Of course, I should qualify--the game's been critically well-received, and has an 89 on metacritic. The fans though, in this case, seem to be another story.
. . .Because right now, much of what I'm reading--on message boards, GameFAQs (in which it only scores a 7.7 user average--low by the inflated rating standards of games)--is that the game is boring. And my question is this: have any of the people who are accusing it of being tedious actually played traditional adventure games? Or are they just comparing it to GTA IV?
Of course, by these standards--comparing L.A. Noire to say, Grim Fandango, or King's Quest (now acknowledged as some of the greatest titles ever, Fandango seemed equally old-fashioned in 1998)--the game is clearly not boring: its flexibility in the assemblage of cases guarantees this, as you can progress more or less regardless of how inept you are at sifting through environments and interrogating suspects. If anything, there's probably a case to be made for the game being too 'un-boring'--that is, that its commitment to playability interferes with a tangible sense of consequence--though I've personally found myself sufficiently motivated to exert myself in these sections, and feel letdown when I'm unable to compile evidence effectively.
Sure, the game isn't perfect--the action sections are sort of sterile (though at least they don't take up much time) the game occasionally seems too linear, and there isn't a whole lot to do aside the main storyline. But what it does well--offer a synthesis of game and film that's fairly unparalleled without entirely depriving the player of control (and Heavy Rain was emo garbage by comparison--both its QTE-based gameplay and melodramatic storyline are less gratifying than Noire, not to mention Shenmue), and modernize the adventure genre--is surely worthy of praise. Aside from which, it's the most innovative Rockstar game since, at least, San Andreas (which awed us all with a larger detailed sandbox environment than had previously existed).
In any case, it's funny to me that so many gamers deride the mainstream industry as uncreative, and yet are so willing to chastise a mainstream developer the moment they put the gun back in the holster. It seems like lately, the whole "anti-corporate" agenda that a lot of critics and gamers adopted in the beginning years of this decade (around the time people began to think of games as art)--an utterly legitimate one, I might add--has been hijacked by trolls, who heap scorn on innovative games and facile ones in equal measure. Looking over the reviews on GameFAQs, it looks as if a lot of gamers pilloried Portal 2 for its single-player--a move analogous to judging TF2 based solely on its tutorial. This isn't making me feel more confident about our collective intellection.
. . .Because right now, much of what I'm reading--on message boards, GameFAQs (in which it only scores a 7.7 user average--low by the inflated rating standards of games)--is that the game is boring. And my question is this: have any of the people who are accusing it of being tedious actually played traditional adventure games? Or are they just comparing it to GTA IV?
Of course, by these standards--comparing L.A. Noire to say, Grim Fandango, or King's Quest (now acknowledged as some of the greatest titles ever, Fandango seemed equally old-fashioned in 1998)--the game is clearly not boring: its flexibility in the assemblage of cases guarantees this, as you can progress more or less regardless of how inept you are at sifting through environments and interrogating suspects. If anything, there's probably a case to be made for the game being too 'un-boring'--that is, that its commitment to playability interferes with a tangible sense of consequence--though I've personally found myself sufficiently motivated to exert myself in these sections, and feel letdown when I'm unable to compile evidence effectively.
Sure, the game isn't perfect--the action sections are sort of sterile (though at least they don't take up much time) the game occasionally seems too linear, and there isn't a whole lot to do aside the main storyline. But what it does well--offer a synthesis of game and film that's fairly unparalleled without entirely depriving the player of control (and Heavy Rain was emo garbage by comparison--both its QTE-based gameplay and melodramatic storyline are less gratifying than Noire, not to mention Shenmue), and modernize the adventure genre--is surely worthy of praise. Aside from which, it's the most innovative Rockstar game since, at least, San Andreas (which awed us all with a larger detailed sandbox environment than had previously existed).
In any case, it's funny to me that so many gamers deride the mainstream industry as uncreative, and yet are so willing to chastise a mainstream developer the moment they put the gun back in the holster. It seems like lately, the whole "anti-corporate" agenda that a lot of critics and gamers adopted in the beginning years of this decade (around the time people began to think of games as art)--an utterly legitimate one, I might add--has been hijacked by trolls, who heap scorn on innovative games and facile ones in equal measure. Looking over the reviews on GameFAQs, it looks as if a lot of gamers pilloried Portal 2 for its single-player--a move analogous to judging TF2 based solely on its tutorial. This isn't making me feel more confident about our collective intellection.
