Extra Punctuation: L.A. Noire Is a Bad Adventure Game

[Zom-B]

This article is an example of either simple failed logic or a misunderstanding of what new means. New is not synonymous with better or even good. The word new offers no insight into the quality of something other than temporal placement, and an indication of difference from what has come before. The atomic bomb was at one time new, but I am not so sure it was better for humanity than weapons that preceded it. People have been writing stories for thousands of years. In that time countless stories have been retold. Some of the worlds most beloved stories are simply old stories retold by new authors. L.A. Noire draws from several different sources, but I dare anyone to point out an adventure game that really does all the same things that L.A. Noire does. It offers a unique package, and much like the writings of arguably literature's greatest borrower, Shakespeare, has made the old seem new and exciting again for many people.

L.A. Noire is not a perfect game, and it probably will not be remembered for centuries like the works of Shakespeare, but to dismiss it because its elements are derived from what has come before is absolutely foolish. The game concept that Yahtzee introduces is interesting, but L.A. Noire is an actual finished product that is fairly polished and succeeds at the majority of what it attempts to do. Tearing into a game is fine but tearing into it simply because it is built on old or borrowed ideas just to try and make your "novel" ideas look better is pathetic. Time limits are not exactly new, and elements of everything else Yahtzee describes can be found in Heavy Rain and L.A. Noire.

Served!

 

[Woodsey]

"Not ones that don't really add anything, and especially not ridiculously huge ones that you're penalized for driving recklessly around. Mafia 2 also take note"

You don't feel like you're in the mob when you're just shoved from mission to mission. It has an open-world backdrop (there's a distinction between that and a sandbox).

 

[NickCaligo42]

As much as I love Katamari and as original as it seemed(to begin with), they're really just trippy driving games.
As great as Elder Scrolls games can seem, they're a lot like Zelda aren't they.
And as crazy as Portal is, it's just an fps that's been made into a puzzle game.

SPECIFICALLY:
Katamari is an offshoot of old arcade games. Elder Scrolls has pig shit to do with Zelda, it's actually derived from the Ultima Underworld series, which are also among the first true 3D first-person games and are notable for inspiring Doom. Portal? Well, yeah. It's not all that big of a jump from Portal to Lemmings.

This article is an example of either simple failed logic or a misunderstanding of what new means. New is not synonymous with better or even good. The word new offers no insight into the quality of something other than temporal placement, and an indication of difference from what has come before. The atomic bomb was at one time new, but I am not so sure it was better for humanity than weapons that preceded it. People have been writing stories for thousands of years. In that time countless stories have been retold. Some of the worlds most beloved stories are simply old stories retold by new authors. L.A. Noire draws from several different sources, but I dare anyone to point out an adventure game that really does all the same things that L.A. Noire does. It offers a unique package, and much like the writings of arguably literature's greatest borrower, Shakespeare, has made the old seem new and exciting again for many people.

L.A. Noire is not a perfect game, and it probably will not be remembered for centuries like the works of Shakespeare, but to dismiss it because its elements are derived from what has come before is absolutely foolish. The game concept that Yahtzee introduces is interesting, but L.A. Noire is an actual finished product that is fairly polished and succeeds at the majority of what it attempts to do. Tearing into a game is fine but tearing into it simply because it is built on old or borrowed ideas just to try and make your "novel" ideas look better is pathetic. Time limits are not exactly new, and elements of everything else Yahtzee describes can be found in Heavy Rain and L.A. Noire.

Additionally, I would like to give due recognition to this fellow's post. Well done sir, well done.

 

[themerrygambit]

Actually L.A. Noire is not based on LA confidential. Rather both the game and LA confidential are based (sometimes losely) around actually cases and events that happened in L.A. during the 1940s. One of the biggest appeals to me about this game is that when I used to live in L.A. I heard stories of out clean and new the town used to be. I always wondered why houses were made the way they were. What L.A. Noir does for me is that it shows me what that town used to look like. Back when America was at the peak of prosperity. The big war was over. There was peace in the world. We could rebuild anew and make things better than before... there was a sense that the sky was the limit.

This game really shows me that in a way that L.A. Confidential did not. Granted there was this seedy side to this prosperity but that's also what makes it interesting... it gives a reason why. All these veterans back from the war are all trained to be hardened killers and now they have to find some way to acclimate back into society. Here they are going from hell on earth to candy coated round gumdrop shaped cars and soda pop stands... it's no wonder a few of them cracked.

Granted Phelps was a bit of a stiff but the fact of the matter is there are people like that in real life. I've literally met a guy like phelps. The guy that has to follow the rules no matter what and because of that he has trouble fitting in and making friends... he's always the teacher's pet until the teacher themselves breaks one of the rules. In Enneagram Personality Types Phelps would be a 1. To be honest in a way he seemed more real to me because of those traits... it made sense that he acts so uptight. Granted I would have liked to have see that facade break down a few times and see some real emotion come out of him but overall he made sense. He was consistent.

Can LA Noire be improved? Yes. I think in these kinds of games the difficulty level is very different to a grown adult than it is to a 12 year old kid. The vibration and sound ques make the game almost ridiculously easy for an adult whereas a child might need those cues to help them develop their detective skills. Likewise the facial features are very much exaggerated in the interrogations

I would like to see a difficulty setting in that game which you can use to turn off the vibration and sound cues to make the game more challenging for adults. Likewise I would like to see higher difficulties tone down the facial "tells" a little bit more so they are subtle on high difficulty and obvious on easy.

I do agree with Yahtzee that there should be more ways to solve a case with a variety of consequences for them as well as not limiting what the player try to use as clues.

 

[Simonism451]

My answer to this is: "Who cares?"

Again, LA Confidential is brought up. How many gamers have seen LA Confidential, and even if they did, could you PLAY LA Confidential?

Then let's get to all these adventure games you've mentioned. I haven't played one of them, and I also have yet to play a Pheonix Wright. part of an opinion has to deal with experience, but I think there are more people who play games and have not come across all the elements Yahtzee brings up. There's nothing new under the sun, and even if you point to a games unoriginality doesn't make it unworthy of attention.

The problem is, that LA Noir is not wildly praised for its absolutely perfect execution, but for its "original concept" which is frankly put a lie. The only thing original about it, is it being on the next gen consoles and having fancy graphics.

 

[SilverUchiha]

I like the overall idea. Especially the constantly ticking clock throughout the game. Seems like it would make the game more tense as it continued and you'd be rushing to solve the mystery as fast as possible. The only thing I would think it needs is the ability to have alternate endings with alternate killers (like what Heavy Rain could have done... and didn't do). This way you would be more apt to replay the game and not have to sit through the same story and know how it ends. It would make each time playing through just as engaging as the first.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I think the thing that's new about this game is the use of mo-cap to get facial movements down to the point where you (maybe) can determine if a character's lying or hiding something. That sort of thing wouldn't be a route I'd mind seeing future games take.

But all I hear is that the faces look weird on the comparatively unrealistic bodies and it's blatantly obvious when people are lying to you because they over-act "suspicious" body language. Doesn't sound that great.

Yeah, the technology is in its infancy - I just think it's cool proof-of-concept. And in terms of people lying in a more "suspicious" fashion, that kind of goes with the territory. It makes more sense for this mechanic to have people act in an exaggerated fashion than it does for them to act in a realistic fashion, because players shouldn't have to be actual interrogators to play.

But if it's that easy to tell if they're lying, where's the game? Would it really be different if the story included some sort of supernatural ability to detect lies that made the screen flash? Both are obvious "press button to continue" cues. What's the point?

The point is that, to my knowledge, this is the first game that made paying attention to facial cues a mechanic. I agree with you that L.A. Noire is not the be-all-end-all epitome of motion capture in games, but it is an excellent proof of concept for that tool. That's innovation, in my book.

But where can you go in that direction? You said earlier the over-acting was necessary because you can't expect the player to actually be a competent interrogator. Doesn't that leave this new mechanic forever blunt and overstated?

You really only have to go that route if you make progress in the game dependent on the player being able to tell if a character's lying by picking up on facial cues. There are other ways you could use the technology from a pure storytelling perspective, esp. for games that center on stuff like inter-character interaction or intrigue. Allowing actors to give a better performance can only be a positive thing.

I'd also imagine that you would see future games implement this mechanic more effectively in general (i.e., the level of subtlety players can deal with, etc.) once there's a knowledge base on how to use motion capture in games. The problem with breaking new ground is that you don't really have any idea what works and what doesn't work in practice.

But the reason you declared the motion-capture faces innovative is because it was a new game mechanic. If you just use it for better quality computer-generated people, it's just a new method of presentation like they've been developing constantly. That would make it technically, not artistically innovative and not that interesting.

It's cool as a mechanic and as a storytelling technique - the two aren't exactly mutually exclusive. Using it as a mechanic is very tricky for obvious reasons, but has a lot of potential.

 

[Deacon Cole]

I do like the time limit feature of your idea as it does keep the player from just rubbing everything against everything else, so to speak. you now have a limited number of things you can rub before the clock runs out, so the player has to keep it all straight in their head to lead them to the correct suspect and not, you know, die.

To make the writing even harder, perhaps it should have multiple possible murderers so that each time you play you need to pay attention to the relevant clues to lead you toward the correct suspect. This adds replay value, even if it would be a massive headache to implement. But then, the board game Clue (Cluedo) managed to make this sort of thing work, albeit more simply. I suspect that if someone were to play the game a lot, they may find a way to correctly guess the murderer in three or four clues, but no one cares about Korean college students, anyway.

 

[Avistew]

The point is that, to my knowledge, this is the first game that made paying attention to facial cues a mechanic.

The fourth Ace Attorney game (Apollo Justice) had a similar mechanic, except it wasn't facial cues only, but also other gestures. It was also barely used in the whole game, but the concept isn't new to LA Noire. It also doesn't require super realistic graphics at all.

I understand Yahtzee's point against being able to choose every single option in a dialogue tree. It gets to me sometimes too, it doesn't make much sense, especially if you ask them in an order they didn't predict and your character ends up going "what's that?" to something while five minutes prior they talked about it like they knew what it was perfectly.

But I don't think you need to add a timer to limit the questions that can be asked. You can make it so people have to pick one option in a list, and that's the only thing they can ask. That would still allow for several ways to find the solution, and that would let people spend hours deciding which to pick without risking to die because they like taking their time. It would also mean you end up with a series of hints that can be really different from one game to the next.

I personally wouldn't enjoy it being times either, for reasons similar to MasterProcrastinator's. I play adventure games because they challenge things other than my reflexes and hand-eye coordinations. I really liked Portal and Portal 2, but one thing I disliked about them is that it was 10% figuring out what to do, 90% managing to make my character do it by doing the same thing over and over and over again until it worked. I think there are some I had to do 50 times. It's a good thing I'm stubborn or I would have just assumed I had it wrong and should be doing something different.

Anyways, the games were good enough that I suffered through the controls, but it definitely took from my enjoyment of the game. I think a timer would have a similar effect, except I would probably just stop playing as soon as the timer appeared.
Actually I did that once. There was a... Law and Order game or something I got, and when I started playing it I noticed it was timed. Well I never played it more.

Of course, I'm not representative of everybody, and I'm sure some people would love that, but I'm wondering how much of an overlap there is between people who enjoy adventure games and people who are fine with a timed one.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

The whole "you have a limited time with an on screen clock" thing was actually done once before, actually.

There was a PS2 games called Shadows of Destiny, that was an investigative/adventure game in which the main character if murdered in the opening cutscene, and then is given the power to time travel, before being booted back 30 minutes before his own death. You then spend the whole game trying to delay your murder while also looking for clues about who is after you.

It's a decent game that my GF introduced me too. My one complain is that the hero is....Well...A total moron. But that aside, it's pretty fun.

 

[GonzoGamer]

As much as I love Katamari and as original as it seemed(to begin with), they're really just trippy driving games.
As great as Elder Scrolls games can seem, they're a lot like Zelda aren't they.
And as crazy as Portal is, it's just an fps that's been made into a puzzle game.

SPECIFICALLY:
Katamari is an offshoot of old arcade games. Elder Scrolls has pig shit to do with Zelda, it's actually derived from the Ultima Underworld series, which are also among the first true 3D first-person games and are notable for inspiring Doom. Portal? Well, yeah. It's not all that big of a jump from Portal to Lemmings.

The point remains that there are very few original games out there.

I am enjoying LA Noir but I'm positive I wouldn't have if I had paid $60 for it instead of renting.
If they had given the player more control over the interrogation (rather than 3 button response), it might have been interesting.

 

[Agiel7]

I will never forgive Tim Schafer for the tortured fucking logic that flies in the face of causality required to solve some of the puzzles in his adventure games. Much as I liked the story for the Longest Journey, that one puzzle where I had to feed a plainclothes cop a tainted piece of candy so he'd accidentally spit it at the proprietor of a movie theater so he'd chase him away with the broom in his hand so I could got into the nearby backalley finally completely poisoned me to the genre.

 

[JMeganSnow]

There's nothing new under the sun, and even if you point to a games unoriginality doesn't make it unworthy of attention.

1. There's genuinely new stuff all the time. Just a lot of it is very bad. Cliches were new once. They became cliches because they were good the first time.

2. If he thought it was unworthy of attention, would he be writing an article about it?

Anyway, I think Yatzhee's ideas have some merit, but it would be a lot easier to do in a game where not solving a given problem in time led to a game over. Something like this could be done in a political intrigue game where the goals are less "don't die" and more "find out what people want and why" and "advance yourself". Thus "winning" would be a matter of getting the end-game state you wanted, and so the writer wouldn't have to fuss themselves too much over whether this was rather difficult--you'll get SOME kind of end game state where you get to see things play out pretty much no matter what you do.

This would also increase replay value as people endlessly try to tweak things to get the end-game state that they really want. You could even salt the options with a variety of game-over moments (and make these close to some of the more desirable end-game states, so there'd be real tension involved). This would also mean that you wouldn't have to load a save from hours back to fix a game-over-inducing mistake, and decreasing the desirability of going back to hours ago in order to tweak your developing end-game state.

But a serial killer either killing you or not killing you is too binary a result to be interesting to me in this context.

 

[JMeganSnow]

I will never forgive Tim Schafer for the tortured fucking logic that flies in the face of causality required to solve some of the puzzles in his adventure games. Much as I liked the story for the Longest Journey, that one puzzle where I had to feed a plainclothes cop a tainted piece of candy so he'd accidentally spit it at the proprietor of a movie theater so he'd chase him away with the broom in his hand so I could got into the nearby backalley finally completely poisoned me to the genre.

I didn't mind that one so much, and I saw this as more of an exploration game mechanic than a puzzle-solving one. With a puzzle, you know what is supposed to happen and the only difficulty is in getting there. There's both a goal and a defined path to that goal. With exploration, on the other hand, you may have a defined goal but the path to that goal is not in any way laid out for you. So your only option is to try a number of things until SOMETHING works.

This can be both very fun and extremely frustrating. It's fun when it's a matter of first discovering and then utilizing the elements you've discovered. It's NOT fun when the first part of that is hindered because discovering elements is a huge laborious process that involves clicking on every single pixel in the screen to figure out what you can and can't interact with. If there's going to be lots of window-dressing, then the things you CAN interact with have to be telegraphed in some way.

Different games telegraph the "you can interact with this" in different ways, and some are better than others. I prefer a method that lies somewhere between the "you must click every pixel" method of old-style adventure games and the "hit tab to see everything you can conceivably interact with and if you go up to it and hit the use button everything will be fixed for you" method. Go ahead and show me what I *can* fiddle with, but let me figure out HOW I have to fiddle with it. For instance, I got completely stymied by an earlier puzzle in that game because I didn't even REALIZE you COULD look out of a certain window. But once I did, I figured the rest out by myself.

This is even more fun in games where they make an effort to predict some of the oddball things that people MAY come up with. For instance--if you can make tainted candy and give it to a cop to provoke a given reaction, make it so you can give it to just about anyone to provoke a reaction. Getting the occasional "I'm on a diet" from people who aren't even a part of the candy-related puzzle makes the game feel a lot deeper and more fun.

One of the most fun adventure games, for me, was Quest for Glory 2, because they never updated it from the text-based version. You didn't just point and click on things, you had to actually figure out what commands to give. But the thing was, if you commanded something ridiculous, there was sometimes an amusing or interesting response for it, and you always got SOME kind of response, even if it was "I don't know what boogie means!" One of the things I really loved was that you could do things like "Bow to Hafar"--and the characters actually responded well to it. It was far more interactive and engrossing than just going up to every single person and hitting the talk button to get a canned interaction.

 

[ultrachicken]

Your detective game doesn't sound fun because of the overarching time limit, dead rising style. That would get supremely annoying supremely fast.

 

[Beeple]

To be honest, I hate the idea of there being any sort of time limit in an adventure game. The beauty of adventure games is being able to relax once in a while, not having to constantly shoot something, run from something, perform leaps and jumps, hide from something, dodge something, or perform some other action associated with quick fingers and reactions. That's what I've loved about adventure games - it's a time when you're giving your reflexes a rest, and instead letting your brain and creative mind take over while you get immersed in a unique and interesting world. Unfortunately, a time limit (no matter how drawn-out it may be) can do nothing but damage that relaxing, laid-back experience that comes with playing an adventure game. It would require the player to do everything quickly, and it would make them feel like they have to rush the thing; something which the adventure game genre simply should not make a player do, in my opinion.

Subsequently, a time limit would ruin almost everything that's great about an adventure game. It would discourage exploration and experimentation, for one thing. Whenever I've played adventure games, from a young age until now, I've always enjoyed exploring every nook and cranny of the environment, and have had fun with trying out random, illogical item combinations purely to see what the character response(s) would be. If I were to have a time limit throughout the entirety of my playtime, it would discourage me from experimenting with and exploring the virtual world around me; I'd be more inclined to simply search for the solution straight away. As a result, I'd probably miss out on a lot of content, and would ultimately be deprived of a lot of the depth within the game and the potential enjoyment that it may hold.

In fact, this is precisely what happened to me when I played the first level of 'Space Quest 1' (which I only played recently). See, with the 'King's Quest' games, I'd like to do the aforementioned and 'look at', 'examine', 'pick up', 'talk to' almost every single bit and piece of the environment. Why? Because a lot of the subsequent responses were often quite funny or interesting. I was looking forward to doing the same thing in 'SQ1'. However, the first thing that I was presented with upon playing was a lovely, big countdown clock in the corner of my screen. This prevented me from going about my usual adventure-gaming routine, which I instead had to exchange for a more rushed and fast-paced approach. Ultimately I was given a less enjoyable experience; the time limit detracted from the whole experience that the first level could have held. I actually felt cheated, to be honest - cheated out of an enjoyable section of the game - to the point where I'd gotten rather pissed off and decided to resort to a walkthrough (something I very, very rarely do). So, to have an entire adventure game be based around a time limit would just suck, for me, and would probably turn the game into something unenjoyable.

How about a slightly different alternative to the time mechanic?
For example something like each action would take a certain amount of time (Which would be outlined before you confirmed your decision to perform the action) and time only goes down as a result of performing an action. This doesn't solve your issue of wanting to explore admittedly but barring that would you prefer something like this? It still allows you to take a relaxed pace but at the same time gives an amount of meaning to each action rather than clicking every pixel and using every object with everything. Thus still requiring one to use the investigative skills Yahtzee talks about.

Looking at an object/ area would take a small amount of time, this is just clicking an area and doesn't have a prompt so random clicking is discouraged. Investigating would take slightly longer, offer more detailed information but a wasted investigation would waste time. Taking an object could take differing amounts of time depending on the object. There could be a limit to inventory size so it's possible to waste time picking dud objects etc.

The system could also be used to aid specific types of players. Assuming the time limit is reasonably lax (Possibly a difficulty setting). E.G for players that would normally click every pixel because they aren't good at spotting notable objects their could be an option to investigate the area, taking an amount of time but highlighting objects of interest. For those that aren't good at finding connections between objects to combine could ask somebody in the area who might know and explain it to them/ give them ideas but this would cost time.
And for those that can't easily differentiate between important and unimportant items there could be a storage area that would take time to get to, but allow the hoarding of more or possibly every object.

It's the kind of thing that would take a lot of testing unless we're making the time either very lax or very tight.

I've forgotten why I've written this, anyone think it's a good idea? Boost my self esteem? Any changes or expansions?
I guess anyone can feel free to take the idea, make millions and give me a cut of the profits. That would be a good reason for me writing it then

 

[HyenaThePirate]

Sigh.

I'm at the point where I'm starting to believe that Yahtzee just bitches and complains simply for the sake of bitching/complaining being the internet persona he's wrapped himself up in and now he's playing the role to the point of it growing tiresome.

I mean... eh, I just don't have the strength to go into it.

It reminds me of Maddox. Funny, quirky, interesting, enjoyable... for a time. But now it's become a bit predictable. I can honestly take something fun, exciting, and that I found incredibly fun and refreshing and almost guarantee that Yahtzee will hate it or find enough contrived fault in it to hate it.

Honestly, I have a feeling that if Yahtzee himself made a big game, he'd end up hating that just as much. Disliking things solely for the sake of disliking them, or because everyone ELSE seems to like it and thus disliking it is cool or controversial, gets old after a while.

L.A. Noire is an amazing game. It was fun, interesting, and something different from the sea of FPS COD clones, snore-inducing movie tie in games, and neverending Lego titles.

I applaud freshness and things that attempt to slip out of the norm in order to push the industry forward.

But Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one, including me.