Poll: LA Noire, it isn't that great

[Conza]

A friend of mine lent me his copy of LA Noire to try out for a couple of days, so I gave it a shot, and after the first few missions I became a fully fledged homicide detective, and I was up to big and fat useless partner, upgraded from plain and skinny useless partner... number 2.

I've found most of the cars, probably spent a good 4 hours on the game, I just didn't think it was that good.

My brother, who was playing with me, we switched off every cut scene or death/failure, he pitched to me the game was probably with an 8/10, I struck back with 'meh, maybe 5.5/10' we bargained our way to agreeing on 7/10, taking into account 'all' other games on the market, there had to be heaps worse than this game, and, this wasn't so bad, but we both agreed it certainly wasn't great.

The interrogation (main part of the game imo) was a bit flat, it was very difficult to tell which was going to be the right answer, if you did have a clue and picked 'Lie', it could've actually been 'Suspect', Suspect could actually be Truth, ect. I'm a bit torn with whether or not this is redeeming to that, but it turned out that ultimately the interrogations didn't really affect if the mission was going to end. I would've liked it more if they did, AND, you could re-ask the questions without having to spend points IF you found new evidence, for example.

The most fun in the game was when I got bored and started trying to get into a car without my partner, then running him over, its childish yes, but he should've died so many times and just kept coming back. OR Getting into giant trucks, getting up to top speed, and then just ramming into other cars head on, and seeing their engines burn.

What do you guys all think? Top 2 and bottom 2 ratings I'm grouping into one, mostly because of the interesting stuff I found at metacritic*

The score for PS3 (the console we were playing on) was 89/100, but the user score, was only 74/100, which is pretty close to what my brother and I eventually agreed upon.

Excluding thunderbolt and nzgamer, all the other 'professional' review sites have given this game 8+, 8 seems to be on the lower end of the score, but I just don't think it deserves that much praise. I'm clearly in the minority on this among 'professional' reviewers then, check wiki** to see the previous sentence's proof if you're interested.

It?s really no more fun than Vice City, in some ways less, and the story is only ever so slightly improved, yet totally different. But if they use that face technique, and work on the graphics a bit, I think GTA5 will be really great .

*http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/la-noire

**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LA_Noire#Reception

 

[krazykidd]

It depeneds what your comparing L.A Noire to , if you were expecting a game like Saints Row or GTA , well then its normal that your disappointed. I think its a great game because its different , its what ive personally been waiting for some game developer to do , intead of making same old games, i mean , Rockstar could have easily made ANOTHER GTA and made ALOT of money ( kinda like how infinity ward does with COD ) , but they took a risk , and for that i congratulate them. I would love to see a L.A Noire 2 , with improved everything , but this game is worth the buy because its original , and buying it supports innovation and risks for developpers.

 

[Baneat]

Someone might be slightly obsessed over arbitrary scoring systems..

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

I find it fun and compelling. It's the best written game I've ever played and I think that alone is helping the industry. I love it.

 

[ZeroMachine]

I don't rate by number. I rate by "I'd pay this much for it".

I payed 60$. If I had known exactly what I was getting, I wouldn't have payed over 50$. Perhaps even 40$.

All the same, I'm glad I gave my money to the game, considering how more (see: better) games like it could be made because it was successful enough.

 

[gbemery]

I rented it and I'm glad I didn't buy it. That isn't to say it is bad, but it gets rather repetitive and boring in my opinion. I started strong and loved it, but only got to about the second case on AD VICE and just couldn't go further. I wasn't stuck on anything, nothing was too hard to do...it just seems the "drive" of the game flat lined on me. I didn't understand the whole idea of how if you accidentally pressed "doubt" instead of "lie" and it fail how you couldn't just back up your doubt with the evidence you meant to show. Also if you accidentally showed the wrong evidence why couldn't you still show them the evidence you KNOW will convict them...but no I assume that is one way they tried to set up replay value. Graphics were great, the story was alright, game play was kind of rough but not horrible. My biggest gripe though was...

Spoiler

When you're solving the last Dalia murder cases and are hunting those clues down around the city left by the murderer. I REALLY liked how you could take the clue and compare it to landmarks. That was fun, but you could also have solved it by just setting random destinations at those landmarks until a new objective popped up. Or and this is the real pisser. You don't have to do anything. Wait long enough and the damn game solves it for you

 

[Netrigan]

It's hard for me to rate it. It's sort of like Heavy Rain in that it's trying something fairly unique and obviously falls short of the goal... but it's of such obvious quality and tells a gripping story that I can't seriously knock tons of points off.

Would be cool to see a game that combines those two games. In watching the L.A. Noire cut-scenes I often wished I could affect the story in some way. Nothing too major, but I would love to be able to keep my partner from punching someone... or stand aside. Obviously a game like this is going to be heavily scripted, but I would love for about 5% wiggle room.

 

[No-one Special]

I love the game, and would rate it by a number, but as Yahtzee would say you can't have a mathimatical formula for working out how good a game is. I liked it and enjoyed it. That said, there were somethings that I felt it was missing that I would have loved to have seen.

One thing would have been radio station. After all of the research that Rockstar and Team Bondi did on the game, you're telling me they couldn't add in some old timey radio songs? Or better yet, an old timey radio soap about aliens taking over. Or hell even a sport stations! They would have been able to look up the play by plays and used them for the commentator.

Something that would have been interesting, but ultimately I decided the game didn't need, would be a choice system of being a crooked cop or not. Planting evidence, taking bribes, roughing up suspects into false confessions. All of that would have been another good gameplay mechanic, but it takes away from Phelps character, so on further thought it wouldn't have been as good.

 

[Windcaler]

I dont believe a complex opinion can be represented by a number. That said, I think it has more potential to be a cult classic kind of game like Alpha Protocol then a widely accepted totally awesome kind of game like Bioshock

Some sections are just TPS sections. Others are social interaction settings. Others sections are...I guess I could best describe them as close to adventure game puzzles since they require you to get on the same thought process as the developer. This is going to color opinions and make people focus on what sections they think are awesome and what sections they think or boring and/or tedious.

Since LA Noire is so widely divided I recommend everyone check it out but scores are utterly redundant IMO especially for it. Do we really need someone giving you a simple yes or no for buying it? It would be much more effective to let them give that complex opinion so the consumer can make an informed purchase rather then just say buy or dont buy. If theres still doubt in a consumers mind then they can go over to youtube and look up a lets play/walkthrough.

Although strictly IMO, I didnt really like it all that much but even so I still recommend everyone check it out

 

[skateblind]

...Rockstar could have easily made ANOTHER GTA and made ALOT of money ( kinda like how infinity ward does with COD

Rockstar did very little developing on LA Noire, they mostly published it. Team Bondi are the ones behind it. RS will make another GTA and will make a lot of money again, so don't give them kudos where they don't deserve it.

 

[LarenzoAOG]

Snip

Firstly you have what I call the "Borrower perspective" since you didn't pay for the game and don't have to justify your spending habits you tend to notice the flaws more than someone who payed for the game and has to convince himself that he didn't waste money.

Secondly I thought it was brilliant, I suppose that if I had to give it an arbitrary number that only very shallowly displays my opinion on the game I would give it a 9/10.

The sandbox was large and fun to drive around in.

The shooting and driving was solid if unspectacular.

The voiceacting was very good and that new face scan thing really worked.

The investigation was fun and the interregations were challenging and gave me a sense of accomplishment when I nailed some smug bastard with proof he was lying.

The music, cars, the way people talked and dressed were all very fitting for the setting, or I assume it was, I wasn't alive in 1947 and only have games, movies, books, and 2 or 3 people I've met who were alive back then and not senile.

All in all I thought it was very good, but I can see why someone wouldn't enjoy it.

 

[Ridgemo]

I think if you play the game and don't expect it to be runney shootey drivey fun like Gears, and actually sit down and play it you'll have to concede it is a good game. Good story, graphics, and the gameplay is standard Rockstar (i know its not them, but it could just as well be GTA/Red Dead).

Granted i turned it off after every case, something i don't tend to like doing with games, and the main reason was it's just not exciting, but it is good.

 

[ajh93]

it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination,but for what it's worth it's not that bad.i'd much rather pay $60 for a game that's trying something new and does it well,than pay $60 for a rehash of what is essentially the same game but with different packaging that's BEEN coming out and will NEVER STOP coming out.Rockstar,i think,topped itself with Red Dead in terms of story/gameplay balancing,and they aren't going to top Red Dead for a while,methinks.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

It had some flaws but it's one of my favourite games I've played.

I love that they tried something new and for the most part they did it really well.

 

[Baneat]

I just hooked it up to a PC monitor instead of a regular TV and connected it via the HDMI cable generally reserved for the PC.

And by god, do all Xbox games look this shit!? Half Life 2 looks better, it came out in 2004!

 

[distortedreality]

Someone might be slightly obsessed over arbitrary scoring systems..

Pretty much this.

Back when I was a youngin' I was sort of the same, so I can understand it, doesn't make it less of an annoyance though.

 

[Mungular]

i found this game to be very immersive. it makes you think like a detective and the facial animation did nothing but add to that. making you carefully study their actions. to be honest this was a revolution in interactivity, but its not for everyone.

 

[Nabirius]

I just like the fact that its different, I don't feel like I'm actually playing GTA4 when I play it and I think that's cool.

 

[Gigatoast]

Who the hell looked at L.A. Noire and thought "Yeh, that's so gunna be a GTA clone. Just look how over the top, unrealistic and crude humored it is."

 

[Danny91]

I recognize the faults it had, but I find a couple points to be of note:

1) Its nice to see a fairly good game where you're on the side of the law (And I mean a realistic law enforcement agency).

2) If they tone done the repetitiveness and some of the other faults we could see a nice franchise here, or at the least a better pseudo-sequel.

3) The facial recognition technology was pretty witch-crafty, I felt. Very impressive.