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Rockstar's L.A. Noire

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After much delay, I finally started playing L.A. Noire on my PC last night. With how much fuss was made regarding the motion capture, the overall environments and even the bodies of all the characters are very uninteresting. Basically like they've got a great head pinned onto an OK body. Plus, it seems as if the detail just isn't there through a lot of the characters. Very strange feeling in that regard.

I'm glad they give you the ability to have your partner drive to crime scenes because quite honestly, the driving is kind of dumb. It seems like the only reason it exists at all is because of the random side missions that are also not great.

The real meat is most certainly the main investigations and I'm throughly enjoying walking around to check out crime scenes. The other stuff hasn't put me off enough so I'll keep playing to see where Cole's adventure takes him.

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I really should finish this. At least to see if the story goes anywhere. (I stopped at the Vice assignments)

My largest gripe with the game was the disconnect between player action and storyline. Succeeding or failing at an interrogation had no effect on how the story played out. And the actual interrogation methods were pretty flawed (you could make an accusation and rescind it without penalty). It felt like "playing" through an extremely slow paced TV drama.

You're right that none of the side-activities were entertaining or had any relevance to the main game. It almost feels like Team Bondi felt obligated to use leftover GTA elements since they were using the same engine. Either way, it doesn't really work.

I'd also argue the praise over facial animation is a little overblown. Like you said, the video-like faces look odd attached to polygonal bodies. I've seen better facial animation done with less budget: see Enslaved and other games from Ninja Theory.

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You're right that none of the side-activities were entertaining or had any relevance to the main game. It almost feels like Team Bondi felt obligated to use leftover GTA elements since they were using the same engine. Either way, it doesn't really work.

Actually it was a custom engine, not the same as GTA, so the inclusion of all that stuff in general seems even weirder.

I did not search.

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Started playing this, finally. The interrogation is so broken. Truth & Lie seem the neutral options, while Doubt will often sent Phelps into an out-of-place rage mode. I don't think this system works very well or could work better. It would probably be better to do it as normal adventure game style dialog trees where found clues open up new options or something.

There are some elements to this game that are promising, but so far the whole package as it is is kind of mediocre.

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As many problems as I have with this game, there IS a logic to the options you're given. I can't remember exactly how the game wants you to think, but I made a post about it in the LA Noire thread. (You know, the other one.) I found it pretty helpful once I understood how the game treated things.

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As many problems as I have with this game, there IS a logic to the options you're given. I can't remember exactly how the game wants you to think, but I made a post about it in the LA Noire thread. (You know, the other one.) I found it pretty helpful once I understood how the game treated things.

I tried to look for it but you had so many posts in that thread. Was it before or after this page: http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/6612-la-noire/page__st__220

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Man, this game makes it a pain to replay the old cases. I've been trying to get better results at some. But you make a mistake, and to re-do it again you need to restart the whole case, watch all the stupid cutscenes, hear all the same dialogue again... a pain.

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Yeah, the interview is fun when it works, but too often evidence that seems like it could contradict a person's statement just flops, and the wrong answers don't lead anywhere either. You can totally botch investigations and just lock dudes up anyway.

That said, the final 3rd, Vice & Arson is a pretty great noir, much better than the first 2/3.

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I think what could save this game from mediocricity would be if there was a good story, maybe one with more connected cases (not necessarily serial murders, even just incidentally connected through some random thing). These are so far totally unconnected and are bland as self-contained short stories. I'm still in Traffic though, and I assume that near the end of the game the cases will be more connected.

PS ThunderPeel, I'd still really like to learn that trick to understanding the game better if you can remember whereabouts that post of yours was.

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Here's the logic:

Toblix: I guess I'm just being too Phoenix Wright about it again. I considered showing the receipt since it definitely links him to the location, but the way he literally challenged me to prove he was there made me think it wasn't decisive enough. I probably shouldn't be looking for and expecting clear contradictions.

Me: In this particular instance, Toblix, the game logic goes like this: The guy says he wasn't there, and demands proof he was. Phelps produces the receipt in order to challenge his story. If you think about it, there isn't really ever any conclusive proof. Even his fingerprints wouldn't prove that he was there when it happened. Even an eye-witness could be lying. You just have to leverage whatever evidence the game gives you that might contradict a suspect's version of events.

As I say, there IS a logic. It helped me to use a walkthrough for a few missions so I could start to see how the developers wanted me to think.

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I really enjoyed the interview process when I first got this game, it was fresh and new to me. But by the third desk, I was using a FAQ to go through the interviews because they grated on my nerves so much. The story isn't that great either, which is a bummer, because some of the characters they created are pretty cool, even if they are cliched to death. If you can finish it, the ending is pretty good I thought, but the road there is a bore at times.

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Yeah, the interview is fun when it works, but too often evidence that seems like it could contradict a person's statement just flops, and the wrong answers don't lead anywhere either. You can totally botch investigations and just lock dudes up anyway.

That said, the final 3rd, Vice & Arson is a pretty great noir, much better than the first 2/3.

I'd really like to see a game like this have the courage to let you fail, have people get away with it, and let you have face your career as a beat cop as a result. At the very least, let failure on cases trigger different pathways and rates of progression through the hierarchy/desks.

I wonder if I game like this could be made without the body language & voice acting side of interrogations but rather with (well written) text only. I'd have thought there is scope for a case generating engine that would allow lots of cases and could scale the difficulty by changing the amount/obviousness of evidence. It would be interesting to see this applied to a dynamic career which presented harder cases but was willing to let you fail and suffer the results of mistakes or not performing.

I also like the idea of a comical multiplayer mode where two cops were jostling for promotion and would tear through the streets to solve the case first!

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I wrote something silly and pretentious about my early impressions of the game a couple of weeks ago. The game has really dragged and not lived up to the amazing promise of the setting and premise. The conclusion of the murder desk (spoiler in white >) completely invalidates everything the player has done for the past ten hours by announcing that all of their conclusions were wrong. It made me feel angry at the developers for taking all of my simulated cleverness away from me.

Wild jazz drifts half noticed into my thoughts from the radio of a passing car. For a moment I inhabit a filthy post-war America, built by a thousand writers. A point in time where artifice and history are indistinguishable. I expect to see a disheveled Sal Paradise standing with thumb outstretched. A handsome Jimmy Stewart drive by on his way to a cocktail party. Then my partner gets stuck on a door frame and I have to jostle him free.

Playing L.A. Noire is like reading a book after seeing the film. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is that book for me, Johnny Depp's Thompson cipher will always creep into my head when I allow myself to believe in Duke's America. The intrusive thoughts I have when playing L.A. Noire however are not of people, but simply the medium itself. If you have ever been at the theatre and an actor has allowed their character to slip for a second you will know what I mean. A single mistake can shatter your belief in an entire production, an entire medium. L.A. Noire's mistakes are sometimes bugs (just walk through the door you idiot!) or issues of fidelity (the characters look like mannequins wearing bad wigs) but more often than not they are game design decisions.

The payoff for busting an organised car theft ring should be the congratulations the head of the department gives you, not an arcade style score breakdown and a suggestion of how you can do better next time. Similarly earning pointless XP for successful police work is a bewildering mechanic. Worst of all is how Cole Phelps will go from Mike Hammer to Max Payne when guns are drawn. I know the LAPD have a reputation for police brutality but the morgue must overflowing with deadbeats.

The reality that this is a video game is what makes it special, but the realities of being a video game are what hold it back. Hopefully in time I will be able to see past the missteps and once again find myself believing in an America that probably never existed...

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One of the few games from this generation that I didn't have the patience to finish. A lot of individual components were exceptionally well executed but the overall game was pure tedium. Even when interviews went successfully, it just didn't satisfy.

Although it was fun driving around 1940's-era LA and finding the street corner of the hotel I stayed in for E3! (I'm not from America).

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I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I think LA Noire is the Rise of the Robots for the current generation. Great graphics. Great advertising. Lousy gameplay.

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