Zero Punctuation: L.A. Noire

[Mangod]

Sooo... the "Big Sleep" ends with Marlowe losing it and going postal on the criminal underworld with a flamethrower? That's... really disappointing.

Imagine if Sherlock Holmes closed out the Resident Patient with a Rambo marathon... and now I've given Hollywood another bad idea to realise on celuloid...

 

[CopperBoom]

Oh hello THread.
Here you are.
I was looking for you earlier when I was needlessly (it seems) making comments with my Facebook.
What a dummy.

I was kind of surprised how not-negative the critique was. To me, this is barely something you could consider a game but he seems pretty into it, the criticisms were not about the idea of NOIRE existing but more of little niggling things.
Are you softening in your old age?

 

[draythefingerless]

Quite frankly, I think a car mounted on top of another car would be the greatest form of transportation ever concieved by man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5xd97HeY70

enjoy

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I'm just happy Rockstar is trying something new with L.A Noire, focusing on story and investigation.

If one company does sandbox well it's Rockstar, but for those of us who consider 'Games as Art' I think L.A Noire is a step in the right direction even if that step is a wobbly one.

Could have easily been another GTA.

OT: Challenging Hitler to pictionary? Hmm...

*scribbles down on list of game ideas*

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Now I need to watch a LP of it :/

From what I understand/have heard, Rockstar does not take to kindly to LPs because they think that if people watch the game, they are less likely to buy it. I could be wrong on that though.

OT: This did look like a fun game, so I think I may get it later. But that glasses thing? Funny as hell.

 

[CopperBoom]

I hate to be 'that guy', but Noire is the feminine form of the work, Noir being the masculine (he brought it up in the credit comments).

Sounds reasonable. But does it make sense in the game title? I thought it was supposed to be a reference to "film noir."

I do not know how much truth there is to this but I recall that the extra "e" was just a programming error they just went with...

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/01/rumour-la-noires-development-more-of-a-mess-than-wed-imagined-rockstar/

 

[StriderShinryu]

And yet some people say that Yahtzee has no credibility as an actual game critic. That review pretty much lined up perfectly with not only my thoughts on the game but also touched upon the most common issues others had with the game.

Either way, it's really too bad that more people don't mention the impact the fancy new-fangled facial capture technology being stapled onto the same body models RockStar has been using since GTA3 has. It's such a blatantly obvious and extremely distracting visual break that so few people comment on.

 

[pepitko]

Yahtzee seemed to have more mixed feelings about this one, but overall I'd think the game managed to hold up quite well in ZP. My copy is sitting beside me as I type this, I'll start playing on Monday. Can't wait.

 

[Random berk]

L.A. Noire, it was a great idea, but it was handled so badly. The cars handled like Da Vinci's tank would have (the real one, not the AC: Brotherhood one) Wooden or chain link fences that wouldn't stop a bicycle in other games could smash the shit out of a heavy 40's car, and in the interrogations, it was impossible to know whether to go for doubt or lie. So often I'd review the evidence, find nothing that was conceivably related to the question, pick doubt, and be told I was wrong. Come to think of it, why were the music chimes for right and wrong so damned similar? It just became unbearable after the homicide cases, hell even those bored me about halfway though. I thought my local shop was driving a hard bargain offering 45 euros of store credit if I could bring the game back in a week, but after finishing it, I was glad to be rid of it.

 

[Bre2nan]

that whole "the character goes down a tangent I don't want them to" reminds me of Mass Effect 2. Pretty much any game where you pick a vaguely-described angle and watch your guy talk about it for a little bit will have that problem where he's not saying exactly what you thought he would say. It's like when your player character acts stupid during a cutscene: such a jarring loss of control carrying your character in a direction you don't want him to go is just kind of an insult to the whole "game" thing where you're supposed to be in control.

I much prefer the straight up simple conversation system where you pick something for your character to say and they say it. Doesn't need to be more complex than that

 

[Hybridwolf]

I think I know the case he was on about with the two flimsy defendents. It's the golden butterfly, and it is fairly obvious who the game wants you to blame, but what annoyed me was that you couldn't ask the new def (who is a child molester to boot) what his shoe size was and the really vague questions you asked in the final interorgation. Just felt like the molester had been thrown in to create a new bad guy.

Eitherway, I'm loving the game so far, and although the critisms are fair, I still think Phelps is a much better PC then most.

 

[necromanzer52]

I'm confused. He didn't complain too much about it but usually if he likes a game, he outright says so.

 

[IndianaJonny]

That's the first Captain Scarlet reference I've heard in a loooong time.

 

[XcessGAMR]

Just finished it a few hours ago.
Yahtzee you charismatic stallion you've done it again
Particularly loved the Captain Scarlet reference and totally agree on the interview problems. Either way though this game damn good and I think anyone who's been on the edge as to whether or not they should buy this game should give it a go!

 

[KoalaKid]

This game just wasn't for me, it was far to depressing, and even though you have a huge map you can't go into any of the buildings outside of the main storyline anyway.

 

[GonzoGamer]

A fun rental but I?m glad I didn?t buy it.
I found the interrogations to be really unintuitive too. I?m trying to needle for some more info and my character starts foaming at the mouth. I thought the system would be more laddered but it felt more like a cutscene with a random ending.
And yes, while the characters certainly look more detailed, they don?t look any less creepy and inhuman.
I?m surprised Yhatzee didn?t mention the hand-holding or the Newspapers. Are they for anything or have I just not gotten to that part yet?

 

[endnuen]

I think I'll get it when it hits a reasonable price.

 

[Supp]

After I saw "Brink" last week I knew it'll be L.A. Noire this one... but you're going to do Witcher 2 next week... right... right? It's not going to be some special E3 episode again? Or you're going to do both, amirite?

He's probably going to wait a week or two after E3 to do a video about it. That's how he usually works, giving the game/event time to sink in before deciding to rip it to shreds with a semi-automatic machete.

 

[WorldFree55]

haha, great review Yahtzee

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

For some reason I expected the end credit to be "Yahtzee is a loose cannon but a damn good cop".

[Take a shot]