LA Noire

complete with O_o extra e. First publicized with a BS proof-of-concept video like four years ago and is now starting to look like a game... but is it me or does it look kind of hilariously sucky? This is the screen they choose to publicize?

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2010/02/la-noire-gi-02152010.jpg

Valve, get it?

I'm all for 30s/40s-set video games but I'm thinking Mafia 2 is going to be my flavour for 2010.

is it on PS2?

any game that lets me drive cars with white-walled tyres is okay with me.

but that picture, tho nice idea, is a bit crap

Valve, get it?

Er, no? It's not a valve game, is it?

If this game is a GTAIV in 30s Hollywood I will be disappointed.

but then if it isn't a GTAIV set in 30s Hollywood I will also be disappointed.

m@tt did the gameinformer piece; seemed interesting

New article in Edge makes this sound pretty fucking dope.

Is this going to be a detective video game with actual detecting and procedural stuff, rather than "go to X, find item, go to Y, perform task"?

they turned Heavy Rain into a game!

is it really coming out this fall like they claim in the article?

So far the only thing that really grabs me about this game is, "a near street-for-street recreation of LA circa 1947," but that REALLY grabs me (also is probably bullshit). We'll see.

i guarantee whatever detective work remains in this game will also be plenty watered down so as to not scare anyone away. that is just the way of things nowadays. there is a happy medium out there, though, just waiting to be discovered, somewhere between god of war style "puzzles" (door + lever = ????) and monkey island extreme lateral thinking (of course, put the termites on the wooden leg!!)

http://www.thehouseofgames.net/files/p/police_quest1/police_quest1-3.gif

Let us not forget this game, where failure to properly inspect your vehicle before driving out of the parking lot results in DEATH.

death by mayoral edict

in the above pictured game if one does not go to the shooting range and adjust one's gunsights right at the beginning one dies a horrible death literally hours later. and there's nothing to do but restart the game. god i fucking love old sierra games.

is it me or
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4025/4651749757_dd2dd6ed7b_b.jpg
http://blogs.amctv.com/mad-men/aaronstaton.jpg

is it me or am I moron; just googled and aaron staton plays the fkn lead in LA noire lmbo

i really hope this doesn't turn into just a load of shooting and fighting missions, and instead includes a bit of intelligent puzzle/crime solving.

but being a big fan of noir, and of course freeroaming, am looking forward to this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9IH8fWOwS4&feature=player_embedded

1. Cosgrove!
2. The faces are really nice; just two or three steps removed from indistinguishable from video

this cannot not be amazing

Forreals. Cannot wait.

Sydney-based Depth Analysis has revealed MotionScan, a new system for 3D motion capture designed for the film and video game industries.

The system will make its debut in Rockstar and Team Bondi's L.A. Noire, where all involved say it has streamlined post-production processing and reduced budgets.

"Traditional motion capture could never bring to life the subtle nuances of the chaotic criminal underworld of L.A. Noire in the same way as MotionScan," says Team Bondi founder and director Brendan McNamara.

Thanks to the tech, "the emotional performances of the actors allow the story to unfold in a brand new way," McNamara enthuses. "Through this revolutionary technology, we’re able to deliver audiences a truly unique and revolutionary game."

Depth Analysis explains that MotionScan uses 32 high-definition cameras to capture 3D performances at up to 30 frames per second -- according to the developer, it's able to capture up to 50 minutes of final footage and capable of processing up to 20 minutes of facial animation automatically per day.

It doesn't require phosphorescent paint be applied to the actors, nor staff to clean up data or animate fine details by hand, the company asserts.

"2010 continues the trend of high production values in both triple-A video games and blockbuster movie releases," says Depth Analysis research head Oliver Bao. "Audiences now expect detailed CGI actors and realistic performances that pop onscreen with any game or VFX movie they see, and we developed MotionScan technology with this in mind."

Wait, so the protagonist's voice AND looks are pure Ken Cosgrove?

sounds like it will be mostly investigation-focused, with shooting and fighting in the background:

http://kotaku.com/5691769/the-bold-gamble-of-la-noire

The trick will be making investigation fun, which is not easy.

sounds pretty sweet tbh

hey y'all i forgot forks wanted me to jump on...can't say too much outta school (esp on a r* game)...but anyway

my cover story on the game is up online now, prolly the most info anywhere:

http://gameinformer.com/games/la_noire/b/xbox360/archive/2010/11/11/l-a-noire-preview.aspx

and a new preview:

http://gameinformer.com/games/la_noire/b/xbox360/archive/2010/11/18/la-noire-second-look.aspx

anyway...i'm genuinely excited about this, with some question marks...

it's VERY MUCH a game about having conversations with people and gathering info etc...the big question is how compelling this is over the long term...but it's a cool risk to take i think, it's definitely not just GTA with fedoras...

i got to see all the facial capture analysis stuff live working, saw tapings of actual actors..the whole system is p amazing and very cool tech that i think def pays off in the game. the expressions seem very human, but not in a uncanny valley hyper realistic way...rockstar never seems to go for the photorealism thing, but this is probably the most in that direction they've gone.

as far as atmosphere, setting, soundtrack, etc., it's def top notch, they do such an amazing job with that stuff...

fun fact: in the last demo i saw one of the actresses was the girl that grinded on jonah hill in superbad and got period blood on his pants.

"it's definitely not just GTA with fedoras..."
^in a nutshell what I was afraid of. Cool to hear that reassurance

m@tt, do you think the tech they're using for this game is likely to become an industry standard? It's hella impressive looking.

yeah it's hard to say, because so many companies as so invested in their own pipelines at this point...but rockstar doesn't own the tech, and team bondi is def. shopping it around though, also to hollywood

it essentially works like "filming", there are essentially no hand animations done. was pretty impressive, as was the 2001 space pod that they film in (picture in the cover story)

the big thing is that it allowed them to do such a greater volume of capture and dialogue, like there are no "random" peds, each one has actual lines, etc

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/developer-diary-l-a-noire/708504?type=flv

those facial expressions are pretty rad, shame they still have puppet body movements lol.

lol otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yZ0T_t5j4s&feature=player_embedded#at=150

damn, the facial subtleties are fucking impressive!

yeah those facial movements are somewhat amazing really

I hope the investigation part of the gameplay works. I'm anticipating good things with this one.

this is exactly the kind of game i've been waiting to play all my life.

i hope it lives up to those humble expectations

might well be the game that finally persuades mrs. ofthenest to let me buy a PS3

this is exactly the kind of game i've been waiting to play all my life.

― it's not in the Wu-Tang Manual (latebloomer), Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:18 AM (1 month ago) Bookmark

is it getting reviews yet?

3 discs for 360!

wauuuu

Yeah I'm not even much into the GTA series and stuff but this looks SWEET. The facial expression tech is amazing.

although I enjoyed RDR and the GTAs, I kinda got bored and feel like I'm a bit over these games (and games in general except maybe football games). I couldn't bother finishing RDR and the gay tony extension for GTA for instance. Couldn't take more of the same kind of missions and all the riding around (even using taxis and camping). that said, this seems interesting and I might give it a try...

this looks interesting and i will defo buy it. loved rdr when i started playing it, but grew tired of the horse riding after a while and couldn't be fucked with it/never completed it. it got all the non-gameplay aspects right though - graphics, soundtrack, atmosphere, plot etc.

also 3 discs ffs

i thought this would be a day one purchase for me, but i find that as we get closer to release i want to wait to see reviews more and more. i'm not totally certain rock star can pull this thing off. tho if it's just GTA + noir + realistic faces that might be enough

it definitely seems like it's more than that

3 discs = can't load to HD?

so 1 disk on ps3, heavens the fanboys are going to go nuts!

not made by rockstar so i imagine quite different.

shooting looks to be aiming rather than lock-on, which is a plus.

otoh as you're a polis i doubt you'll get to beat up prostitutes :/

I've been looking forward to this for ages, these games are just my thing. Completed GTA IV and RDR twice each (and Undead Nightmare), and I still want more. When I first heard about this I really hoped it would be some Chandleresque private eye thing, so it's pretty disappointing that you play some cop working his way up. Never mind, BRING IT.

wth is this 3-disc thing about? Goddsakes.

FF7 was 3-discs on PS so i doubt it'll ruin the game

Chandleresque private eye thing, so it's pretty disappointing that you play some cop working his way up. Never mind, BRING IT.

idk i feel like this mines some nice ed mcbain/evan hunter territory, which i'm just as happy with as another chandler rehash

seems like it doesn't go quite so dark as ellroy or something

acourse i say this all based on youtube trailers so what do i know

i'm really enthused about the 3 discs tbh. value for money.

v disappointed there's no plans for a pc port atm

not sure whether to buy this on ps or xbox.

1st world problems.

bonus dlc for ps - solve the crime of the stolen credit card #'s

jims glasses are always half full, like it.

pre-ordered for ps3. i obviously don't care as much about gamerscore as i thought i did.

anyone playing this? the reviews make it sound not so fun.

hi scores on reviews where the reviewers don't really sound like they enjoy the game = rarely a good sign

it's weird to me that tv's aaron staton isn't just the voice but the look of the main dude.

Isn't Walter from Fringe in it too?

Eurogamer said something about how this feels very TV-like, in that it splits nicely into 40-60 minute episodes. I like the sound of that.

it's weird to me that tv's aaron staton isn't just the voice but the look of the main dude.

that's been their whole selling point, right?

yeah i guess, i haven't been paying close enough attention. it just gets into uncanny valley territory. but maybe it'll work well!

some reviews seem really excited and some seem fairly tepid. Tom Chick totally panned the game today on quartertofive but I don't always trust his opinion...

read one review that mentioned how much of a difference it makes if you turn the music/vibration cues off when searching for clues, and that seems key.

after hearing my coworker talk about it today I have zero interest in this game.

what did he say

- frustrating concessions to historical accuracy, particularly no GPS system showing your route
- interrogations & questioning people is badly implemented - for instance, when you fail at interrogating someone and the chief sends you back in to try it again, the dialogue tree stays exactly the same
- UI issues - this may just be the tutorial phase of the game but apparently there's big floating directional text you have to read, which would be fine except that it's distracting you from doing actual investigation & picking up facial clues
- extremely linear, at least so far

having said all that he says he's really liking it so far, but since we are polar opposites when it comes to big "event" games (he loves being part of the zeitgeist which goes down when Everyone in The Gaming Community experiences something in the same approximate timeframe, I am a surly misanthrope who cares exclusively about M.E.) I'm not too surprised by that.

interrogations & questioning people is badly implemented - for instance, when you fail at interrogating someone and the chief sends you back in to try it again, the dialogue tree stays exactly the same

this is lame & yet seems inevitable, was kinda hoping the facial cues aspect of it would sorta overwhelm this

when you fail at interrogating someone and the chief sends you back in to try it again, the dialogue tree stays exactly the same

seems like this is the only possible design decision, apart from saying "you fail" and having to reload.

otherwise you get fallout-style dialogues where there are 9 things you have to hear and each one starts with "hey, nice to see you again, what's up"

I agree but "inevitable" and "necessary" are not terms which I want to see applied to a game's big, touted-from-the-mountains Revolutionary Gameplay Aspect. I'd like the "you fail"/reload presentation option a lot better tbqh; there would be less dissonance if the chief straight-up fired you for getting worked by a criminal, especially considering that the criminals in the early part of the game are apparently cartoonishly hammy and any cop actually worth their salt would know enough to handle shit. they could have even put together multiple "endings" ("standing under moody streetlight holding all possessions in a box", "passed out in alley with needle in arm", "contemplating man-whoring", etc.) for that situation to keep folks who just don't get it engaged with the game. but nooooooo, instead they went with the Groundhog Day option.

then again I guess that's just a symptom of modern game design not wanting to let players fail for fear of turning them off. never mind the fact that players tend to remember failure more fondly or for way longer (QED most NES games, The Oregon Trail, the Hitchhiker's Guide text adventure, etc.).

well, remember that the audience playing is much, much wider than it was back in the days of NES/Oregon Trail/HHG

One lesson I suspect that Rockstar learned from GTA IV is that they need to make games people will actually finish. RDR seems to do everything it can to get you to finish it, even at the risk of giving you quite a lot of chances. I'll never know what happens to Niko Bellic because his story always stops about 1/3 of the way in. I get tired of driving all the way across the city just to get shot to death and wake up outside a hospital.

If L.A. Noire lets you interrogate the same person till you get it right... Who cares? RDR is a way better experience than GTA IV for exactly that reason. I got to try again without making it feel like the game was punishing me arbitrarily for wanting to follow the story but not having the reflexes necessary to shoot a gun and drive a car at the same time.

If L.A. Noire lets you interrogate the same person till you get it right... Who cares?

I don't, but it's pretty disappointing when devs promise a pretty unique experience and deliver yet another animated flowchart.

xpost that is a very valid point and it's probably not a coincidence that a bunch of my favorite contemporary games are made with comparatively narrow audiences in mind (Bayonetta, Demon's Souls, Pac-Man CE DX, et al).

Fuck man, the first interrogation scene took me forever. I am so dumb.

Hey I'm playing a GTA style version of an Ellroy novel ... oh wait, now I'm playing Ace Attorney? Uh.

OK yeah but is it any good (not like I can afford it until next week at the earliest).

I don't know yet.

I mean, it looks great, but I can't tell if it's fun yet.

So far the game is 90% interrogating/searching for clues, 10% other.

maan you lot have just made up my mind on whether to get this or not

saw the tv ad last night, flatmates said the faces looked weird - uncanny valley ahoy.

the look of the game it doesn't bother me – i sort of love it, nosing around in corners and alleys and hearing the bajillions of passing comments made by the passerbys and hookers. it's also really fun driving around a fully rendered and street-level accurate '40s LA, and the open map is pretty awesomely spectacular. (I've never played any of the GTA games). I've gone off the case a couple times because I drove all the way to Hollywood to see what my apartment looked like in the '40s.

IME experience – 3 or 4 hours of gametime last night – you can repeat the interrogations many times to receive the desired outcome BUT you will lose the experience necessary to advance in the ranks if you mess up too much. there are definitely consequences for hamhanded technique or blustering policework. you can also make a lot more trouble by yourself by poorly interrogating suspects/witnesses, and have to take a different branch of the investigation that is potentially a lot more dangerous/annoying than if you just conducted the investigation right the first time.

the foot chases are really fun, and the crime scenes are really well rendered. and increasingly intricate.

I think it's also kind of telling that my girlfriend – who has never really cared about any PS3 game but Little Big Planet – practically tackled me for the controller last night to play LA Noire.

Charlie Brooker was tweeting about this last night, and said something similar:

It's the sort of game you can play with someone else in the room, and rather than being bored shitless, they'll immediately start joining in

- frustrating concessions to historical accuracy, particularly no GPS system showing your route

all for this, sort of -- i mean i then immediately start thinking 'how else could you do it?' -- is there like a crazy taxi directional arrow thing? that would work: nothing ahistorical about accepting you know your way around the city

- interrogations & questioning people is badly implemented - for instance, when you fail at interrogating someone and the chief sends you back in to try it again, the dialogue tree stays exactly the same

this, otoh, sounds terrible

if this game were actually as good as the hype it would probably push me into getting into video games again, which is exactly what i need not to be doing

Might as well post all of Charlie Brooker's tweets for anyone who's interested:

Couple of LA Noire impressions, if you're interested. (No spoilers) If not, look away now for a few minutes.

OK. So I'm enjoying it a lot. V. engrossing (too much; I have work to do). Utterly different pace from GTA.

It's a bit Heavy Rain, a bit GTA, a bit Police Quest, and *faintly* reminds me of those FMV CD-Rom games that were all the rage in the 90s.

It's a very strange mix of state-of-the-art and old school: sometimes it's a bit like playing a LucasArts point-and-click.

The facial animation, as everyone's pointed out, is truly astonishing. Hence the FMV reference. You forget they're in-game characters.

EG at one point, I recognised a supporting character as guy who played Jimmy Barrett in Mad Men S2 -- not just from voice, but mannerisms.

Some ppl may be put off by the rather old-school crime scene clue-hunting, which feels very point-and-click. But I like that sort of thing.

It's very *very* James Ellroy. Very strong, confident tone.

Yes, for those asking, it stars Ken Cosgrove from Mad Men.

It is odd though, it's very much a 'game'. Total immersion one minute; the next you're very much aware of limitations.

For some mad reason it keeps reminding me of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_a_Killing_Moon

I honestly couldn't give it a 'difficulty rating' thus far. In fact that feels strangely irrelevant.

It's the sort of game you can play with someone else in the room, and rather than being bored shitless, they'll immediately start joining in

It feels like a big leap forward in some ways, and slight throwback in others. It's unique. Am only about 15% into it, but I say get it.

I'll tell you what LA Noire is: it's the triumphant return of the adventure game.

guy remains a pretty good game critic

- interrogations & questioning people is badly implemented - for instance, when you fail at interrogating someone and the chief sends you back in to try it again, the dialogue tree stays exactly the same

only the beginning of the dialogue tree sounds the same, and you can move off in a wholly different direction as you differently interrogate the subject!

could you go back in and make all the same mistakes, though? i mean, if it's just a reset button?

I had been thinking this looked like under a killing moon 2.0
I'm a bit put off by the fact that though the faces all look EERIE human, the bodies are all floppy marionettes
Too busy right now but will doubtless buy this used for 40 in four months.

http://support.rockstargames.com/entries/20127883-ps3s-shutting-themselves-off-while-playing-l-a-noire

http://www.joystiq.com/ps3-coming-to-life-and-raping-gamers-mothers-sony-offers-free-download-of-god-of-war-II-as-apology

could you go back in and make all the same mistakes, though? i mean, if it's just a reset button?

― thomp, Wednesday, May 18, 2011 6:15 AM (5 hours ago)

as far as I've moved in the game, you CAN make the same mistakes again. But it'll have an impact on the script of the case, impact your own chances for promotion, and make more work for your character.

from a review:

n the early cases, the game holds your hand through these processes, and as a result, they can feel narrow and artificial. For instance, at one point, you need to get a confession from a suspect. If you botch the interrogation, the suspect will dismiss you, at which point your commanding officer will tell you to get back in there and get a confession out of the suspect, starting the whole thing over. It's also typically very obvious early on when a suspect or witness is not being entirely honest, as he or she makes an exaggerated show of looking nervous or shifty eyed. But once the training wheels come off, the process gets a lot more interesting. It becomes entirely possible to miss vital clues at crime scenes or fail to get important information from a witness and to progress through a case, and suspects behave more naturally, which makes them tougher to read.

i havent been paying much attention to this, but i saw a commercial for it last night and was astonished by the facial animation. sounds like it'd be up my alley.

(he loves being part of the zeitgeist which goes down when Everyone in The Gaming Community experiences something in the same approximate timeframe,

this phenomenon has always fascinated me

I got really drunk with some friends I'm half-jokingly writing a a script for a video game with a few days ago, and was walking around outside, and I've never said the words "facial technology" so much in my life

one of my friends at that time was trying to explain how studies into facial technology began with the FACS system developed for the fbi or something and how appropriate it is that this game is out there as pretty much the current culmination of animation using it

but he was drunk so it took a really long time

This looks awesome, and I might have to break my 'No more white male PoV characters ever ever EVER" rule to play it. . Vexing but - damn.

That must be a hard rule to adhere to

I am really really bad at interrogating people in this game.

It's quite a new rule. I have become very grumpy about the lack of progress vis-a-vis the overwhelming skew towards a white male perspective in the core games industry. The more realistic and culturally significant games get, the more obvious and disgusting the bias is. I've had enough. Won't derail this thread though. Might even have to buy my own console to play it...

the cultural significance of games is WILDLY overstated. massive revenue =/= relevance.

in fact I would argue that games were more culturally significant back in the NES days even if we didn't realize it at the time! I have a hard time imagining the Hot Topic of the 2030s is going to be stuffed with Master Chief shirts or hipster galleries hosting an endless series of exhibitions of BLOPS-themed art.

Do Japanese males count as white males? Also I think Italian plumbers, while technically white, tell us a lot about immigration to strange mushroom-filled countries.

As a Latin American male, I'm proud to relate to prominent video-game role models like Donkey Kong.

http://hljew.blogspot.com/2009/03/if-gordon-freeman-was-jewish.html

I was called a "goy motherfucker" in, like, the first two hours. This game is incredible.

It's quite a new rule. I have become very grumpy about the lack of progress vis-a-vis the overwhelming skew towards a white male perspective in the core games industry.

http://lendmeurear.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/farmville-cake.png

do we have a thread about THEE CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF GAMING? i am tempted to start one because otherwise i will probably just shit this thread up

Core games industry. Core, core as in not casual. Please start the other thread.

Okay, I just unlocked a Dusenberg. I'm loving the hidden vehicles rewards – I hit almost 100 mph on Sunset Blvd, and also launched myself 300 feet into the air just in front of the Hollywood sign. I've driven past my old apartment, and it was eerie and odd. Only dislike about the game is that Los Feliz/Silverlake isn't modeled. I wanted to drive to the Brown Derby, but it's off the edge of the map.

the casual games industry is the core games industry yo

oh it's a back-formation from 'hardcore'? ew

Yeah, I'm curious what the revenue breakdowns are for casual vs trad. I think any discussion of gaming will skew towards trad for years just due to the fact that casual gamers aren't going to be the ones seeking out games discussion or be games journos.

I'm reminding of something either the Giantbombcast or 1up guys said; when talking a friend about the games coming out for the Wii, the fact that the Wii had other games was irrelevant to the friend. The Wii was the box you played tennis or maybe Wii Fit on, that's it.

I think Nintendo finally twigged onto this last part, since software sales for the machine were down so much. Maybe we'll see something at E3 to address this.

Anyhoo, I mention the casual vs trad thing b/c since you only have the harder core gamer-types actually talking about these things, it affects both perception and self-perception of the industry.

I would have defined "trad" gaming as casual

What are the other boundaries (roughly) of the map? Long Beach? Pasadena? Glendale? North Hollywood/Studio City?

The derail is annoying me, if anyone wants to start a thread to rip into me about my choice of words or talk about culture or wtf you like please do, otherwise I'll do it on Weds when not on iPhone.

i think it's a good point fwiw.

i tend to play as women in rpg's if possible, just to see how the dialogue is different. in most contemporary rpgs you can fuck all the women you want anyway.

lol.

To bring Zora's point back to thread relevance, I think you'd be hard pressed to avoid the white male thing in a game like this because of the time and industry it's set in. They seem, on my initial glance (been watching N play it for a few days now) fairly faithful to 1940s USA culturally. Unapologetic racism and casual, ill-defended violence against women all over the place. It'd be easy as a woman to get offended by this but I'd be more offended if they'd PC'ed it out, to be honest.

sure but that milieu didn't drop down from the the sky all by itself, it's had a romanticism and lyricism built up around it by books and movies that were pretty much all... told from a white male pov

anyway this sounds less like heavy rain than indigo prophecy / fahrenheit (which iirc let you play as a white guy (first, natch) then a latino woman and finally as a black guy). i liked the tightrope conversation decisions you have to make in that.

this piecing together of clues things sounds like a snooze though tbqfh - fahreneit did it OK but i don't know if i'd want a whole game of it. i was never a "puzzler" though

Reading their faces starts to get kinda hard after a while. What was interesting for me is that normally, N aces games while I watch him in bewliderment: he's been working in the industry so long he knows every last trick game designers pull and can easily find clues, shortcuts and beat bosses.

But put him in front of this, and I'm working out when theyre lying and when not, and he has no idea and is doing quite badly. The logic/intuition gap may be a little imagined, I'll concede, but it has me intrigued anyway.

Finished this thing.

!!

more reviews plz

i ain't getting this, the city looks amazing and i know i'd just end up driving around gta style instead of attempting the cases which gameplay wise looks too much like heavy rain to me.

There's not much to do GTA-style. You drive around and occasionally get reports of street crimes that need urgent resolution but it's not quite as rewarding to just wander as in the last Grand Theft Auto. The city's beautiful but there's much more of an incentive to drive sensibly and the lack of choice when it comes to music makes cruising around a lot less fun. It's all about the cases, really.

It's really enjoyable and atmospheric but the early cases follow the same formula and can feel like you're just negotiating between cut scenes. There's not much challenge in the action bits either. Things start to pick up when you get to the murder desk but it's plot-driven, for the most part, rather than a traditional gaming experience. There's a real sense of achievement when you unlock a couple of the tougher interrogations though.

It's not the knock-out experience i was hoping for but it's extremely compelling. I've just been transferred to Vice, so i'd imagine i'm about half-way through, and i can see everything else taking a back seat until i've wrapped it up.

Yeah to me from my quick looks at this, its far more of an "interactive movie" than a game in the GTA sense. Yr guided thru the plot, clues, resolution. I like it.

It's like a choose your own adventure story with only one possible outcome. You're always going to progress through the same cases in the same order with the same ending, but you may occasionally get yelled at by your boss if you fuck up. So in that sense the "game" is almost incidental.

There is a scene late in the game that I kept dying on, and a prompt popped in that said "would you like to skip this action scene? Doing so will not affect the outcome of the game". I think that pretty much says it all.

Basically it's a beautiful city without much in it or without much to do. There isn't a single gun battle in the game as challenging as, say, the first level of The Lost and the Damned. There isn't a single fist fight in the game that requires more than "dodge, punch punch, dodge, punch punch".

Also, many of the "correct" choices in interrogation are counterintuitive to say the least.

That said, I finished the entire game in a week so it must be doing something right, because I never finish games anymore.

But did you enjoy it?

I liked it, but mostly because I liked the story and the acting and the environments. I'm not sure I'd recommend it as a game.

ah, the lost and the damned, what a fucking awesome game that was... i must replay that some day.

Got this today to play with Mrs problemchimp, will report back for those short of attention span.

Kinda stoked that Charlie Brooker compared it to Under A Killing Moon, I had that when I was a LOT younger and really liked it (despite some of the humour going over my head at the time). Unfortunately the family computer being upgraded from MS/DOS / Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 and it wouldn't run.

I'm really enjoying it.like an old point and click game with interrogations with realistic faces as the gimmick.

^These sorts of reviews have made me 10x more interested in the game that I was before release

I think people who are calling this an updated Police Quest are OTM. I loved the first 6 or 7 hours of the game that I've played so far. Sucks that the replay value is close to nil once you complete it, though. Hopefully they release a ton more cases as downloadable content.

Huh I didnt even think about that. The add on value is p much endless in theory, just case after case!

* Doping allegation
* Female passenger
* Fake shrunken head

Pretty sure I sent an innocent man to death row today. When they said this game is an accurate representation of U.S. policing, they weren't kidding, amirite.

Enjoying it a lot though. Just disappointed that it isn't as 'open' as GTA IV and RDR. It is basically case after case. I'd love to take time out and explore the city - on my own - but there's nothing really to do.

It does feel like something you approach like a DVD box set, doing a few episodes in a session and taking turns on the pad. Fatigue tends to set in when you have to keep combing new crime scenes for clues.

Really like the cop show drama presentation with the ominous shot of the misdeed at the start etc. It gives me a weird hankering for a Police Squad reskin DLC

Definitely feeling the criticism of some of the interrogation responses being counterintuitive, especially when you have to accuse someone of "lying" when they've just made some general vague musing and you're not even really sure what truth value you're supposed to be inferring from it

can you accuse someone of lying and then whip out completely shit evidence? eg "that boiler isn't new - and this PROP SHRUNKEN HEAD PROVES IT"

lol how many dudes from mad men in this?I count 5.

Which ones?

Really enjoying this now, a few cases in. Are the side quests (when you get a call on CB asking you to respond to a nearby case and you have to battle it out with guns etc) necessary? Any reward/penalty to these?

Six now that I think.

Ken cosgrove obv.
PETE CAMPBELL.
comedian from utz adverts,jimmy something? here playing gangster mickey cohen,he's great.
Smiddy of Kurt and Smiddy.
Kinsey.
Harry Crane.

I really thought ELizabeth Moss played one of the characters but i just looked it up and it's not her apparently

Yeah I thought it was her, too.

It's a model/actress who coincidentally resembles Moss. GIS "Amanda Booth LA Noire"

nsfw, btw

(lol)

There's a handy guide to who's who here:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-27-whos-who-in-l-a-noire-article

Ha,so 9 mad men cast members.

comedian from utz adverts,jimmy something? here playing gangster mickey cohen,he's great.

this guy is also in mulholland dr. and the opening credits of idiocracy and i get so happy every time i'm watching (or playing!) something and his eyebrows make an unexpected appearance.

Yeah I also coulda sworn John Cryer had a cameo right at the start w/the first shooting but it isnt him.

Really enjoying this now, a few cases in. Are the side quests (when you get a call on CB asking you to respond to a nearby case and you have to battle it out with guns etc) necessary? Any reward/penalty to these?

― calstars, Monday, 30 May 2011 03:02 (9 hours ago)

Best main theme from a game since the original GTA3.

Is there a point in the game when the rolling eye bit doesn't always signify a doubt or lie?

*rolls eye sideways*

No

this rules!

dunno what ppl mean by no replay value either, i'm already looking fwd to trying these things a different way. i might be more completist that most tho.

no, i'm enjoying replaying the cases – sometimes – right after i play them. i want to get 100% on each of them, and i get mad when my sleuthing skills fail to find something.

there are a couple different segments (in street crimes and in story) where you have a foot chase + gun battle going, and i'm trying to figure out if you always have to kill the guy or if there's a way to subdue the person? idk. i've never successfully tackled anyone.

yeah, a few of the car chases seem to end in a giant collision. i want to stop them with my mad aggressive PIT maneuver instead

There have been a couple of ones where I've painstakingly brought down a suspect with a shot to the leg to subdue them and bring them to trial, and then it's immediately switched to a cutscene where they're lying there in a pool of blood as if I've just stood there emptying clip after clip into them for about five minutes

There are definitely a couple where you can do a "warning shot" to make them give themselves up

The sudden adventure game interval on the last mission on the murder desk is kind of immersion-breaking and ridiculous - the treasure hunt stuff is quite fun but the cut price Assassin's Creed stuff doesn't work because it handles like ass

why is there an "e" in "noire"? is it cause LA is a lady?

http://www.slate.com/BLOGS/blogs/browbeat/archive/2011/05/25/hardboiled-verbal-crime-what-is-the-meaning-of-l-a-noire-s-extra-e.aspx

There have been a couple of ones where I've painstakingly brought down a suspect with a shot to the leg to subdue them and bring them to trial, and then it's immediately switched to a cutscene where they're lying there in a pool of blood as if I've just stood there emptying clip after clip into them for about five minutes

this happened to me in the first action scene and it's reason #1 why i haven't played much past that, but i was just watching my housemate do things that appeared to be pretty cool--detective things!--so i'm probably going back.

Thinking about starting a poll: Should I Buy and Play LA Noire Y/N? but maybe I'll just ask you guys. Is it worth $60 or if I can hold off (and I think I can) should I wait for a significant price drop?

Tellefsen Guy
Someone on the gameFAQs forums suggested that the title is pronounced as "Elle est noire," or "She is black" -- a reference both to the city's corruption and to the "Black Dahlia" who plays a significant role in the game.
5 days ago, 11:47:54 – Flag – Reply

!

Is it worth $60 or if I can hold off

I say hold off, but definitely play it at some point.

It's $45 on half.com at the moment.

So:

- What is up with the chiming during interrogation? Sometimes I will hear a chime after every response I give (which is supposed to signify success, right?) but then after the scene it shows 'Questions correct: 2/4'

- This game is basically a veiled GTA. It's as if RStar north sent the base code to Australia and had them build a giant DLC over it. How many releases has RStar now gotten out of the same game engine? Sheesh.

- Came across a floating car at an intersection

- Some of the car flips have been crazy (ie GTA4. Well, same engine so no surprise there.)

- The facial animation is cool. I was a doubter but now I am a believer.

Guys we have to pay $90 for new games here, quit whining :P

I finished it. Lot of issues with it but I found it compulsive. I'm a great believer in games being about gameplay and not story,acting,sound,graphics etc. but I think my appreciation of this game was mainly to do with nongameplay elements.which is weird for me.

love the righteous-dealing irish captain

- What is up with the chiming during interrogation? Sometimes I will hear a chime after every response I give (which is supposed to signify success, right?) but then after the scene it shows 'Questions correct: 2/4'

Listen to the final note of the chime.

I was actually hoping it *would* be basically a 1940s GTA, but it has a whole different feel imo. The driving is similar, but I think I read somewhere that Team Bondi actually used a different engine to create this.

I'm on the Quarter Moon Murders case atm, chasing around town after clues. It's a fun break from the old routine.

yeah watching a walkthrough, and the guy is on those cases now too.

but is it all as easy as it looks?
Clues seem to be right in front of you all the time, music plays when you've found them all anyway, interrogation consists of just clicking on the questions and then the piece of evidence to back up your accusation.
Fighting and shooting elements don't exacly look challenging either.

but, might just be because i'm lazily sat watching instead of playing it.

That's a stupid thing to do.

now now

It isn't as easy as you're describing it but it's definitely easy.

Not to nitpick, but the biggest bum note about the game is the clichéd earnest, wet-behind-the-ears protagonist. Some world-weariness would have been welcome -- someone with a past that he wasn't proud of.

Have you finished it? Backstory gets fleshed out.

I got the impression he was at least not happy with people going on endlessly about him being a war hero? But it seemed like that back-story was gonna have some relevance in the game and I have a feeling that never pans out (havent seen/played all thru yet)

xpost o well that answers my q then lol

Apparently I have to buy this from a shop?

Haha right??

man i think this game is just great.

I'm a great believer in games being about gameplay and not story,acting,sound,graphics etc. but I think my appreciation of this game was mainly to do with nongameplay elements.which is weird for me.

― Introducing the Hardline According to (jim in glasgow), Wednesday, June 1, 2011 3:32 AM (5 days ago) Bookmark

i think this is otm.

sure the game goes out of its way to make investigating pretty 'easy' but the level of detail is so great, walking around a room and picking up shit doesn't seem like a boring chore to me. i haven't tried playing w/o the signals yet tho.

i find the truth/doubt/lie thing genuinely challenging and fun, too. tho really the tough choices are btw doubt and a specific lie.

i haven't felt like there's a bum note in any of the plots, characterizations or (esp) the v/o, and i'm a huge bitch about that kind of thing.

I got 1 star on the lipstick murder case. Not proud of myself.

really enjoyed this game but i burned through it so quickly:-( wish there had been more!

there will be, almost certainly. pretty sure this is rockstar's experiment with selling the razor and then selling blades afterward

no their FIRST time doing this, but the most blatant and refined

Bissell weighs in

now i can finally exhale...

I played the game through in two days, after which I wondered if the single most damning thing about video games is the fact that one could argue, legitimately, that 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is a better game than L.A. Noire.

Somebody's been reading coint and plick...

Coint + Plick should be a video game institution.

xp lol at the idea of BotS being used as a 'palette cleanser' in the middle of a longer game.

is that 50 game good? i dunno about that dude as a writer...

finished this btw, pretty satisfying ending i thought.

Dunno anything else about that guy but think he gets to the heart of why it's such a strange game quite well; recognition-laughed at the idea of every interrogation decision being based on the response least likely to make Phelps go inexplicably apeshit in front of orphaned children

Found the [more dramatic bit of the ] ending really abrupt and way more like a low budget ps2 cutscene compared to the rest of the game

xp The 50 cent game is terrible, but you can shoot at stuff without having to think about it. Playing Doom for a few days in the middle of a longer more involved game would have the same effect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=496-HyZi0oI

Found the [more dramatic bit of the ] ending really abrupt and way more like a low budget ps2 cutscene compared to the rest of the game

― MPx4A, Friday, June 10, 2011 1:26 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah you're kinda right.

should made you try to scramble out of [dramatic situation], wouldn't that have been funny

as the resident ilg lover of terrible games, you will all be glad to know that i own and enjoy 50 cent BOTS because it is terrible and ridiculous and unintentionally hilarious. hit me up if you ever want to coop goole

lol only if you get a headset so i can say 'bitch where's my skull' a lot

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-06-27-la-noire-dev-responds-to-controversy

So maybe the reason Phelps has a tendency to randomly go nuts at the people he's interviewing is that the guy who invented him is a psychopath?

(Totally over this game btw, got bored about an hour into disc 2 and can't motivate myself to go back to it).

ha. priceless quotes.

i just finished this the other night. really wanted to like it, but i mostly just found it dull and repetitive tbh. there's not much of a game in there.

Yeah I am playing this and I am bot sure if I am actually having anything that could be called fun really?

That's what stopped me, yeah. If it was purely a "sit and watch this unfold" thing then maybe that would be ok? But it was 60% that, plus some "drive from here to here, CAREFULLY, and if you bump anything we'll penalise you for it" plus some "spend 15 minutes looking at all these beer bottles and if you miss any we'll penalise you for it" and even though those penalties ended up being meaningless anyway it still made it feel like it was punishing me a lot more than it was rewarding me. Which again seems to match up with Brendan McNamara's general MO, I guess.

Instead of driving carefully I just let my partner drive me everywhere. Helped a lot.

But doesn't that cut out the whole point of the "hey, we rebuilt retro LA"? Which was one of the things I wanted to like about it. I mean it's getting into "the best way to play this game is to not play it" territory.

I dunno though really, maybe more than all the above it's the overly generous approach to failure that killed it for me. There were cases I got completely wrong, and the game just went "ah well, you screwed that up, next!" when really I wanted it to force me to go back and figure it out properly, because otherwise it's like "hold on, I spent an hour on this case and never even worked out who the killer was and suddenly that's that??".

(I realise I'm saying conflicting things here, that it's too easygoing AND that it was too punishing but yeah, it's kinda both somehow).

yeah i think that the penalties for failure should have been higher. i think it ought to have been straight up harder too, but not arbitrarily hard. like, if someone is lying, it ought to not be so physically obvious? meaning you'd have to remember wtf other people say and marshal your evidence better. most of the questions i fail are not being able to differentiate between a specific lie and just saying 'doubt', that's pretty arbitrary imo

the other problem, mentioned in some reviews, is that non-interesting objects are pick-uppable while interesting (non relevant) objects aren't. there are no red herrings. i kept waiting for the one time when a beer bottle or hair brush would be the key to something! but nope.

that said, i'm really into this, i'm digging the atmospherics and the stories are all interesting to me. all the common details from one arc to the next are engrossing to me.

I guess my feeling is that the driving around part of it isn't really the game. I saved most of the dispatch missions for after I completed the game, and it was nice to not have to worry about the effects that running someone over might have on my current case. Otherwise, there's nothing to do in the game world. It's beautifully rendered but lacks those little touches that makes a GTA game world feel vibrant. Like, if you're walking down the street in Liberty City, someone is going to say something really weird to you, or you might see a guy get run over, or etc. etc. While Noire's version of LA looks beautiful, nothing is ever actually happening. Everyone, everywhere only has one thing to talk about ... "HEY, aren't you that cop who solved the _____ murder?" It's monotonous. (And yes... if they piss you off, you can't even murder them.)

If you just let your partner drive, then you'll still have to drive during the chase scenes that are part of missions, and that's enough for me. The driving mechanic is a little clunky anyway.

I agree with you about the overly generous approach to failure. The funny thing about the game is that there are a lot of missions where, even if you do everything right, you STILL don't arrest the guy who actually murdered the person.

i guess, yeah. it's kind of a fish-nor-fowl problem, isn't it? RS added (if the stories are true) just enough sandbox elements to get the GTA punters in (or something) but not enough for it to feel really 'free'. you can't draw your weapon anytime you want, no... which makes the 'side mission' stuff feel especially unrelated. when the hell are you going to be wandering around and happening upon a film can somewhere?

you could imagine there being more integrated 'free segments' like, you get stuck every now and again doing patrol work if there's dead time between cases, or if one of them goes cold for a while. idk, yeah, the writers and designers were not very creative with the rhythm here.

The funny thing about the game is that there are a lot of missions where, even if you do everything right, you STILL don't arrest the guy who actually murdered the person.

lol well not to get too spoilery but this is kind of a running thing with a whole bunch of the cases?

"It's like musical differences in a rock and roll band, right?"

lol no it's not you nerd

i am still "having fun" w/ this game but it is one of the most labored games i've ever played -- everything it accomplishes it accomplishes with a sloppy lurch. all this money and technology and pointless "recreation" for a fun-ish lucasarts demo. and JimD otm: like 90% of modern games it's terrified of preventing you from progressing, so it settles for bitchy scoldings that don't mean anything. i'm playing it at the same time as the first PS2 prince of persia, and obv the games have nothing to do with each other but it's a pretty stark lesson in grace.

i did turn on black and white mode though and that was rad.

lol well not to get too spoilery but this is kind of a running thing with a whole bunch of the cases?

True, but it feels weird to be like "dang, I guess I didn't arrest the right wrong person."

yup, there's def one case where there's a guy who seems 'more' guilty and a freak who your boss wants to railroad. if you go with the 'right' guy your boss is irked and gives you a middling score. i got a kick out of that tbh

The main problem with the game for me is that even if you get one star on ten missions in a row, it does not have any effect on the story whatsoever. There's no punishment for failing other than getting chewed out before the next mission starts. And people still treat you like a hot shot on the rise. I will trade amazing face acting for a story with some real consequences.

Avoiding spoilers, the fact that you sometimes have to pick between two people who are both innocent is problematic. The question is less 'who's the most convincing subject?' than 'does my boss want me to nail the commie or the dope-peddler?'. The 'right' answer seems a bit arbitrary.

I'd have liked to see more genuine deduction at work, although that might have been difficult to accomplish. Rather than being led by the nose from Clue A to Clue B, it might have been nice to have to stop and think about the direction you felt the investigation should go in. Ultimately, the city felt like a wasted resource - little more than background for inconveniently long drives.

All that being said, i still enjoyed it.

yeah i was a little confused when i sort-of-solved one traffic case and suddenly every single person in los angeles was like I THINK THAT'S THAT DETECTIVE!!

Rather than being led by the nose from Clue A to Clue B, it might have been nice to have to stop and think about the direction you felt the investigation should go in. Ultimately, the city felt like a wasted resource - little more than background for inconveniently long drives.

i know there are a couple of cases where you have a partial address, and later get the full one -- can you just cruise that street and find the location "early"? is it "there" to be entered? something to try maybe. or look up on the wiki. lol.

I think I went to a location 'early' in one of the cases (though can't remember which one... seem to recall it involved a dude on a rooftop with some birds). The way events unfolded as a result made the storyline make a bit less sense, so I don't think I was ~supposed~ to be doing things out of order. It didn't end up spoiling the storyline, but it did feel like something had glitched or I'd completely overlooked/missed a step.

idk if its the fact that the facial animations are so good, but somehow the jerky marionette vibe to how peoples bodies move is way more irritating in this to me than in other games ive played

like sorta hello i am a person with my head glued onto a floppy puppet nice 2 meet u

tbf that's kind of how you were when I first met you

http://lastplacecomics.com/comics/2011-06-06-noir.jpg

(was maybe going to post this on game-related lolz, then decided it might be insufficiently lolzy, but since this thread got bumped...)

i really enjoyed this game, but otoh it was shit.

yeah you're probably right :/

could have been great tho, with only minor tweaking imo

the fucking lying/doubt thing was such a crock of shit. so arbitrary as to what constituted evidence or not.

Ugh this game sucks, I keep hoping to find more street crimes so I don't have to suffer through the investigations

avoided this thread for spoilers but I finished it last night. really enjoyed the game and people kvetching seem to be singling out some minor points imo but on the other hand the hype has been ridic for what amounts to a high-spec point and click adventure with no replay value once i've got all the trophies

Idk I hit the point with explosive barrels and just facepalm all over the place imo

man if i ever get tired of shooting bang bang barrels i will be tired of video games

it was nice to not have to worry about the effects that running someone over might have on my current case.

Haven't you noticed - running people over is really difficult. I drove down the pavement (okay, sidewalk)) for a large distance at full speed once, and absolutely everyone leapt out of the way at the last split second. It's a really quick way of getting around, actually.

played this game a few hours and so far finding it really boring. the whole wandering about picking up clues thing is done so laboriously and is just plain unfun - i was a big fan of monkey island and that, but this is a slow-moving chore compared to any of those. even if you see it as playing-a-film it's still kindof a shitty film - characters are unengaging and 2d (protagonist is dreadful, so dweeby!), plots are either super-obvious or confusing and garbled.

avoided this thread for fear of spoilers but glad i read it as nothing in it makes me want to continue playing (esp not as this clue-finding thing seems to be like 50% of the game). not unless i break my legs and get a serious codeine addiction going on.

hit the homicide point and its improving

tackle mechanic is like 1000% bullshit tho. fuck u i cant tackle an old slow dude running away - bullshit.

also some of the clever lines like that whole yorick thing w the shrunken head are so so bad

p sure he was meant to look like a toolbag on that one. missing a reaction shot of the coroner going smh tho.

ha. yeah maybe.

i would dig there being a few more street crime moments where the resolution isnt shoot dude in the face tho - i was kinda hoping that the failed holdup would involve subduing crazed gas station owner instead of pwning fools

yeah i kept wondering if there was a way to resolve those missions that didn't end with me shooting all suspects in the face but i guess not huh?

also i think it's sort of a bold move that the main character is a clearly-labelled tool for the majority of the game, weird as that feels.

plodding thru trying to 100 percent it now and it's hard to be bothered tracking down another 40-odd cars. haven't even seen a film reel, do i have to start a block by block search or am i missing something obvious?

Arrgghhhh just nailed a case 100% on clues and interviews but got boned down to unbecoming 1star ranking thx to vehicle damage Fuuuuck you game.

plodding thru trying to 100 percent it now and it's hard to be bothered tracking down another 40-odd cars. haven't even seen a film reel, do i have to start a block by block search or am i missing something obvious?

― SB OK (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, June 29, 2011 2:06 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

yes, you should start by looking on the internet

grabbed a bunch of the hidden cars last night, they look cool but seem kinda pointless? esp since you can just mappoint them, make your partner drive there, get them, rinse repeat. this game is super odd wrt some of the choices it makes - like the hidden cars are way easier to get than figuring out if thatr is a slightly different blobby sedan you just passed.

another weird quirk - has anyone noticed that the game seems to constantly reset the intersections behind you when youre driving in free mode? spotted odd cars about ten times waiting at intersections i was crossing, hit the brakes and spun around and they were completely gone.

the more i read on this thread the less i look forward to the next gta installment

it's a sandbox with no toys in it really, just aggravatingly tedious behind the prettiness. i've just remembered i assumed there was gonna be an airplane involved in one of the cases cos i'd driven across the airfield a few times but no, you can't even get in the planes?

gotta reiterate i really enjoyed the main story and the cases but nobody's gonna keep coming back to this the way you do with San Andreas

next GTA won't be made by these guys tho? a lot of the scaffolding of greatness is in this thing, it just needs a deeper game on top of it.

i'm rationzlizing the flaws in this by thinking of exactly what i'd do differently, if i were the design team...

from what i've read tho the final product might well have been rushed cos of too many years fannying around with the tech?

yeah maybe...

to people moaning about the driving, i can tear round the city and the damage is so minimal that it doesn't have any impact on the final score. also there's a trophy for scoring a huge damage bill on a case that i haven't had a go at yet.

ha apparently that one is a real bitch -- there's no measure anywhere of how much dmg you've done yet, and you have to attempt it during a case, and finish it, to find out.

well i figured from my usual damage totals that i was gonna have to take out 3 quarters of the city and christ knows how many civilians just to get near the required target.

i'm thinking now that it's a sign of bad faith on the developer's part that the climax of the game more or less stops being about detection and turns into a ropey FPS. and there is NO EFFING REASON for dude to take that flamethrower.

hey team bondi psycho dude, here's what you should have done:

* let phelps pick his car from 'discovered' cars, instead of driving around in your partner's by default. at least make all those car models worth something.

* blend the side-mission stuff into cases a little better. somehow. down time or patrol duty or just schlepping following up dead cases as part of the plot? idk

* higher penalties for failure across the board -- gun fights more lethal, interrogations more make-or-break. you really ought to not be able to take a bunch of bullets, nor blow every question, and be able to move on in the plot.

* maybe script a few of these scenes so that doubting or suspecting someone of lying doesn't mean being aggressive and threatening. unless the subtext of the game really is that phelps is a bullying creep with a chip on his shoulder (not out of the question).

* make conversations more branching-linear instead of a list of q's. it's weird to accuse someone of lying on one q then just breeze to the next one off the list. putting these more on rails (with an off ramp to failtown if you get nothing) would make them more human.

* make every interesting object "lookable" and skip the beer bottles and cigarette butts. fill environments with useful but non-pertinent objects, and don't tell the player the difference. it is supposed to be a mystery, no? allow the player to mark which ones are really pertinent in notes and dump the rest.

* why not have a climactic choice at the end? maybe (w/o spoilers) some characters ought to have the choice to kill other characters, or not?

good god why am i doing this

* make it possible to run out of ammo (ok i have managed this once with a BAR but only because i basically just sprayed away endlessly to see if it was actually possible)

* why not let the player at least cockpunch annoying characters and then get demoted/jailed?

yeah you should be able to pull your piece even if everybody just flips out and the case fails. why not? maybe at some point that wouldn't be a problem (like when shaking down the non-whites e.g.)

yeah i thought they could've gone harder on the racism and misogyny. for an 18 it's often as coy and straitlaced as Phelps himself. in the end it really isn't Noir enough.

see why don't they come to us before releasing these things

i am so irritating about this stuff, and i recognize that, but yeah there lost of dumb little things that bug me in such a "fully realized" world i guess - like the fact that a car going 80+ mph cant drive through a wood fence, or when i found some tennis courts and it wouldnt let me climb into the bleachers on the side or jump over the net when i can like hop chainlinks like its going out of style

the PS3 version seems quite buggy but I am new to the PS3 so idk

yeah you should be able to pull your piece even if everybody just flips out and the case fails. why not? maybe at some point that wouldn't be a problem (like when shaking down the non-whites e.g.)

I haven't played the game but i was pretty surprised to learn this kind of stuff isn't possible considering the setting.

Bought this on Steam for twelve-fiddy; currently unplayable on my hardware, even tho I can get shit like Arkham City/Shogun 2/Portal 2/Tropico 4/Witcher 2 to run at decent framerates with little feature disabling.

Bah. Will probably uninstall this until I upgrade.

went back to this because of the piece nhex posted, and because since i last played and disliked it i've gotten super into los angeles. def having more fun with it than i did before but man the interrogation stuff is fucked, and the way it's fucked is really ironic: instead of having the problem every other adventure game ever made has had, where you're presented with a list of specific things to say and the Correct Answer is always to say all of them, this game presents you with juncture after juncture where you're given three things to say and only one of them is correct, AND IT DOESN'T TELL YOU WHAT THEY ARE. like, i found some taped glasses on a crime scene, and later the missing guy's wife said yes, he was wearing his glasses, he just bought new ones, and i clicked "doubt" because aha i know the glasses are not new! and my douchebag avatar was like STOP LYING TO ME MRS. WHATEVER. YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT GLASSES HE WAS WEARING, BECAUSE YOU WERE THERE. needless to say this approach was not effective. this kind of i-fucked-up-because-i-had-no-idea-how-my-character-would-interpret-"doubt" thing happens to me over and over.

i know this was endlessly talked about by everyone at the time but seeing it as a bizarre overreaction to typical adventure-game risklessness hadn't occurred to me.

and again, despite all of that, no matter what happens in the interrogation, the game will play out exactly the same.

execution of this game is fucking horrible

yeah. it's amazing how far the atmosphere goes for me now tho.

also (w polyphonic's help) i kinda figured out how to handle the interrogations. the trick is to not give a shit.

still thoroughly enjoyed it, yeah

Playing the game with someone who grew up in LA during the 1940s: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-10-09-night-and-the-city

Nice mention of the engine sounds being off

This game drove me crazy. Got tired of doing the same thing over and over again. What a waste, it could have been fantastic.

Rockstar should just put out maps of different cities, no storyline necessary.

YES. just vehicles, weapons, online multiplay.

When I was a kid there was this text-based adventure game I liked called Deadline where you were the detective and your job was to solve a murder case by interrogating suspects by typing in your queries and the characters would respond, often differently depending on how close you were to solving the case. I remember thinking how cool this game would be if it had realistic graphics, which of course didn't yet exist.

I was hoping L.A. Noire would be that game. I'm a total non-gamer but when I read the pre-release hype about how all those actors were having their eye movements and facial expressions photographed from different angles for realism, with the player left to decide who was being honest, I was sure this would be intense. I was bummed when everyone I knew who bought it told me not to bother.

deadline! deadline was the one infocom mystery game i actually beat. someday i will not be overwhelmed by suspect.

I was able to identify the culprit (two of them iirc) but there was like one piece of evidence i was missing that kept me from ever winning

The George character was hilarious

http://youtu.be/jUSilu2kLDI

Man I know this is old news but this is such a shitty, disappointing game. I like easy games but there is almost no challenge at all, no consequences if you fuck something up. I got in a fistfight yesterday and completely blanked on which button I was supposed to hold down to fight for a full minute and still ended up winning the fight. It's an "open world" game that gives you nothing to do in the open world and never gives you any time when you aren't on a case where you could even just drive around the city without feeling like you're supposed to be doing something more important. So much wasted opportunity, given that the city looks pretty cool and investigating murders in 1940s LA was such an awesome premise.

I also like how you start off on the automotive cases squad and then you get promoted to homicide but in the "six weeks later" cut scene they reveal that you were on the burglary squad in between, but for some reason they decided to not have you actually investigate any burglary cases in-game? So weird.

i bought this game the day it came out, started it up, got to the first interrogation. fucked something up. dude starts his whole 90-second spiel AGAIN, unskippable. fucked it up again. dude starts over, unskippable dialogue. i took the game out of the ps3 and sold it on amazon. complete garbage.

sticking with my rant for the 2011 coint and plick biggest disappointment

LA NOIRE came out this year.

Lets just get this out of the way first HEY DUMMIES ITS NOT A GODDAMN GAME. Just because you can jam the disc into your gamebox doesnt make it necessarily so, and this is a throwback prime offender like i havent seen since the deathly awful cdrom era of the late 90s. I am not sure what kind of ball-lapping coke baggie gift pack they sent out to reviewers for this utter piece of unfun, but it must have been pretty amazing considering the metacritic score. Basically its GTA4 with all the levity, lightheartedness, and good times removed, but this time you dont even have to actually play a game in order to get bored out of your fucking skull. Protagonist is dull, driving is wait hold on a second WHY AM I DRIVING AT ALL THERE IS NEVER ANYTHING TO DO and the free roam aspect is WAIT WHY CAN I FREE ROAM WHAT THE FUCK. This is a game for the people out there that think that the gta series would be greatly improved as a travelogue, sorta a rick steeves of the 1950s. So ok fine you say what about the amazing crime scene investigation where you meander around a scene until some random
object of great import presents itself because shit that never happened in like a million point and click adventure games before, but this time instead of glowing halos they use this amazing new-fangled vibration technology, or do they i cant remember because the shit was so fucking dull it made no impression whatsoever. Oh and did we mention that through next gen facial wank wank avatar magic dot camera face technology we have created the most terrifying facial animation on the planet? Imagine if you will that we take ACTUAL ACTORS and cover their face with REAL RUBBER MASKS OF THEIR FACES and then have them emote with the amazing magical power of OVERACTING and then we dump that into our super-pixelator machine and let you ask them SEVERAL QUESTIONS! In a row! And if you somehow miss the fact that they are eye-twitching and wiggling their face around like a meth-binger at a broken traffic light, don't worry, you get to do it OVER and OVER until you get it right. ITS LIKE YOU ARE ACTUALLY THERE except it isnt because the clues are about as subtle as a hammer to the fucking face, and honestly there was one lady that i interviewed where i swore her head was going to whip right off her neck because of her furtive glancing. But wait, I am being unfair, because i forgot
to mention the totally pointless side missions which seem to entirely involve climbing buildings or shooting teenagers in the face for joyriding a car and cracking wise. And yeah, I know, its all about the story or some such bullshit but man cmon i got 400 movies on my netflix instant queue and none of them make me patiently drive a car around or meander around a railroad yard until i find a wadded up tissue of great importance, so no thanks. IT SUCKS. ITS AN INTERACTIVE MOVIE. GET OVER IT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1va8FxBl7Cg

you know what's a gag reel? the metacritic page for this game.