Psykoboy2
06-02-2011, 06:06 PM
L.A. Noire Review
Title: L.A. Noire
Platform: Playstation 3, Xbox 360
Developer: Team Bondi (http://www.teambondi.com/)
Publisher: Rockstar Games (http://www.rockstargames.com/)
ESRB Rating: Mature
MSRP: $59.99 360 (http://www.amazon.com/L-Noire-Xbox-360/dp/B002I0HBZW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1306988151&sr=8-2), PS3 (http://www.amazon.com/L-Noire-Playstation-3/dp/B002I0J5UQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306988151&sr=8-1)
Editor: Scott "Psykoboy2" Benton
What's Hot: The biggest talk this game is getting is for the facial animation technology used so the player can read the faces of other characters. And deservedly so. When it gets it right, it is truly amazing how much is conveyed...and even at times when it gets it wrong.
What's Not: Driving and shooting is the standard Rockstar fare. It can be tough at times to figure out the difference between a lie and something you should doubt. The last few hours took away the fun for me.I have watched countless hours of Law & Order, Columbo, The Wire, and many other crime drama/detective shows. I really enjoy them. So when I first got a look at how Rockstar’s L.A. Noire would work, I was instantly excited to play this game.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2065/5790816086_5dd2c87407_z.jpg
I can tell you now that excitement hardly ever left while I was playing the game. Developer Team Bondi has truly given us a “Rockstar experience” in L.A. Noire. While the game is more about the interaction of the characters, there’s a city here that feels genuinely Rockstar; a heavy layer of atmosphere reminiscent of Rockstar’s own Red Dead Redemption. Just as much as you felt like you were in the old west then you feel as though you are in the late 1940’s here. And as a member of the LAPD even. Seriously, I don’t think I have ever paid more attention to traffic signals in a game more than I did in L.A. Noire.
But let me back up a bit. Yes, the atmosphere is here. It’s thick and heavy and fits the game extremely well. But it isn’t the first thing you notice. The very first thing you are going to notice in L.A. Noire; the one thing that will stay with you after you’ve played and will catch attention from others who maybe even don’t play video games are the faces. The story, the setting, the music…while all of it is very good, none of it will stick with you like the faces. It’s the calling card of L.A. Noire. And it has to be, given what you are tasked to do as Detective Cole Phelps of the LAPD.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2222/5790270131_6a86f2dfe6_z.jpg
A crime is committed and you must find out whodunit. You’ll do this first by visiting the crime scene and gathering clues. The clues are one thing. You have the option to wander around clicking randomly on what you might think to be a clue, or by having help from the game in the form of music stopping whenever you have exhausted a crime scene of all clues and an audio cue along with controller vibration for when you stumble upon one. It’s your choice as to how real you want to make this experience. I never once turned those options off. You likely wouldn’t be reading this review if I did. I can be extremely thorough to the point of obsessive compulsive. Perhaps for one of the DLC cases I may give it a try.
As to the other point of solving the case, you’ll be speaking to witnesses and key figures involved in the crime. This is where the game earns its keep. This is the highlight of any discussion about L.A. Noire. You have to decide if what the person is telling you is the truth, a lie, or something dodgy in-between. You do this by either comparing their statement to clues you’ve found and other statements given by other characters and their facial expression. Team Bondi had to get this right more so than anything else if the game was going to work and I’m happy to say…they nailed it. The facial expression system used in L.A. Noire is uncanny. It provides the most realism I have ever seen in voice acting and facial animation. The bodies are still a bit on the puppet side, as though they’re attached to a marionette in some way, but those faces…you can see the emotion each character has, and you need too. Especially during interrogations back at the station with someone who knows they are so close to either being caught or wrongly convicted. It’s all there in their face, their eyes, and their voice.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2388/5790270611_76187e0c6f_z.jpg
While this aspect of the game is it’s most important part, it’s also where it’ll get the most scrutiny. For a first attempt, it’s a success, but not without flaws. For instance, it’s all too easy to see when you are being told the truth. Anything outside of a stone faced stare down and you’ve got a fifty-fifty shot of selecting “lie” or “doubt” for what they are telling you. And that brings me to the "doubt" and "lie" options. There’s a very fine line between being told a lie and doubting the statement given. While it would have been nice if the “doubt” option could have been a way to squeeze more information out of a suspect, it’s simply a right or wrong choice to make in the game. As for going with the option that you are being told a lie, you’ll have to back that up with proof collected from evidence (be it an object at a crime scene or a statement from another suspect/witness) and it isn’t always clear what can work as proof, or even if what you were just told is actually a lie. I get that this sort of plays into the feel of the game. I can imagine being in that same exact situation and really trying to figure out if what I am being told is a lie or just something trying to divert the conversation. But more often than not, I was getting the “lie” part right, but using the wrong evidence as proof. I was almost never wrong in selecting “doubt” when I did, but that was after spending a good bit of time going back over my notes along with my question and their response.
Luckily, L.A. Noire keeps a running log of near everything you’ve experienced. Your handy notebook will contain sketched images of people you’ve spoken with and key figures of a case, items you’ve found along with their descriptions, and locations you need to visit or have already been. The pause menu gives you access to a log where you can read back over statements given to you and questions you’ve asked. Which really helps when you read back over evidence looking for a lie and suddenly forget what they told you to begin with.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3150/5790816390_cddb3a2c13_z.jpg
In fact, most of L.A. Noire is reading and listening. Driving, thankfully, is optional when it comes to getting around L.A. I know Team Bondi did the development on the game, but I’m guessing they handed over the driving and shooting aspects to Rockstar. Simply put, driving sucks in L.A. Noire. And the developers were grateful enough to give you the option to fast travel between destinations during cases, but you’ll be forced into it during some cases and street crimes – the breaks in the action you get should you have decided to drive around the city on your own in a vehicle with a police radio (these are also optional). Even still, you’ll be granted the option of skipping those parts should you fail them a few times.
Even in skipping those action sequences, you’re going to spend a good 15 or so hours playing the main story of L.A. Noire. You’ll start out as a patrol officer and work your way through various desk assignments in the city such as arson, homicide, and vice. As you reach the end of each case you’ll be graded on a 5-star scale by how many clues you found and how you went about interrogations. Those will factor in with how much vehicle and city damage you caused as well as persons injured. Because during those forced chases you’re going to run into things and sometimes people, all of which can actually seem at times to jump right in front of you even as you wail your police siren.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5227/5790817906_324f4529ef_z.jpg
L.A. Noire is a game I love. The search for clues and piecing together how a crime may have taken place; tracking down suspects and the interrogations. Even some, and I mean a very few, of the car chases were fun. I seriously did enjoy playing the game, but I really cannot stand the last hour or two of it. Don’t get me wrong; this is really a case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. But those last few hours took a turn for the worse for me. It’s where I lost enjoyment of the game. And it never came back. But it didn’t sour the entire experience for me. It didn’t kill the game. If anything it made me appreciate more what this game does best. Wrapping up cases, it wins. Wrapping up story arcs, it loses. And that’s fine for me since you do more of the former and very few of the latter.
L.A. Noire is an interesting fit among gaming categories and makes it very hard to compare to anything else out there. I can’t say it’s an action game, though it comes with some action in certain parts of the story. It isn’t really a point-and-click, though it contains those aspects when searching for clues. You can’t really say it’s open world, since there’s not much for you to do outside of the main story. So what is it then?
You tell me.
Score: 4 out of 5 CoGs
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/CoG4.png
Scott says, "Yeah, it says Rockstar on the box, but this is not GTA set in the 1940s. There's a very specific game here, focused solely on investigating and solving crimes. You won't find much of anything else."
*Note - Review based upon the PS3 version
Title: L.A. Noire
Platform: Playstation 3, Xbox 360
Developer: Team Bondi (http://www.teambondi.com/)
Publisher: Rockstar Games (http://www.rockstargames.com/)
ESRB Rating: Mature
MSRP: $59.99 360 (http://www.amazon.com/L-Noire-Xbox-360/dp/B002I0HBZW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1306988151&sr=8-2), PS3 (http://www.amazon.com/L-Noire-Playstation-3/dp/B002I0J5UQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306988151&sr=8-1)
Editor: Scott "Psykoboy2" Benton
What's Hot: The biggest talk this game is getting is for the facial animation technology used so the player can read the faces of other characters. And deservedly so. When it gets it right, it is truly amazing how much is conveyed...and even at times when it gets it wrong.
What's Not: Driving and shooting is the standard Rockstar fare. It can be tough at times to figure out the difference between a lie and something you should doubt. The last few hours took away the fun for me.I have watched countless hours of Law & Order, Columbo, The Wire, and many other crime drama/detective shows. I really enjoy them. So when I first got a look at how Rockstar’s L.A. Noire would work, I was instantly excited to play this game.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2065/5790816086_5dd2c87407_z.jpg
I can tell you now that excitement hardly ever left while I was playing the game. Developer Team Bondi has truly given us a “Rockstar experience” in L.A. Noire. While the game is more about the interaction of the characters, there’s a city here that feels genuinely Rockstar; a heavy layer of atmosphere reminiscent of Rockstar’s own Red Dead Redemption. Just as much as you felt like you were in the old west then you feel as though you are in the late 1940’s here. And as a member of the LAPD even. Seriously, I don’t think I have ever paid more attention to traffic signals in a game more than I did in L.A. Noire.
But let me back up a bit. Yes, the atmosphere is here. It’s thick and heavy and fits the game extremely well. But it isn’t the first thing you notice. The very first thing you are going to notice in L.A. Noire; the one thing that will stay with you after you’ve played and will catch attention from others who maybe even don’t play video games are the faces. The story, the setting, the music…while all of it is very good, none of it will stick with you like the faces. It’s the calling card of L.A. Noire. And it has to be, given what you are tasked to do as Detective Cole Phelps of the LAPD.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2222/5790270131_6a86f2dfe6_z.jpg
A crime is committed and you must find out whodunit. You’ll do this first by visiting the crime scene and gathering clues. The clues are one thing. You have the option to wander around clicking randomly on what you might think to be a clue, or by having help from the game in the form of music stopping whenever you have exhausted a crime scene of all clues and an audio cue along with controller vibration for when you stumble upon one. It’s your choice as to how real you want to make this experience. I never once turned those options off. You likely wouldn’t be reading this review if I did. I can be extremely thorough to the point of obsessive compulsive. Perhaps for one of the DLC cases I may give it a try.
As to the other point of solving the case, you’ll be speaking to witnesses and key figures involved in the crime. This is where the game earns its keep. This is the highlight of any discussion about L.A. Noire. You have to decide if what the person is telling you is the truth, a lie, or something dodgy in-between. You do this by either comparing their statement to clues you’ve found and other statements given by other characters and their facial expression. Team Bondi had to get this right more so than anything else if the game was going to work and I’m happy to say…they nailed it. The facial expression system used in L.A. Noire is uncanny. It provides the most realism I have ever seen in voice acting and facial animation. The bodies are still a bit on the puppet side, as though they’re attached to a marionette in some way, but those faces…you can see the emotion each character has, and you need too. Especially during interrogations back at the station with someone who knows they are so close to either being caught or wrongly convicted. It’s all there in their face, their eyes, and their voice.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2388/5790270611_76187e0c6f_z.jpg
While this aspect of the game is it’s most important part, it’s also where it’ll get the most scrutiny. For a first attempt, it’s a success, but not without flaws. For instance, it’s all too easy to see when you are being told the truth. Anything outside of a stone faced stare down and you’ve got a fifty-fifty shot of selecting “lie” or “doubt” for what they are telling you. And that brings me to the "doubt" and "lie" options. There’s a very fine line between being told a lie and doubting the statement given. While it would have been nice if the “doubt” option could have been a way to squeeze more information out of a suspect, it’s simply a right or wrong choice to make in the game. As for going with the option that you are being told a lie, you’ll have to back that up with proof collected from evidence (be it an object at a crime scene or a statement from another suspect/witness) and it isn’t always clear what can work as proof, or even if what you were just told is actually a lie. I get that this sort of plays into the feel of the game. I can imagine being in that same exact situation and really trying to figure out if what I am being told is a lie or just something trying to divert the conversation. But more often than not, I was getting the “lie” part right, but using the wrong evidence as proof. I was almost never wrong in selecting “doubt” when I did, but that was after spending a good bit of time going back over my notes along with my question and their response.
Luckily, L.A. Noire keeps a running log of near everything you’ve experienced. Your handy notebook will contain sketched images of people you’ve spoken with and key figures of a case, items you’ve found along with their descriptions, and locations you need to visit or have already been. The pause menu gives you access to a log where you can read back over statements given to you and questions you’ve asked. Which really helps when you read back over evidence looking for a lie and suddenly forget what they told you to begin with.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3150/5790816390_cddb3a2c13_z.jpg
In fact, most of L.A. Noire is reading and listening. Driving, thankfully, is optional when it comes to getting around L.A. I know Team Bondi did the development on the game, but I’m guessing they handed over the driving and shooting aspects to Rockstar. Simply put, driving sucks in L.A. Noire. And the developers were grateful enough to give you the option to fast travel between destinations during cases, but you’ll be forced into it during some cases and street crimes – the breaks in the action you get should you have decided to drive around the city on your own in a vehicle with a police radio (these are also optional). Even still, you’ll be granted the option of skipping those parts should you fail them a few times.
Even in skipping those action sequences, you’re going to spend a good 15 or so hours playing the main story of L.A. Noire. You’ll start out as a patrol officer and work your way through various desk assignments in the city such as arson, homicide, and vice. As you reach the end of each case you’ll be graded on a 5-star scale by how many clues you found and how you went about interrogations. Those will factor in with how much vehicle and city damage you caused as well as persons injured. Because during those forced chases you’re going to run into things and sometimes people, all of which can actually seem at times to jump right in front of you even as you wail your police siren.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5227/5790817906_324f4529ef_z.jpg
L.A. Noire is a game I love. The search for clues and piecing together how a crime may have taken place; tracking down suspects and the interrogations. Even some, and I mean a very few, of the car chases were fun. I seriously did enjoy playing the game, but I really cannot stand the last hour or two of it. Don’t get me wrong; this is really a case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. But those last few hours took a turn for the worse for me. It’s where I lost enjoyment of the game. And it never came back. But it didn’t sour the entire experience for me. It didn’t kill the game. If anything it made me appreciate more what this game does best. Wrapping up cases, it wins. Wrapping up story arcs, it loses. And that’s fine for me since you do more of the former and very few of the latter.
L.A. Noire is an interesting fit among gaming categories and makes it very hard to compare to anything else out there. I can’t say it’s an action game, though it comes with some action in certain parts of the story. It isn’t really a point-and-click, though it contains those aspects when searching for clues. You can’t really say it’s open world, since there’s not much for you to do outside of the main story. So what is it then?
You tell me.
Score: 4 out of 5 CoGs
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/CoG4.png
Scott says, "Yeah, it says Rockstar on the box, but this is not GTA set in the 1940s. There's a very specific game here, focused solely on investigating and solving crimes. You won't find much of anything else."
*Note - Review based upon the PS3 version