out the rest?

A lot of reviewers don't play the entire game.

I'm not claiming that Rockstar games all deserve lousy reviews or something, just that they have the process down. They are great at making their games seem important, at points they've outright told reviewers that their newest game is going to be a GOTY contender with great reviews so dissenters better get on board or look bad. They also do a good job of not showing too much of the game early, keeping both fans and eventual reviewers hyped. And their games have a lot of initial possibilities and promise that build goodwill early - and if you don't actually play through the entire game that initial promise is that much more powerful.

They position their games as awesome AAA event games that should be judged on an 8-10 scale.

Example:

The theory then goes that McCasker received communication from RockStar Games staff, which he then published on his Facebook: "This is the biggest game we've done since GTA IV, and is already receiving Game of the Year 2010 nominations from specialists all around the world," it read.
"Can you please ensure Toby's article reflects this — he needs to respect the huge achievement he's writing about here."

I've wondered if this deserves a separate thread, but articles pointing to how publishers are starting to really put the screws on game review sites are pointing towards things getting worse when it comes to games journalism. If that were even possible in an industry where Jim Sterling is considered a wise old veteran.

Nothing in that article (or the original one it links to) seems like anything particularly new or surprising.  GFW did a pretty good podcast on this sort of thing after the Gamespot/Gerstmann thing back in December '07 (following on the heels of another podcast they did back in November where Shawn Elliott talks about some shit he got from other sites and fans when he gave Crysis the "low" score of an 8 of 10).

[UnSub]

You are right in that it isn't a new problem. I remember reading articles about similar issues at least back as far as my Amiga 500 days.

That the problem still exists is an issue, especially since concentration of publisher power only seems to be increasing. Especially if they are starting to turn the screws on reviewers who won't play ball with them.

That video game success is often so front loaded (i.e. early sales) mean that early reviews have disporportionate power. Plus every site wants those sweet Day 1 pageviews, making the ability to hold games back from them even more of an influencing factor.

[Jeff Kelly]

This however is the reason why I usually buy games half a year or year after it's release.

Game reviews by most if not all gaming rags/sites are utterly useless nowadays. They just hype everything into a 85% to 90% experience. Either because they buy into the hype themselves, wish to appease the publishers which are also the ones paying for advertising or even worse wish to appease the rabid fanbase of a game that are pissed off if their newest overhyped saviour of a game doesn't get the 100% rating it "deserved".

I wrote about my experiences with LA Noire on a number of sites and most people acted as if I just hated on a picture of baby Jesus holding kittens. You should see the vitriol on a gaming site if a reviewer has the audacity to criticise a AAA game for *gasp* actually sucking. He/She'll get worse flack from the game's fanboys than the publishers.

So you basically cannot trust any review before the game has been out for a few weeks. You'll either get astroturfed by the publishers, tricked by the professional reviewers that have to rely on their paycheck either by the kindness of the publishers or their readers or you get 5 star reviews by the true believers in a game. No of the entities mentioned have finished the game by that point.

So it's usually buying used or GOTY editions of games. I can actually find real reviews of games after 6 months or a year, the most critical bugs have been fixed by that time and the game dropped from $70 to $30 so it's a lot less critical if you pay for a dud.

[Ashamanchill]

I picked this one up, not because of any reviews, but because I had an EB Games card lying around and jack to spend it on. I haven't finished it, nor do I think I am going to. It's one of those games that impressed the hell out of me at first, then I slowly came to hate it. If, for any reason, you have to restart a mission, you are in for one of the dullest experiences in gaming. I mean, you already know where the clues are, and what the witnesses have to say, yet you are doing it again. There was one part, where I fucked up interrogating a suspect, and when the police chief came on screen he started yelling, where my hand instantly shot to the off button of the XBox, lest the game save in the brief seconds. When I loaded up and realized where I was, and what I would have to do again, it was basically curtains for the game.

Also, just as a small pet peeve. Why does every Tom Dick and Harry witness in the entire city seem to lie or misdirect the police out of spite?

[Azazel]

I picked this one up, not because of any reviews, but because I had an EB Games card lying around and jack to spend it on. I haven't finished it, nor do I think I am going to. It's one of those games that impressed the hell out of me at first, then I slowly came to hate it. If, for any reason, you have to restart a mission, you are in for one of the dullest experiences in gaming. I mean, you already know where the clues are, and what the witnesses have to say, yet you are doing it again. There was one part, where I fucked up interrogating a suspect, and when the police chief came on screen he started yelling, where my hand instantly shot to the off button of the XBox, lest the game save in the brief seconds. When I loaded up and realized where I was, and what I would have to do again, it was basically curtains for the game.

Does EB have a 7-day return policy in where-ever-you-live? Might be worth looking at.

[Gruntle]

Also, just as a small pet peeve. Why does every Tom Dick and Harry witness in the entire city seem lie or misdirect the police out of spite?

Actually I found it really threw me off when I had to interview an honest person: but...but...I've got this notebook full of evidence that ... doesn't contradict that at all.
I'll get you next time...

[Valmorian]

There was one part, where I fucked up interrogating a suspect, and when the police chief came on screen he started yelling, where my hand instantly shot to the off button of the XBox, lest the game save in the brief seconds.

I don't understand this obsession with getting the "right" conclusion in each case.  This is film Noir, right?  Shouldn't ambiguity and rare justice be a part of your play experience?  Why not just ride it out?

[Ingmar]

There was one part, where I fucked up interrogating a suspect, and when the police chief came on screen he started yelling, where my hand instantly shot to the off button of the XBox, lest the game save in the brief seconds.

I don't understand this obsession with getting the "right" conclusion in each case.  This is film Noir, right?  Shouldn't ambiguity and rare justice be a part of your play experience?  Why not just ride it out?

We're conditioned to only expect one 'right' ending in games, that failing a certain thing inside the narrative is the same as a mechanical Game Over. There was a really interesting post from Dave Gaider in relation to a spoilery thing from DA2 where they actually ended up taking out the 'happy' ending for one of the quests because the very fact that it existed meant people would continually reload until they got it rather than accept a 'bad' ending and move on.

[Sjofn]

Redcliffe's conclusion in DA:O made them suspect this was the case (as most people took the "everyone wins" ending, even though that was the least interesting), the DA2 instance showed it wasn't really a fluke.

Not that I find that a particularly odd compulsion for people, I'm sure we all have things we've done in real life that we would reload from an earlier save point and fix if we could. 

[Ashamanchill]

There was one part, where I fucked up interrogating a suspect, and when the police chief came on screen he started yelling, where my hand instantly shot to the off button of the XBox, lest the game save in the brief seconds.

I don't understand this obsession with getting the "right" conclusion in each case.  This is film Noir, right?  Shouldn't ambiguity and rare justice be a part of your play experience?  Why not just ride it out?

In a game about solving crimes, I'm not going to run around and fuck up at every turn and just accept that it makes my character a giant dope who has as much intuition, accumen, and gut instinct for the work as the guy playing the game. By all means you can play the game 'as is', but I don't really feel like turning my character into a washout who can't hack it.

Also, ever accidentally die in the tacked on action bits? Guess where that leads you?

[caladein]

Redcliffe's conclusion in DA:O made them suspect this was the case (as most people took the "everyone wins" ending, even though that was the least interesting), the DA2 instance showed it wasn't really a fluke.

Not that I find that a particularly odd compulsion for people, I'm sure we all have things we've done in real life that we would reload from an earlier save point and fix if we could.  

It sort of depends on the game for me.  In an RPG I'll try to avoid the "everyone wins" solutions as much as I can once I know they're out there.  I suspect a game like this would trigger the opposite response like I get sometimes in Centerscore games where getting things "wrong" angers me greatly.

I guess it sort of depends if the failure is treated as evidence of your greater failure as a person or if the game takes it in stride as just something that happened.  If I remember from one of the reviews I saw, it mentions it quite clearly that "you could have done better" so I'd be all CAL SMASH pretty quickly over this game.

Edit: Clarity and... I guess along with my general dislike for Rockstar games I can safely ignore this one.  Sad, I might have enjoyed taking a spin around LA.

[Ashamanchill]

The main difference between this and Dragon Age is that in DA you had a choice between good, and bad, in terms of morality. In this, it's mostly between good and bad, in terms of competence. Not as cool.

The thing is, I want this game to succeed. I really do. I like it's style and what it's trying. I just don't think it's all it was cracked up to be.

[Sjofn]

Eh, the example of Dragon Age I'm specifically talking about isn't actually Good or Bad in terms of morality. Redcliffe, there are three ways to solve the problem, and none of them are really "bad," morally. You can make the case for all of them. But one spares people a lot of emotional pain AND solves the problem, the other two make more sense in the moment but only solve the problem, at what most people would call too high a cost. So people almost always pick the "winning" option.

That said, if you're screwing up every single case, reloading makes some sense, just because you'd start to wonder how your guy is keeping his job. 



I make myself not reload ever on my first time through an RPG where there might be "less than awesome" outcomes for problems, because I know in the future, once I know the "right" way to do it, I will always do it that way. I'm totally disappointed my first time through ME2, I "won" the ending, and now will never have a Less Ideal ending, because I totally can't bring myself to semi-fail on purpose. I have problems.

[Sky]

The difference between roleplayers and gamers. Games want to game the system, roleplayers are willing to accept the non-optimal path, because it's often more interesting and fun.

Also why there is such a clash in achiever-driven mmo.

[ffc]

I don't understand this obsession with getting the "right" conclusion in each case.  This is film Noir, right?  Shouldn't ambiguity and rare justice be a part of your play experience?  Why not just ride it out?

The ambiguity and rare justice is forced. There are times you are presented with multiple suspects and have to decide which one to arrest but ultimately it doesn't matter. That was a huge let down since the story ends up being linear no matter your decisions or evidence.  I haven't fired the game up since the open story illusion was dashed.


Does the second half of the game open up with actual wrong arrests possible that affect the story?  All that's left is striving for perfect interviews which at times are confusing instead of challenging.

[Valmorian]

The ambiguity and rare justice is forced.

Every choice in every narrative game is forced.  It could be argued that LA Noir doesn't do a good job of capturing the atmosphere of Noir (and in many cases I'd agree) but to complain that you are forced into awkward decisions?  Such are video games.