LA Noir

[Ingmar]

I find as long as I don't sit around over analyzing the game design I'm enjoying the game. Hate the character animations or not, the visual design/detail of the game is pretty great. I am pretty terrible at the interview sections, but I'm actually kind of glad that repeating them would be such a tremendous pain in the ass, because it stops me from just reloading and trying for the 'perfect' thing every time.

I wish I could stand to play in B&W for longer, because then the game *really* looks right. It becomes a little too hard to keep track of some stuff that way though (follow the blue car!)

[ffc]

It's forced in that it has no point.  You are basically told to choose between an apple or orange so you choose one even though you smell pizza.  After your choice, you end up being given pizza anyway and your apple/orange is thrown away.  The choice didn't matter.  The decision doesn't affect the story which is what I was hoping I would get to do through super sleuthing.  It's similar to the QTE's in Heavy Rain that you could totally fail or pass perfectly and either way when the sequence ended you moved on the same.


LA Noire might have meaningful arrests that can actually go more than one way in the second half of the game and I'd like to hear about it if it does.

[Valmorian]

It's forced in that it has no point.

The point is to maintain the narrative.  This is a problem with ALL video games with a narrative.  They can only allow you freedom to the extent that it doesn't destroy the story that is trying to be told.  I'm not done Homicide, but it's pretty clear to me where it is going, and if I was able to make the decisions that I WANTED to on the previous cases, then the story would suffer for it.

[ffc]

After you beat homicide, click my spoiler and let me know what you think. I have no problem with linear gameplay to maintain a narrative but the sleuthing gameplay indicated branching points and I'm disappointed with the linear result. Could be a misread on my part / wrong expectations.

[Simond]

It's an adventure game, not a sandbox.

[Ingmar]

Super wordy Irish police chief guy is hilarious.

[UnSub]

It's an adventure game, not a sandbox.

I think a lot of people expected a sandbox from Rockstar.

I'll still get this eventually, but this is probably bargin bin.

[Ingmar]

Well, it does have sandbox trappings but yeah, it isn't nearly as sandboxy as their others.

[Ashamanchill]

Super wordy Irish police chief guy is hilarious.

Yeah, he is pretty awesome.

[Jeff Kelly]

I'm now at the Arson desk and I'm also at a point where the game is only boring me.

It's an adventure/it's a sandbox/it's a pony: I don't care. It doesn't work very well as either one of those.

As a sandbox there is simply not enough to do in LA. The city is completely devoid of anything and only serves as a backdrop for the cases without any purpose except to stretch the playing time due to all of the driving.

As an adventure the game isn't nearly as challenging and varied enough. You can ask questions and collect clues but there are only three real puzzles in the entire game and they are beginner level. The game is so linear that most of the time you cannot even select which destination to take first, there are no red herrings and most of the clues are only there to give you automatic hints on how to proceed next.

As an interactive novel the stories aren't written well enough. I've seen better executed storytelling in most of the current crop of TV procedurals than in this game and it cannot compete with the brilliance of an LA confidential or even a Heavy Rain in the storytelling department.

The first time the game lost me was at homicide  even going so far as to pull the real killer out of the hat like a rabbit in the end.

The second time was the way they demoted you to Arson.

Right now I don't see the point of the story. The killer was found and brought to justice, yet I'm still doing case work but I don't exactly know why the game is still going on. The character I'm playing, Cole Phelps, is a first class douchebag and after homicide and the 13th or 14th case running around collecting clues, driving and talking became rather tedious and boring.

The action sequences are frustrating because they are heavily scripted (most often than not you just chase the guys until the scripted scene ends and they either blow out a tire or run into a dead end) and the controls are clunky.  They even realized that it was frustrating by letting you skip those sequences if you failed them too often.

It's unpolished and unfinished and the only redeeming quality is the atmosphere, the characters and the novelty value all of which gets old after a while.

[LanTheWarder]

Bored to tears with this game.

If they were going to make a game this linear it would be nice if the story was interesting.

Luckily with my pre order credit and my trade in back to Amazon this game cost me a grand total of $6.24 and I'm still not sure it was worth it.

[Malakili]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EDYl2hSV-0

This shouldn't be nearly as hilarious as it is.

[Trouble]

AHHHHWWWW



AHHHHWWWWW


:heart pounding:

Fucking roof.

[Miasma]

Hehe that was good, Ragdoll Physics!

Ending spoiler complaints:

[FatuousTwat]

Hehe that was good, Ragdoll Physics!

Ending spoiler complaints:

[Miasma]

[FatuousTwat]

[Azazel]

As a sandbox there is simply not enough to do in LA. The city is completely devoid of anything and only serves as a backdrop for the cases without any purpose except to stretch the playing time due to all of the driving.

It sounds quite a bit like Mafia II in this regard.

[Jeff Kelly]

I finished it on the weekend. I agree with you guys, you could tie in the end with the rest of the game easily if you tried but the way they did it it feels tacked on instead.

I now tried to five-star a few of the remaining missions for the achievement and I'm really enjoying the "you won't get five stars if you cause too much damage, run over too many people" mechanic combined with the "no save points" idea.

It's fun if you simply screw your five star rating with the final chase scene where you accidentally run over a pedestrian and correcting that mistake would mean to redo the whole case (and about two hours worth of game time because of unskippable cut scenes and dialogue).

I'm also really bothered that a lot of games now do the "This is a secret achievement, we won't tell you what you need to do in order to get it unless you accidentally stumble over it" schtick.

[Velorath]

It's an adventure game, not a sandbox.

I think a lot of people expected a sandbox from Rockstar.

I'll still get this eventually, but this is probably bargin bin.

Rockstar is the publisher.  The developer is Team Bondi, which is a studio founded by the guy who was Director on the PS2 game The Getaway.

I'm a little over halfway through I think (just finished the first Vice case).  I've mostly only been playing in small doses.

To start with, I think the game could have used a better tutorial.  They needed to explain better from the start the difference between Doubt and Lie, as well as the fact that you can back out of a lie accusation if you realize that the statement you're trying to contradict (not always clear until you pick Lie and hear the dialog) doesn't correspond with any of your evidence, and what you're supposed to look for to tell if somebody is lying (they actually have the two main examples in the manual though).  Once I got all that down, it's been pretty rare for me to completely bungle questioning people.  Typically I'll maybe screw up on one question.  The few times when I completely botch something are typically my own fault, although there are a few instances where a person is just hard to read.  I'll restart if I just completely fuck up.  Yes, it's boring, and no, I'm never going to go back and try to 5 star all the cases.

The story is also somewhat weaker than I had hoped (it also feels a lot less Noir than I had hoped).  I'll echo what others have said about the Homicide section.  It continues on for 2-3 cases after most people will have figured out where it's going, and becomes a bit frustrating because of it.  Cole also feels like a bit of a dull character.  They try to build him up a bit with the war flashbacks every so often, but at the same time I was so disconnected to this character that I didn't even realize he had a wife and kids until he makes a remark about it to his partner in homicide a good chunk of the way into the game.  Maybe this gets mentioned earlier, I don't recall.  For me though, it was a pretty jarring reminder that they spend pretty much zero time exploring his life outside work (at least as far as I've gotten into the game).

The city itself is pretty well designed.  It's a shame that the extra stuff like finding cars and golden film reels don't actually do anything for you as that might have given incentive to explore it more.  I still haven't come across a single film can yet, not that I've really been looking, but my understanding is that pretty much the only reason to find them is for challenge of finding them.  Likewise, driving around in different cars is mostly pointless, even assuming you don't have your partner drive everywhere for you, since most cars don't have the police radio or siren.  Also, a lot of the cars look so similar, good luck trying to figure out which of the 95 different cars you haven't been in yet.

The game is essentially carried by the fact that it borrowed heavily from Phoenix Wright (minus the charm unfortunately), added on the facial animation stuff, and dropped it into an underused setting for video games.  The novelty in that might account for some of the love this game has gotten.  Conversely, I think what most people will find here is an ok game from an unproven developer, dressed up to look like a AAA game from the makers of GTA and RDR.  It has probably sold well, due to Rockstar slapping their name on it so prominently, but in the long run, I don't think it's up to their standards.

[Ashamanchill]

I didn't even realize he had a wife and kids until he makes a remark about it to his partner in homicide a good chunk of the way into the game

Hahaha that exact same thing happened to me.

[Ingmar]

I didn't even realize he had a wife and kids until he makes a remark about it to his partner in homicide a good chunk of the way into the game

Hahaha that exact same thing happened to me.

The very first scene in the entire game is him leaving his house and his wife being there, but yeah you don't see any kids.

[Hawkbit]

Rockstar is the publisher.  The developer is Team Bondi, which is a studio founded by the guy who was Director on the PS2 game The Getaway.

I'm a little over halfway through I think (just finished the first Vice case).  I've mostly only been playing in small doses.

To start with, I think the game could have used a better tutorial.  They needed to explain better from the start the difference between Doubt and Lie, as well as the fact that you can back out of a lie accusation if you realize that the statement you're trying to contradict (not always clear until you pick Lie and hear the dialog) doesn't correspond with any of your evidence, and what you're supposed to look for to tell if somebody is lying (they actually have the two main examples in the manual though).  Once I got all that down, it's been pretty rare for me to completely bungle questioning people.  Typically I'll maybe screw up on one question.  The few times when I completely botch something are typically my own fault, although there are a few instances where a person is just hard to read.  I'll restart if I just completely fuck up.  Yes, it's boring, and no, I'm never going to go back and try to 5 star all the cases.

The story is also somewhat weaker than I had hoped (it also feels a lot less Noir than I had hoped).  I'll echo what others have said about the Homicide section.  It continues on for 2-3 cases after most people will have figured out where it's going, and becomes a bit frustrating because of it.  Cole also feels like a bit of a dull character.  They try to build him up a bit with the war flashbacks every so often, but at the same time I was so disconnected to this character that I didn't even realize he had a wife and kids until he makes a remark about it to his partner in homicide a good chunk of the way into the game.  Maybe this gets mentioned earlier, I don't recall.  For me though, it was a pretty jarring reminder that they spend pretty much zero time exploring his life outside work (at least as far as I've gotten into the game).

The city itself is pretty well designed.  It's a shame that the extra stuff like finding cars and golden film reels don't actually do anything for you as that might have given incentive to explore it more.  I still haven't come across a single film can yet, not that I've really been looking, but my understanding is that pretty much the only reason to find them is for challenge of finding them.  Likewise, driving around in different cars is mostly pointless, even assuming you don't have your partner drive everywhere for you, since most cars don't have the police radio or siren.  Also, a lot of the cars look so similar, good luck trying to figure out which of the 95 different cars you haven't been in yet.

The game is essentially carried by the fact that it borrowed heavily from Phoenix Wright (minus the charm unfortunately), added on the facial animation stuff, and dropped it into an underused setting for video games.  The novelty in that might account for some of the love this game has gotten.  Conversely, I think what most people will find here is an ok game from an unproven developer, dressed up to look like a AAA game from the makers of GTA and RDR.  It has probably sold well, due to Rockstar slapping their name on it so prominently, but in the long run, I don't think it's up to their standards.

This is about the fairest assessment I've seen of the game.

[Sky]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EDYl2hSV-0

This shouldn't be nearly as hilarious as it is.

Gimme back mah hat!

[Miasma]

Edit: nevermind.

[Ingmar]

So, I finished this tonight. Game got the look and feel really down. Ending is a bit  , and the sandbox elements are awfully weak for people who want that sort of thing. I give it a rating of "fine", there was a fair amount to enjoy here, and I like that someone tried this type of game. If Steam existed for consoles though I'd say wait for a sale.

[Hawkbit]

I loved RDR so much I figured I'd love this.  Once I put Noire down for a few days to wait on the PSN to come back up for the DLC, I never picked it back up.  Traded it in yesterday at Gamestop, who is running an extra 50% on stuff now.  Got $48 in trade for it, so that's not totally terrible.  $12 to find out I don't like a game, can't complain too much.

[luckton]

http://kotaku.com/5814824/la-noire-headed-to-the-computer

Self descriptive URL is self descriptive 

[NiX]

http://kotaku.com/5814824/la-noire-headed-to-the-computer

Self descriptive URL is self descriptive 

Can't believe they're porting this over RDR.

Companies aren't out of touch...

[Sky]

 

[Engels]

What's RDR?

[Prospero]

Red Dead Revolver

[luckton]

Red Dead Revolver

[Ingmar]

Red Dead Revolver

Redemption, not Revolver.

[Azazel]

I suspect you may have fell into his sarchasm.