L.A. Noire Review

Russ Pitts

The Boss of You
May 1, 2006
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L.A. Noire Review

As alluring and confounding as the rich genre that inspired it.

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MiracleOfSound

Fight like a Krogan
Jan 3, 2009
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I agree 100% about the interrogations, they were pretty stupid at times.

What really got to me was when I had a piece of evidence that clearly proved someone was lying, but it wasn't the particular magic 'right' evidence the game picked and so the 'lie' option failed.

The there were the times Cole turned into a rage filled maniac when you hit 'doubt'.

Other than that, amazing game... if game is even the right word for this kind of interactive medium anymore. Amazing interactive entertainment. (can we coin the term IE now and take credit for it?)
 

Azaraxzealot

New member
Dec 1, 2009
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MiracleOfSound said:
I agree 100% about the interrogations, they were pretty stupid at times.

What really got to me was when I had a piece of evidence that clearly proved someone was lying, but it wasn't the particular magic 'right' evidence the game picked and so the 'lie' option failed.

The there were the times Cole turned into a rage filled maniac when you hit 'doubt'.

Other than that, amazing game... if game is even the right word for this kind of interactive medium anymore. Amazing interactive entertainment. (can we coin the term IE now and take credit for it?)
watching some gameplay videos and walkthroughs of cases, i'm seeing the same problem with cole's responses. either he's a calm and collected sherlock holmes type or he's a "i'm about to throw down on this asshole!" bad cop mchardass type.

the whiplash-inducing changes really throw me off at times, but overall, it's so damn engaging i can't look away.
 

Johnnyallstar

New member
Feb 22, 2009
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I have to say that I love this game. I love everything about this game, except the occasional lockup.

I almost never pay for DLC, but I would pay for more cases. I'm only around 70% complete, because I kinda don't want to finish because then what else is there to do besides just bum around?
 

Chandler Sutton

New member
Feb 27, 2011
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My Dad a huge fan of old detective movies(Humphrey Bogart and the likes), not so much video games. Raised to appreciate the specific genre this game takes after, I'm dying to play it. I also really want to show him it, as he would find it amazing as well.
 

Darth Rahu

Critic of the Sith
Nov 20, 2009
615
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MiracleOfSound said:
I agree 100% about the interrogations, they were pretty stupid at times.

What really got to me was when I had a piece of evidence that clearly proved someone was lying, but it wasn't the particular magic 'right' evidence the game picked and so the 'lie' option failed.

The there were the times Cole turned into a rage filled maniac when you hit 'doubt'.

Other than that, amazing game... if game is even the right word for this kind of interactive medium anymore. Amazing interactive entertainment. (can we coin the term IE now and take credit for it?)
I have to agree. Still doesn't stop the game from being kick ass however.
 

ThaBenMan

Mandalorian Buddha
Mar 6, 2008
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The graphics are so... weird. Yes, the faces are pretty amazing, but they contrast so much with the stiff body animations. There's just something really off-putting about it all - it's like a bunch of disembodied heads walking around on robot bodies.
 

Assassin Xaero

New member
Jul 23, 2008
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From all the going on about how realistic their characters would look I expected them to look, oh, I dunno... more realistic? Did I miss something?
 

Jumplion

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Mar 10, 2008
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See, about the audio and vibration queues when investigating, wouldn't those instances make the game easier overall? A game like L.A. Noire only has so much replayability, and while the interrogations may be easily screwed up on, if you find all the clues before and you want to replay through a case, you're just trying to find the clues as fast as you can until you get to the interrogations. Wouldn't you want to turn off those indicators so that when you're going back to the scene of the crime you can still find something new about it.
 

maantren

New member
Jan 16, 2008
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Great review of a great game. Re the inspirations it draws extremely heavily on James Ellroy's LA Quartet of 1940s/50s crime novels, especially The Big Nowhere, to the extent that it's almost a videogame remix of them.

Cheers

Colin
 

ZeroMachine

New member
Oct 11, 2008
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MiracleOfSound said:
I agree 100% about the interrogations, they were pretty stupid at times.

What really got to me was when I had a piece of evidence that clearly proved someone was lying, but it wasn't the particular magic 'right' evidence the game picked and so the 'lie' option failed.

The there were the times Cole turned into a rage filled maniac when you hit 'doubt'.

Other than that, amazing game... if game is even the right word for this kind of interactive medium anymore. Amazing interactive entertainment. (can we coin the term IE now and take credit for it?)
Two words: Internet Explorer.

Anyway, I've been waiting for you guys to review the game since it game out, and I have to say, you NAILED it. I really can't say anything else without repeating things.

Well done.
 

octafish

New member
Apr 23, 2010
5,137
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I am disappointed I won't be given the opportunity to play this game, or RDR. Detective/Noir films and Westerns are two of my favourite film genres, but I'm not wasting money on a console.
 

bluepotatosack

New member
Mar 17, 2011
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Azaraxzealot said:
MiracleOfSound said:
I agree 100% about the interrogations, they were pretty stupid at times.

What really got to me was when I had a piece of evidence that clearly proved someone was lying, but it wasn't the particular magic 'right' evidence the game picked and so the 'lie' option failed.

The there were the times Cole turned into a rage filled maniac when you hit 'doubt'.

Other than that, amazing game... if game is even the right word for this kind of interactive medium anymore. Amazing interactive entertainment. (can we coin the term IE now and take credit for it?)
watching some gameplay videos and walkthroughs of cases, i'm seeing the same problem with cole's responses. either he's a calm and collected sherlock holmes type or he's a "i'm about to throw down on this asshole!" bad cop mchardass type.

the whiplash-inducing changes really throw me off at times, but overall, it's so damn engaging i can't look away.
I sort of rationalize the quick changes as an attempt to throw the suspect/witness off guard. Especially for when you back out of an accusation. He just shrugs and calmly says something like "Looks like I was mistaken."
 

Ilikemilkshake

New member
Jun 7, 2010
1,982
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MiracleOfSound said:
I agree 100% about the interrogations, they were pretty stupid at times.

What really got to me was when I had a piece of evidence that clearly proved someone was lying, but it wasn't the particular magic 'right' evidence the game picked and so the 'lie' option failed.

The there were the times Cole turned into a rage filled maniac when you hit 'doubt'.

Other than that, amazing game... if game is even the right word for this kind of interactive medium anymore. Amazing interactive entertainment. (can we coin the term IE now and take credit for it?)
I mostly agree, although i didnt have as much difficulty with the interrogations (after the first few cases anyway)

I generally found that if you just paid attention to their faces you'd know what to do, if they looked away or started blinking alot, or scratching their head they're not telling the truth, so you should chose lie.

Then phelps would point fingers for something, and then you'd need to back it up, if you couldnt back it up, you back out and then choose doubt.

You need to listen carefully to what exactly, if you say they were at the scene of the crime, you need to give them something which proves that, not for example, say you found a bloody crowbar in their apartment.

also, i dont know if anyone else has figured this out, but you dont need to restart the entire case to retry...if you press start > quit > resume. You'll go to the last place you saved, usually no more than a few minutes away, so you can retry interrogations as many times as you want
 

RetardedKitty

New member
May 17, 2011
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Game was really good but what is lacking for me the most was the fact of free roaming, to free roam not only you need to complete to certain desk, you also have to chose witch roam you want to do to get a different free roam with different partner, and only different partners had different side cases, so actually it's not as free as it could be, I'm 3 achievements from having 100% completion and to be honest comparing to Red Dead Redemption there is really not to much to do as even the side cases each of them is worth 5~10 minutes.
Don't get me wrong the game is amazing but they created such a big city and honestly they didn't use it's potential fully.
 

Andronicus

Terror Australis
Mar 25, 2009
1,846
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Grand Theft Auto with period cars and music and with a greater emphasis on sleuthing than gunplay?

The only way it could be better is if it was made in Austra...

Oh wait.
 

Paul Hearding

Creator of Pro-gamer Gauntlet
Oct 1, 2010
195
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Overall, very unique and original. Sure, there are minor problems with it (what game is perfect?) but it's a really enjoyable experience. I'm really glad I picked this one up and I hope they make a PC port so that all gamers can give this one a shot.
 
Sep 17, 2009
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Assassin Xaero said:
From all the going on about how realistic their characters would look I expected them to look, oh, I dunno... more realistic? Did I miss something?
Go back and play almost any other game and you'll truly see how realistic these faces are.

I just borrowed GTA IV from one of my friends and LA Noire's faces are leaps and bounds above a game that came out only a few years ago.

OT: I love this game and while I understand the few flaws in the mechanics it doesn't take anything away from the game for me.
 

sizzle949

New member
May 4, 2009
479
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Jumplion said:
See, about the audio and vibration queues when investigating, wouldn't those instances make the game easier overall? A game like L.A. Noire only has so much replayability, and while the interrogations may be easily screwed up on, if you find all the clues before and you want to replay through a case, you're just trying to find the clues as fast as you can until you get to the interrogations. Wouldn't you want to turn off those indicators so that when you're going back to the scene of the crime you can still find something new about it.
The option is there to turn them off if you want to, but even then there's little re-playability with the game once you have solved all the cases.

It was still a really great game that I really got into once I started. Probably one of the only games I'll consider getting DLC for if it means more cases or even better yet a new desk...

a burglary desk. When you get promoted from traffic to homicide it talks about how you've been working six months in burglary so I think that would be cool to explore