I'm Starting To Hate L.A. Noire

[qazmatoz]

I can look past the bland cover based shooting and awkward walking and driving controls, but everything about the investigations and interrogations is frustrating and completely ruining the game for me.

Finding evidence has become far beyond tedious and boring. Every time I see something in the environment that looks suspicious, I can't interact with it at all. Then it reduces to me mashing on the X button until I find something, only to have Phelps chime in and tell me how worthless it is within two seconds of looking at it. Shouldn't I as the player be able to make that decision?

Why can I rotate around every inch of every worthless beer bottle and detergent box in the game, but I can't study the interior of a car in detail or look more closely at a trail of blood? I would much rather choose which pieces of evidence I want to record and actually put thought into things than have Phelps make every decision.

Then comes the interrogations where I can't for the life of me figure out the difference between the doubt and lie options. To me, doubt seems like I should be putting the person's statement under more scrutiny to get more information, not start shouting and accusing everyone of murder. I finally figured out that you only choose "lie" when you need to contradict someone using evidence, but it still didn't make it any easier since Phelps would just shout something that went completely against my train of thought.

I actually despise every character in the game now too, since the protagonist will never stop telling me how useless evidence is and all my partners nag at me when I go to slow for them.

I have no sense of agency over anything that happens in the game. I was hoping for an immersive experience playing a detective; instead, Phelps is running the show, pouting and yelling, and I'm just along for the ride.

So am I missing something? Are you having a better experience with the game than I am? To me this just feels like a more tedious Phoenix Wright. I'm at the first homicide division case, but at this point I'm not sure if I'll bother to find out where Phelps will take me next.

 

[Tallim]

You're not really missing anything. If you want to make it more interesting go into options and turn off the clue hints and investigation music.

as for interrogation options:

Truth: What they said is all true and above board.

Doubt: They are bending the truth, left something out, or something doesn't sit right but isn't directly contradicted by evidence. Use facial expressions to "confirm" this choice and not as the sole basis for it.

Lie: You have evidence to contradict them

You can always back out of choosing Lie and what Phelps and the suspect say before you have to select evidence is usually a blatant extra clue as to what you should pick to contradict.

Above all actually stop and think about what you know before picking a choice.

Since working all that out I have had 2 perfect cases. (And one awful case but I missed a whole train of evidence on that one so didn't have the info)

Stick with it is my advice. Homicide is much more interesting than Traffic

 

[MarkDavis94]

I'm loving the game me, I've always been interested in Police work and Law n all that, so the bit of excitment I get when my character is like 'L.A.P.D' is enough to keep my happy. Yes I know I'm a simpleton.

I get what you mean with the Doubt=Bite persons face off, but I'm still loving the game to bits and I've only just got out of Traffic.

 

[Nikolaz72]

I wont buy a console to play it thats for sure.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

Truth = good cop
Doubt = bad cop
Lie = reasonable response cop

basically if i were you, unless you think they're telling the truth, start by choosing lie, then if cole says something you werent expecting, you can back out of the accusation at no cost, and go with doubt instead.

also if i were you, i'd turn on the vibrate function to help find clues.

 

[Durananrananrananran]

I have no sense of agency over anything that happens in the game. I was hoping for an immersive experience playing a detective; instead, Phelps is running the show, pouting and yelling, and I'm just along for the ride.

You've essentially described the entire point and click adventure genre, which I read LA Noire takes some cues from.

 

[Abengoshis]

It's a game of great ideas, but more than average execution.

Don't you mean less than average execution?

 

[Shocksplicer]

If you ask me, the whole "Using Evidence to prove somebody is lying" thing is frequently stupid. At one point I asked someone if they knew about a clue that I had discovered. She said no, but was obviously lying. I had no evidence that proved she knew about the subject, but when I picked Doubt the game said that was wrong. Eventually I figured out that I was supposed to pick Lie, then pick a piece of evidence that proved that somebody completely different knew about the clue. What the hell does that prove???

 

[Cenequus]

I don't know if people picked the game thinking hey it's Rockstar so GTA,f yeah. So what I tell you is welcome to investigation adventure games.

 

[Shocksplicer]

I don't know if people picked the game thinking hey it's Rockstar so GTA,f yeah. So what I tell you is welcome to investigation adventure games.

If they did then that's their fault for not doing their research, considering that it's not a Rockstar developed game. They just published it. The developers were Team Bondi.

 

[awesomeClaw]

Yeah, I had that problem in the beginning too.

Cole: So you weren´t at the spot?

Suspect: No.

(Know he was at the spot and pick lie)

Cole: You´re lying! You killed her brutally with a stone!

Suspect: Evidence plz.

Me: WTF COLE?

But then I learned you can just back out.

 

[Casual Shinji]

If you just joined homicide, prepare for the drag that is to come.

In homicide you're basically solving the same case over and over again. And the final case is a long, tedious fetch quest that's going to have you yelling at the screen.

I'm at vice now, but I really needed to stop playing the game immediately in order to keep my brain from turning into paper maché.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

I've a lot of annoyance with the interrogations too. The 'evidence' mechanic is flat out retarded at times, making you pick obscure unrelated things or not letting you pick stuff that would clearly prove things.

I did get all 4 of Leland Monroe's questions right the first try though, which was awesome.

 

[SyphonX]

There is no sensitivity to any given situation, is there?

Even interviewing a bereaved widow, for instance, or a happenstance friend that has absolutely no evidence or indication of being involved whatsoever. The options are basically. True> "Okay, thanks for sharing.", Doubt> "TELL ME NOW YOU STUPID LITTLE GIRL, WE ARE THE POLICE AND WE NEED TO SOLVE THIS CASE NOW", Lie> "WE THINK YOU DID IT, YOU DID IT, NOW PROVE OTHERWISE OR FIRE WILL FALL FROM THE SKY AND CHILDREN RAPED IN THE STREETS."

It has no flow at all. Whenever you pick one, in the "mild encounters", the responses you get are surprising and 'yelly' to say the least. Also, all the street crimes are getting pretty 'shooty shooty', and there is no option at all to get them to surrender, or arrest them. I've seen a few where, if you catch them on the streets while they are running and keep your reticle aimed on them long enough, you can pop a warning shot and they put their hands up. The vast majority however, force you into a shootout. Which is okay, I spose, but I would've expected more options.

Also, there is no spontaneity in the streets at all, as far as crimes go, which is unfortunate. You can't just drive along and see a purse snatcher, get out and apprehend him, for instance. All the events are "event missions", like most Rockstar games. Which is fine, but other Rockstar games offered you more freedom. Red Dead Redemption had some real-time events, like horse-thieves and other trickery, a few other things. GTA was a free-for-all circus. There is nothing like that in Noire, which is tragedy really, as the city is a Huge canvas for all sorts of stuff to throw in.

 

[Iwata]

I was excited for it. I bought it on release day. I found it awesome at first.

But now, I just came to the conclusion it's far more fun and way less tedious to be on the other side of the law (read, playing Mafia and Mafia II).

 

[Tiswas]

I finished it today.

Basically it's a watered down Phoenix Wright with all of the interesting people and cases removed and the remainder dumbed down for the people who bought this expecting to be able to just run around and blow stuff up.

And the ending.

Spoiler

It's like the developers themselves were sick of the game and opted to just kill Cole to save them effort in tying up the plot.

 

[subtlefuge]

Eh, the parts you hated were my favorite. Then again, I love me some Phoenix Wright and Deadly Premonition, so I can put up with some tedious investigation.