I think I found the most pretentious video game review site ever.

[Woodsey]

Well, if they're using the full scale system, then 50 would be an 'unremarkable'. I don't really see the issue.

And yeah, I imagine he did make some of it up. So? First you complain the review isn't good enough, now you're complaining his story isn't strictly true. He does it to demonstrate the point in a different way, and the point is demonstrated.

But shouldn't a review be a reflection of what you have played? In his cute story he barely touches upon any of the faults about the game yet still gives it a 50. That's like saying "oh the game was weird but there wasn't any really bad about it.. I give it a 2.". I mean ffs, in a review he should atleast give reasons for his score no matter if it's 1 or 100! You cant let the reader try and figure it all out!

Yeah, and the review does reflect what he's played. The important thing is not the "running for miles", it is all the stuff that's attached to that. You're confusing the actual points he's making with the way he's telling them. As for figuring it out, he mentions everything. I think perhaps people are too busy telling themselves its outrageously pretentious before they've even read the whole thing.

 

[Goofguy]

Wow, you know they have their priorities straight when their review for GIRP is just as long as the one for Portal 2...
.

Umm... Why is Portal 2 more important that GIRP? I mean it's bigger and all, but it dont deserve special treatment..

Frankly, I don't believe that a Flash game is on par with a big release game like Portal 2. Plus, the GIRP review is more of a narrative than a review. Don't get me wrong, it's a fun game but there is really nothing to discuss.

I don't think Portal 2 should receive 'special treatment', I just disagree with ranking GIRP on the same score system as you would with a big release.

 

[Jacob Haggarty]

At first, i had to go and double check that that was actually a review, and not some sort of wierd fan-fic.

But in all honesty, although he does wright like a twat, i quite liked his point about it being some sort of purgatory. I don't agree with it, but it's an interesting thought for sure. If only he had layed it out better, and not like some disgusting hybrid of poetry and prose...

 

[BetterSummer]

Just because the guy's a harsh critic on a game that tries its absolute hardest to scale that Uncanny Valley, and let's be honest, as fun of a game as LA Noire is, it slips up so hard it falls on it's motion-captured face, you're calling him pretentious? The review is pointing out, pretty well I might add, the biggest pitfall of the game. It tried too hard to be what it is, and ended up being annoying.

Hey I remember that cop from the papers...

You need some serious suspension of disbelief to play that game and take it as seriously as they hyped it up to be.

The game itself is cool, no doubt, it's fun, no doubt, but it's irritating to play sometimes. Drop YOUR pretension if you think this review that's linked is pretentious!

Gaming needs critics like this. Maybe then there might be some more effort in making the game completely great. Metacritic and such propel sales of games so much that publishers try to actually skew the scores, so independent writers that aren't being paid to love a game will see it for what it really is. And LA Noire was a great game, but not a notable revolutionary game, and an AVERAGE score is fitting.

 

[Dr Jones]

Yeah, and the review does reflect what he's played. The important thing is not the "running for miles", it is all the stuff that's attached to that. You're confusing the actual points he's making with the way he's telling them. As for figuring it out, he mentions everything. I think perhaps people are too busy telling themselves its outrageously pretentious before they've even read the whole thing.

He just talks about his 1 likely fictionized experience of the game. He barely even mentions the scanning technology used for the game (which he in his blog with a much more sane approach actually praised). I'm just saying for a review it's way too encrypted if he actually touches upon what yuóu say he touches upon.

 

[Woodsey]

Yeah, and the review does reflect what he's played. The important thing is not the "running for miles", it is all the stuff that's attached to that. You're confusing the actual points he's making with the way he's telling them. As for figuring it out, he mentions everything. I think perhaps people are too busy telling themselves its outrageously pretentious before they've even read the whole thing.

He just talks about his 1 likely fictionized experience of the game. He barely even mentions the scanning technology used for the game (which he in his blog with a much more sane approach actually praised). I'm just saying for a review it's way too encrypted if he actually touches upon what yuóu say he touches upon.

Well, I got it on my first read. Maybe its just being used to analysing the crap out everything from doing English Lit.

 

[ReservoirAngel]

He based his review on speculation about Cole Phelps' past?

It's worse than that. He based his review on baseless speculation about Cole Phelps' past that he somehow came to just because the citizen AI is programmed to speak a little bit about the cases you solve in the game's duration.

And while those spoken snippets do sound off a bit too frequently, it's retarded for this self-indulgent ponce to spear off into a massive speculative article about simulated realities. Someone might have told him that it's a game where you solve mysteries, not a powerful statement about the nature of reality.

I feel like this guy is the worst person to be friends with. You'd dread going to the cinema with him or invite him over for a gaming night for fear of ending the evening with him waxing poetic about the nature of human life after watching you play Call of Duty or something.

 

[Furioso]

I thought extra credits already had the pretentiousness covered.

That was pretty bad though.

And yet three of your displayed badges are for watching extra credits... hmmm

OT: This guy must have been a pro at BSing his way through high school papers, fancy words and sentence structure does not equal a good review

 

[Lord Beautiful]

I couldn't read past the second real paragraph. From there on I skimmed. I had to stop a third of the way through. I can not fathom this level of pretentiousness.

I've seen worse on this site, to be honest.

This scares me.

 

[Lord Beautiful]

And yet three of your displayed badges are for watching extra credits... hmmm

Your point? How would he arrive at such a conclusion about Extra Credits if he had not seen a good chunk of their content?

 

[fisk0]

I liked it, a lot. Certainly wasn't perfect, but something even resembling actual critique is so unusual that it should be praised even if it has a long way to go before it's on a level even close to literature or film criticism.
The amazing thing is that someone out there is even trying to write anything like that, when just about every published piece on games are either that they turn your kids into satanists or that nothing is more important than the graphics and the feature list on the back of the box.

 

[Rusty pumpkin]

If I pretend he was writing a fictional short story, it's somewhat passable if a bit heavy on repetition.

 

[Furioso]

And yet three of your displayed badges are for watching extra credits... hmmm

Your point? How would he arrive at such a conclusion about Extra Credits if he had not seen a good chunk of their content?

My point is the fact that they are his displayed badges, meaning he took the time to put them there, implying that he is proud of watching the show

 

[KafkaOffTheBeach]

I'm not sure if anyone else has picked up on this, because, to be perfectly honest, I can't be fucked reading through seven pages of this, but that isn't a review.
It literally, pun fully intended, isn't a review.
And I don't see why people are treating it as such.

Look at it very, very carefully.
...
Done?
Now look at it again.
It isn't a review.
This is a piece of creative writing, and that isn't meant as a low jibe either. It is - its a piece of creative writing. To say that it is a review is the same as saying that this forum post is a formal essay.

 

[Gralian]

Considering the entirety of the game bases itself around the world of L.A. Noire, the character, the ambience, and general immersion, Hamilton hit the nail on the head. He's looking at everything beneath the skin because it's the kind of game that begs to be taken at more than face value. It's not a game about doing what you want. You can't even take out your gun at any moment - you don't even have an ammo counter. When you shoot bad guys, they fall down like stunt men in a movie. Or mannequin props. Everything feels so plastic, so fake, so set up. So, dare i say, Truman-esque.

A review can be more than simply looking at the technical proficiency of something, or the gameplay aspect. We've all seen gorgeous games that were garbage, and if you were to judge L.A. Noire solely on its gameplay elements, it would fare pretty poorly. It's nothing but gentle walking, pressing the same button over again to examine things, and then picking one of three buttons every five minutes during an interview. Gunplay is unchallenging and driving is not mandatory. Gameplay wise, it's terribly weak. But that's not its strongpoint and not the focus of the game.

The game creates the city of Los Angeles for you to explore its darker side, in a time period you were likely not around to experience for yourself. It's simulating that experience, and the fact nearly every NPC facilitates and comments on your sole rise to fame emphasises that fact. The world is a simulation to which Cole Phelps is a part of. Nothing feels real. Do you not find it odd that everyone comments on your profession? Or that you're always the first one on the scene who finds evidence, despite policemen having been there some time before you? The world is a simulation, built for you. We don't know much about Phelps, his motivations, his fears, his desires, his sins, what he enjoys, what he hates, who are his friends, his loved ones, his enemies. We just know he fought in the war, he has a wife and a kid. He is a blank slate, not exhibiting any of the character of his partners. He isn't stuck in his ways like Galloway, or overly confident like Bakowski. He is simply Cole Phelps; and when you consider this world has been created entirely for him, it's no wonder that his personality is absent. He is an observer being observed and enabled by the world around him.

The fact this reviewer was willing to talk about and examine this aspect of the game speaks more about the quality of his journalism than other reviewers who simply say "it's technically proficient, no bugs, looks pretty, novel game design, A+". If L.A. Noire is going to pride itself on being a deeply involving experience, then it deserves deeply involved criticism. I think people have missed that.

 

[BGH122]

50 out of what?

Out of what? Out of what?!

"Out of what?" the words coursed their way through my caffeine addled brain until nothing but their haunting echo resounded in my mindspace, reverberating off the boundaries of my cerebrum like a ricocheting bullet twisted with a mystery.

"Out of what?" the words barked their dull cry at me, over and over again, pressing ever harder for an answer to a question that shook me to the very depths of my waking being; the demanding crack of a cocked pistol, the suffocating silence of the aftershock as the question ricocheted on.

"Out of what?" ... A tingling in the depths of my consciousness, a whisper from a flash of thought already lost amidst the depths of my brooding soul. Suddenly an image drifted before my mind's eye, the number 50 lost amidst a sea of digits cloaked in impossible geometry, a colour without form. Red.

With a sudden yearning rush the cogs creaked into action, complying finally with the siren's call. The bullet came to a stop. It had found its home amongst the dessicated wreckage of my subconscious, lost deep beneath the waves of my peripheral thoughts.

"Out of nothing!" I erupted. All at once a wave of dizzy nausea swam throughout my hunched form, neurotransmitters breathing their lifeless breath into my core. My heart sped, racing away from me like the explanation ever ahead of my reach. Always one step ahead of my reach.

The sunken vessel of my subconscious let sway its hold over one survivor, one insignificant morsel in the endless, infinite seas of buried secrets lying tantalisingly just outside my realm of cognizance. The thought bobbed up to crest the waves and, for a glimpse of a second, the rays of my sentience probed its tattered ethereal outline.

My heart now raced like never before, a steady, well oiled machine pumping nicotine and caffeine throughout my shaking system. Numeracy was a lie. The sudden snap of realisation forced the bile up my throat. The bitter taste of the truth burnt ever higher towards my gasping mouth, sucking desperately for air that wouldn't come. Air that was just out reach.

Just out of reach. The thought seemed peculiarly inviting, but I knew at the end of that thought lay something from which I instinctively wanted to turn. A burning bright light too terrifying to look upon for fear of blinding, too bold to ignore.

I faced the light. The world around me squirmed and dissolved like a worm in an acid bath. The clawing, hungering fingertips of the truth beyond eschewing my naive beliefs, my pathetic fantasies of reality.

I turned away. I was too afraid to go on.

"Out of what?" the question squealed.

Maybe now his review company will hire me to do reviews? See? I can type like a paint-huffing paranoid schizophrenic who's just been rejected by a publisher too.

It actually works when it's done as a sort of satire. Brilliant post.

Cheers!

That wasn't my point. Fiction is most definitely allowed to be interpreted, but only within the context of the fiction. It isn't a valid criticism of a scene to say that 'this scene doesn't match up to real life expectations!' because such a criticism is arbitrary to the scene unless its intent was to match up to real life expectations.

That sounds reasonable, but I'll pose a question that is in no way rethoric nor sarcastic: Wasn't that the intent in L.A. Noire's design?

I'm not using this as justificiation for his particular focus, only that it certainly lends itself to such a viewpoint if lifelikeness is one of its strong elements.

It just isn't a review. To be titled as such and put a score in the end puts it in a wrong spot to be compared.

I'm unsure, it might be that LA Noire's intention was to be lifelike, but it seems that the critic's main contention was that it failed in this goal because the scene was too reactive to the protagonist.

But this is problematic, firstly because we have no way of knowing whether the goal of LA Noire was to be lifelike (I've never played it and have no intention of playing it given the whole removed missions fiasco, so I'm probably not the best person to ask on this one) and secondly because, even if we accept this was its goal, the conclusion the critic reaches from this is absurd. I suspect he was deliberately lampooning the game, attempting to parallel the absurd playing experience of a city which seems to depend entirely upon the protagonist and the absurd conclusions he reaches, but here we reach a problem that the previous poster brought up: if you fail to convey the point of your piece then it becomes meaningless and fails its purpose. If the article was a lampoon then it wasn't strong enough to succeed as one and if it wasn't a lampoon then it was batshit insane.

I also agree that the decision to frame it as a review was awkward at best.

Considering the entirety of the game bases itself around the world of L.A. Noire, the character, the ambience, and general immersion, Hamilton hit the nail on the head. He's looking at everything beneath the skin because it's the kind of game that begs to be taken at more than face value. It's not a game about doing what you want. You can't even take out your gun at any moment - you don't even have an ammo counter. When you shoot bad guys, they fall down like stunt men in a movie. Or mannequin props. Everything feels so plastic, so fake, so set up. So, dare i say, Truman-esque.

But see, here's the problem: your above paragraph did a better job of summing up a point that took him two pages to convey. If one's reader gets lost amidst one's unnecessary shows of verbosity then one has failed as a writer.

 

[WorldCritic]

You know, I think that's the first time I've ever read a review without finding out anything about the game.