LA Noire - your thoughts

[JWRosser]

I just want to know what everyone's thoughts are on the game.

I've just got to the third disc, and if I'm honest, I'm getting bored. The game feels more that a chore now more than anything.

The premise is very good and original - a "crime solving" game - but I just don't think it's pulled off in the best way. I don't know about you, but I find investigations mighty tedious. I mean, going to a crime scene, walking around until it makes the little ding noise and your controller vibrates, then manipulating the object for clues....then doing the same again in a different location...it's just a bit boring.

Also interrogating people is, similarly, tedious. At first, I was watching their body language to see what I could pick up...but now I just don't bother - generally I just doubt 'everyone'. You know why? Because as far as I'm aware (and I've experienced nothing different) it doesn't really matter. As long as you don't accuse them of lying and they get all pissy, it doesn't matter if you doubt them or think they're telling the truth (unless you want to get 5 stars in investigations, but I really cannot be bothered for that). Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't feel like my actions have any impact on the rest of the LA Noire world. I feel that, no matter what happens, the crime will be solved, whether I convict the right guy or not - and even if I don't, again, does it really matter?

Lastly, other aspects of gameplay. I know LA Noire isn't a sandbox game, but the free roam seems very limited. There is little to do asides from the actual linear missions. You can find hidden cars and locations, yes, but to what avail? I guess there are the street crimes too but...meh.
And I'm not a fan of the combat - it all seems very staged. Fist fights are dull. Shoot outs are ok but the movement is still a bit blocky.

Oh, also, does anyone actually like Cole?
I find some of the things in the game a little crazy - like when you have to scale a movie set near the end of disc 2, and suddenly it all collapses, and you have to escape Indiana Jones style. Eh?

I've seen the game getting 8s, 9s and even 10s...but if I'm honest I'd give it a 7...maybe 7.5 for originality and innovation.

tl;dr. I'm not looking for an argument here, I just want to know everyone else's opinions on this game. Maybe I'm missing something - and please, if so, enlighten me. I want to like to this game...haha.

(Also what's up with the new captchas??)

 

[Zeema]

im trying to play the game like wine

Play the Game like Wine: Progress thru the game at a very slow pace to see if you enjoy it more

a Case a Day

 

[Hamhandderhard]

It was alright, my biggest grips are that after you've done every case and got every street case and hidden car there is little to go back too. I mean, the game won't let you dick around and street cases are scripted and get uninteresting after a while. But what I did like was the atmosphere, the music, how many ways a case could end and all that.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Great game for story and atmosphere. I loved it.

It did have some flaws though.... I think Stan said it best:

 

[GonzoGamer]

You'll get no argument from me OP.
I'm glad I rented it.
For me the main problems are that it?s a one trick pony and that pony doesn?t seem to listen very well. By that I mean it outputs to you a whole lot of fine detail but it doesn?t balance with the little detail you can input. You can argue that it?s always been that way with the style of adventure games, but over the decades,I was kind of hoping that it?s something they could improve upon. And it seems like they came up with all this tech just for those brief and somewhat one sided interrogations. They could?ve had you show up in court, do lineups, and a bunch of other stuff with those details.
I think Yhatzee was onto something by suggesting other settings. These games only ever interested me when they were based on some IP or written by someone I like: Discworld 1&2 or Starship Titanic. I like film noir, but they didn?t even do that very well. You could turn it black and white but it was just like turning the color off. I was hoping the setting would play with the shadows and default camera angles a bit more.

 

[TheLoveableMuffin]

I quite like it. It can be annoying when 'doubt' and 'lie' have fairly simular face expressions, and I'm slightly irritated that shooting a fleeing suspect in the lower leg, in a street crime chase is apparently a kill shot. But apart from that its a very expansive and original game.

Now time for a more humourous approach to my opinion:

 

[DustyDrB]

It's pretty good. The facial technology is outstanding. I enjoyed the interviews and detective work, but they were pretty formulaic.

Problems:
-I was punished for not driving. I'm sick of driving in games like this, so I was gleeful when I discovered that partners will drive if you ask them to. I did this about 60% of the time and just accepted that I'd miss a few collectibles (landmarks). But then comes a certain mission where you have to know a bunch of these landmarks. You know what happens when you haven't found one of them? You drive aimlessly until you either happen upon it, or until (about five minutes later) Cole "figures it out" on his own and then a map marker shows up on the correct spot. Of course, I never happened upon one of the landmarks, so I had to drive aimlessly six times. SO FREAKING TEDIOUS. I hated the game at that spot. Despised it. Driving is not the focus of the game. I came for the police work.

-Poor handling of the overarching narrative. Not spoiling anything, the Cole's motivations for some of his actions aren't explained. He just...does a couple of things and we have to accept it without any understanding of his motivations. Beyond that, his current personal life was kept in the dark. This takes away a good bit of potential emotional impact on the player. And then there's the ending, which is handled poorly.

-This isn't Noir. This is Dragnet. The game had very little Noir aesthetic. Cole has no charm. Very few, if any, characters in the entire game have any charm. The music hits some of the right notes. But this is no peer to The Big Sleep.

 

[DustyDrB]

I quite like it. It can be annoying when 'doubt' and 'lie' have fairly simular face expressions

Doubt and Lie are really both Lie. The difference is that you choose Doubt when you don't have any evidence in your notepad for it. Think of Doubt as "Calling their bluff". You may not have the trail of crumbs to incriminate the cookie thief, but you know he has a love of cookies and that he was the only one home at the time of the incident.

Also, I apologize for the double-post. But I'm 99% sure that people don't get the quote notification if you simply edit it in to your post.

 

[GundamSentinel]

-I was punished for not driving. I'm sick of driving in games like this, so I was gleeful when I discovered that partners will drive if you ask them to. I did this about 60% of the time and just accepted that I'd miss a few collectibles (landmarks). But then comes a certain mission where you have to know a bunch of these landmarks. You know what happens when you haven't found one of them? You drive aimlessly until you either happen upon it, or until (about five minutes later) Cole "figures it out" on his own and then a map markers shows up on the correct spot. Of course, I never happened upon one of the landmarks, so I had to drive aimlessly six times. SO FREAKING TEDIOUS. I hated the game at that spot. Despised it. Driving is not the focus of the game. I came for the police work.

Hell, I did drive everywhere myself and still missed all of them. It was just plain stupid.

OT: I think the major downside of the game was the sandbox. It just doesn't add anything like it does in games like Oblivion or Red Dead Redemption. It's just there to drive from place to place and the occasional tail/car chase. It's way too big and way too empty.

Besides that, the story wasn't all that good and it didn't feel like any of your actions influenced it in any way. And the interrogation mechanism was interesting, but very clumsy and simple.

I enjoyed it, but I won't play it again for a long time.

 

[Crimson_Dragoon]

Just finished it yesterday and overall, I really enjoyed the game. The investigations were fun, the interrogation aspect was a neat concept, and it had a good setting.

That being said, I hate the last part of the game, specifically once you get to arson (serious spoilers ahead):

Spoiler

The first 2 cases a good, but then the game decides to switch focus from Cole to Jack Kelso, a minor character who had only been in a couple of scenes and some flashbacks. So for the last few hours of the game, you're playing as a completely different character, while Cole gets demoted to side character status. And the cases suck. There's few clues to find and almost no interrogations.

Then there's the ending, which Yahtzee was on the ball about. A big shootout in the sewers was not the way to end this game (especially when you're not playing as the main character anyways!). And after the shootout, they very unceremoniously kill off Cole, who again, has barely been seen in the last few hours of the game. You see his funeral, but it (and the after credits flashback) is focused more on Kelso than on Cole. And now I'm left wondering what the point of it all was.

Despite issues with the ending, I'm still happy I played through the game. The good outweighs the bad for me.

 

[LuckyClover95]

If you were on PS3 you wouldn't have 4 discs

 

[JWRosser]

If you were on PS3 you wouldn't have 4 discs

3 discs! Ha.

I know...
It seems silly though - I mean, I don't think that much is even on each disc? Meh.

I'm glad that most people seem to share my view and it's not just me being ignorant (awaits response to contradict me...). Also, did anyone get the achievement for causing stupid amounts of damage to the state? I crashed cars, knocked over peds, destroyed lampposts CONSTANTLY in one mission and I still did not accumulate enough. Pleh.

I'm mostly alright with the driving aspect of the game. Handling is a little weird, but apart from that it's ok. I think the inclusion of 'secret' cars was nice, as some of those little sporty things are quite fun to drive - but apart from that most of the cars are pretty much the same.

But then comes a certain mission where you have to know a bunch of these landmarks. You know what happens when you haven't found one of them? You drive aimlessly until you either happen upon it, or until (about five minutes later) Cole "figures it out" on his own and then a map marker shows up on the correct spot. Of course, I never happened upon one of the landmarks, so I had to drive aimlessly six times. SO FREAKING TEDIOUS.

Yeah, that mission pissed me off too. That was also the one with the Indiana Jones style escape, and the chandelier balancing thing, which was just weird.
Also, Cole is related to Ezio, I have determined.

I have to agree - the facial expressions are brilliant, but part of me thinks they spent so much time developing that that they didn't really spend much time on other certain aspects...

 

[OriginZero]

I agree. I haven't made it nearly as far as you because I found the game to be tedious, and the story to be...ok. I'm not going to slam it, and I'm sure some people like it; however, it just didn't grab me. I don't care enough to keep playing. I don't even care about Cole.

I keep hearing people raving about it, but I just can't get into it enough. I will try to finish it, but really...meh. :/

 

[bombadilillo]

Third disk? Go ps3.

Well OP I agree. I actually pulled up a case guide just to see how close to the end I was and I am 3 away so I guess I will stick it out.

The cases end abruptly without warning sometimes. You get yelled at for picking the wrong guy which can be arbitrary. Its boring. The interogations are either too easy or so random I dont know how somebody made a guide to this without trial and error.

Whatever I have a lot of complaints that everyone seems to share.

Bottom line. I REALLY like the idea. I dont like how it turned out. The modern adventure game premise works fine and if i cared about the main character (read if he wasnt a POS) I might be more into it, but for being a detective game, the logic is off the wall and the sandbox pointless.

Glad I rented, looking forward to improved games of this type.

 

[Katana314]

My opinions...

I didn't find the gameplay itself so tedious as much as the fact that there was not much solid progression. After Traffic, you never feel like you're getting anywhere or discovering something tangible about what exactly happened. It's just a lot of leads that are vaguely connected.

Also, it was the type of game that absolutely did NOT need to be freeroaming. Just give me a bunch of map locations, honestly.

Investigations: Yeah, definitely could have been more interesting. Certainly could have had much fewer red herring items.

Next up: Three decisions on their bluff is a bad idea. If I Doubt, but then it turns out they were Lying, my obvious thought is "Oh. I was wrong. I guess they were telling the truth." (In response to OP: Sometimes people give up more information if you say they're telling the truth.)
How I would have done it is just have two: Truth or Lie. If you pick Lie, then it will play the jingle then. If you're right but the witness wants evidence, then it asks you for it then as a "bonus".

The biggest issue I had with the game was the story. If the player is investigating, the player only feels rewarded if they find things. If the player is the hero, you only feel the game was worth your time if you took down the villain. Throw out all you know about "tense, dramatic and gray noir", which would normally involve the hero losing to the lost, corrupt city as the camera backs away and jazz music plays. This is a game: We want to WIN it. That feeling you get in Phoenix Wright when you hold up the killer evidence to a man who thought he was on top of the world, and watching as he sweats bullets in front of your objections...THAT is true victory, and LA Noire never got anywhere near it. Most of your time, you spend arresting innocent people and lowlifes.

 

[Krzysztof Wisniewski]

put it on steam!!!

darn console gamers.......

 

[Wolfram23]

Pretty much agree with the OP. It started out really cool and fun but by the time I got to Arsen I was like... ok... more of the exact same stuff? Great! Not. They also fell flat on exploring the main character, considering how one of his "decisions" greatly influences the plot, but we as players have not only zero control over it (not so bad) but had no inkling that it might happen (very bad). I mean we don't know anything about his home life and then it's just like WHAM! Yeah, that just happend. ...you know what I'm talking about.

 

[andreas3K]

I did a few missions and got bored, a few hours of free roam and got bored and I'm probably not going to play it again.

It's almost like it's trying to be as boring as possible. You can skip the action scenes, but not the boring investigation and talking.

Cole Phelps is boring.
Los Angeles is boring.
The year 1947 is boring.
I can't shoot in free roam, which is boring.
Boring, boring, boring.

Also, about the face thing: I couldn't tell if the faces looked good or just weird. Realism is one thing, but this may be a bit too far. Sometimes I was so distracted by the person's face that I wasn't even listening to what they said. The faces in Final Fantasy XIII were realistic as hell and looked a million times better and they weren't done with some fancy-ass mo-cap bullshit.

And what made me rage was that I had to watch a really long (and boring, of course) cutscene (full of ugly faces, of course) three fucking times because I couldn't skip it when I restart the mission.