So I beat "L.A. Noire"... Truth, doubt, lie... Jun 08, 2011 7:16PM PST

It was one of those rare happenchance moments.  As I walked by the RedBox automated rental kiosk near my house, I decided to check and see what games were available.  To my astonishment, "L.A. Noire" was included with the usual scant offering of casualware and kids games.  I immediately produced my debit card and rented it while the picking was ripe.

Noire isn't the first clue-gathering mystery-solving game, nor is it the first dialogue-driven, read-the-reaction-of-a-person's-face-to-determine-liability whodunnit game, but it delivers the experience far better than those which came before it.  The comparison isn't even close.

While I enjoyed the acute attention to detail that I've come to expect from the Grand Theft Auto graphics engine, the story and it's direction are what I praise the most.  The plot, voice acting and repesentation of facial features creates the most natural lifelike script I ever experienced in a game.  Once started, I had a hard time putting it down.  The story was rivoting, personalities distinct, and I found myself fully invested in my protagonist avatars, valiantly sluething my way through plot twists all the way to the bittersweet climactic end.

For me, the driving aspect added ample comedy relief as Cole Phelps went from stoic, focused crime detective scouring a scene to raging madman behind the wheel when it came time to travel between locations.  I appreciate the feature to optionally skip the driving, but I never did as doing so might result in missing some plot development and the lush environment of the recreated circa '47 L.A. landscape.

The numerous complaints I read about how the results of the interview/interrogation process don't effect the final outcome are understandable, but I think to include that mechanic would be rather ticky tack as solving each case, let alone one, perfectly without a strategy guide is nearly impossible to do in one try, and players bent on perfection will replay the case again anyway to unlock trophies/achievements.  Why punish players who are less interested?  I found that the resulting confusion from a botched case alone was just motivation to go back for a replay so I could fully understand the developing plot lines.

I recommend L.A. Noire to anyone who enjoys a top notch story wrapped in a casual adventure approach.

What I liked:

Most realistic facial expression rendering I ever saw in a game.

Gripping Man vs. Establishment story.

Believeable movie quality voice acting.

What I didn't like:

Graphic rendering is glitchy in some spots.

Despite audio cues, some clues are easily overlooked.

Quitting/reloading from save point results in 2-star grade, forcing you to restart from beginning of case every time in order to achieve 5-star grade

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Comments (5)

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• It was a great change for rockstar

  Posted: Jun 08, 2011 12:00AM PST by  ASKLOL
  

  A more story oriented game with great acting and voice. I couldn't put it down either as it really brought out the detective in me to search around for clues and that, the one thing that kinda got to me, is how the game seems to play around with the doubt, truth and lie option. It's a bit hard to know what's what, later on in the game. I didn't do too bad with things, just wish it came easier perhaps?

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  • I agree

    Posted: Jun 09, 2011 12:00AM PST by  Raised_on_Nintendo
    

    Reading faces became much tougher towards the end of the game.  It didn't help that the tension level goes up as the game progresses, which made picking the right answer more rewarding, and wrong one more disappointing.

    What I would like to have seen is the option to restart from a save point and not have it effect my ranking at the end of the case.  That way it'd be possible to do some trial and error with each interview in order to find the right sequence of truth, doubt, lie, instead of having to restart the entire case which takes up a lot of time.  The best thing to do is like I said, do trial and error on each conversation in a case, figure out all the correct answers, then go back and restart the case with the correct answers in hand.  I just wish we weren't required to restart in order to get the 5-star.  It's a waste of time, IMO.

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• I liked it.

  Posted: Jun 08, 2011 12:00AM PST by  James-B
  

  I'm showing my age here, but this game kinda made me think back to the Police Quest games on DOS. This was way better though. The only complaint I had was that maybe they went a little overboard on having so many foot chases.

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  • Police Quest

    Posted: Jun 09, 2011 12:00AM PST by  Raised_on_Nintendo
    

    Police Quest is a classic.  All the classic "Quest" games by Sierra have similar gameplay to L.A. Noire.  How about "Mean Streets"?  Ever play that one?  A couple relatively recent games that come to mind are CSI for Xbox and X-Files for PSX.

    I didn't mind the street crimes so much as they add content to the overall package.  Completing them doesn't effect the main story, but it does unlock a trophy.  My complaint about them is that they were too easy.  Have you ever played GTA4?  The street crimes aspect is borrowed from that series.

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• Really Liked it.

  Posted: Jun 19, 2011 12:00AM PST by  Xcite79
  

  I don't know any game that lets you read the face of your suspects. There was no technology to pull off what Team Bondi did. I like what said "Gripping Man vs. Establishment story." There isn't enough like this and this game did it well. It showed us that the crime was bigger than we suspected.

  The one thing I didn't like about it. It was unneccessary for it to be a sandbox game. It gives mixed signals by people thinking its your run of the mill go do anything, beat the crap out of anyone kind of game. There wasn't a lot to do outside the main game.

  I loved the story too. The setting was really realistic and felt like LA in the 40s. They captured it good. I was very impressed with the animation. I am looking forward to part two or I hope they extend the end of it with DLC. That dude who gave that speech at the end need to die. He pisses me off.