LA Noire

Benedict

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Saw an article about this game recently, it had completely passed me by but sounds pretty interesting . . .

link

Not sure what genre it is really, presumably kind of an adventure game thing but sounds more interesting and if they can get the supporting technology right it could be quite a step forward.
 
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It's getting a ton of advertisement over here. I've been seeing television commercials like crazy.

It looks decent enough, but I'm not into the 1940's theme.
 
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Yeah there's ton of advertisement in Paris too, I don't watch TV so I don't know for TV.
 
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It's closer to an adventure game than anything else I guess.

Solving crimes through finding and examining evidence and talking to/interrogating people. The big gimmick is supposed to be the facial animations that you can read to tell if someone is telling the truth or not, etc. Whether it works or not remains to be seen. From what I understand there will not be much combat, although that will be there too of course.

I pre-ordered it a long time ago and have really high hopes for it. If it's good I hope it's hugely successful so more non-combat oriented games get made. I mean I love blowing crap up and shooting stuff as much as the next guy but a change of pace is nice.
 
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...blowing crap up and shooting stuff as much as the next guy but a change of pace is nice.
Cool I didn't knew you was a girl, that's a rare resource in such forums, welcome. :)
 
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If it achieves at least partial Film Noire atmosphere and has decent cases to solve (not solveable by gunplay nor by just following "quest markers" and pressing A once in awhile), I'm happy. A detective adventure/crime mystery game sounds really good in fact. Definitely not an overcrowded genre. Looking forward to this.
 
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I've played about 3 hours of it and it's great IMO.

There are 21 main cases (supposedly averaging 45min to 1hr long but the first few have been shorter) and 40 street crimes (optional) that appear randomly around the map while driving from place to place. I've gone out of my way to do every street crime as they appear and had 7 of them. Those are pretty much pure action with car/foot chases & shootouts…but very short (less than 5-10mins including driving to them).

If you like point and click mystery/crime adventure games you will probably love the main cases for this game. There are action elements in some of the cases so far but the huge majority is collecting/analyzing evidence and interviewing & interrogating people. So far I think it's all done extremely well. Great writing and voice acting too.

Some folks have griped about it being too easy (and it is easy, but I don't mind). There is also some hand-holding. By default there is a controller rumble & chime sound when you are near an item that can be picked up/analyzed (not all of them are relevant to the case though). You can turn this off but to me it's just an updated version of the arrow pointer (in adventure games) changing to a hand (or gear, or whatever) when you pass it over a usable object. Either way you can turn it off.

I might have more praises or complaints but I've kinda been sidetracked by The Witcher 2. :)

Edit: To clarify, this is no point & click. It's like those games planted in the GTA/Rockstar type of gameworld (crime solving adventure game in new clothes). The main draw as far as gameplay is the interviews & interrogations. Trying to figure out if someone is outright lying (which you need evidence to disprove), hiding something (which is harder to discern based on evidence & their animations), or telling the truth.

Also this:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/5/20/
 
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I haven't followed the game's coverage extensively, but I hope it gets a PC port. It baffles my mind how such an adult oriented game cannot have a day one PC release.
 
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It's a lot of fun, but flawed… just like every other good game. The animations are amazing. Even walking up or down stairs is convincing, not a treadmill-glide. The faces are fantastic. Voice acting is as good as it gets. Lots of actors and not once have I heard a bad one, or terrible line-read. The dialog is great, and the crimes and language are very, very adult. Grisly and brutal.

The interrogation parts are a little sketchy. They have a neat idea but haven't nailed the execution of it. When you get it right and catch someone in a lie and have evidence to back it up, it's awesome. But sometimes you end up with reactions that don't quite make sense, and it's puzzling or frustrating.

The action sequences range from good to bad, mostly OK. I'm around halfway through, and haven't repeatedly "failed" an action sequence yet… I gave up on GTA IV because of the difficulty and frustrating controls. And in LA Noire, you can skip an action sequence if you want, so you'll never be stuck on a mission because you're bad at driving or shooting for instance (F*cK you, GTA IV…)

A good part is the pacing. It's generally very slow and methodical, but then suddlenly something happens and you're off on a foot chase or car chase or a shoot-out. I love the way it goes from slow, everyday life feeling to heart-pounding police action. Seems realistic. Pretty good stories so far. I like that some of them are even pretty simple. Not every case is a complex mind-bender… again, it feels realistic this way. The cases are just now starting to become part of a bigger story, so it's not simply a string of random police work. There's flashback sequences to WW2 that are well done, but seem kind of pointless. Can't say I look forward to them but they give background to the main character and I hope they become more meaningful eventually.

Overall, very enjoyable and extremely well done. No crashes or glitches so far. But I keep thinking "They'll do THIS part better in LA Noire 2"… which is something I sadly think of whenever I play any game.

Edit- A few other thoughts: For some reason you run fairly slowly, but can effortlessly climb up a pipe on the side of a building. Why include pipe-climbing? Just silly. The action sequences seem smartest and best when they're quick. There's a big shoot out in an enormous abandoned movie set that just goes on and on. Becomes a bit silly. I was able to complete it without getting killed the first try, so it's not that it's difficult, just that it stretches believability.

The buildings and the city of LA in the late 40s is spectacular. Many diverse locations, from elegant night clubs to a hobo camp. Lots of dive bars. And the best looking laundromat in the history of gaming!
 
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Oh awesome. I have actually been pondering caving and getting a damned Xbox for this game but now I don't have to. :p
 
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The PC version is up for pre-order on Steam and most other outlets now. Release date is November 8th. This is the "Complete Version" with all the DLC.

They are also re-releasing the Complete Version for consoles a week later on the 15th.
 
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