L.A.
Noire was a game not on my radar at all until around March of this
year, I didn’t really know what it was about but when I did, I was
interested.
Nobody
has really done the play as a cop thing, well not properly, I mean as
the basis for an entire game, not just side missions/activities - akin
to past GTA games.
I’m
not really going to go into much, if at all detail about the story,
there’s not much to the game really. There’s no interesting characters
in particular, Phelps, like Vinny said speaks in two ways, he’s either
talking or shouting. The partners are all pretty boring, I expected way
more after what I read in articles about them.
My
main issues with the game are that the controls are clunky, I got stuck
on objects when investigating more times than I care to admit. The
shooting and cover mechanics are competent but dated, I actually didn’t
mind the driving but to be honest I must have spent 20 minutes max doing
my own driving throughout the game.
The
shooting and cover mechanics didn’t bother me that much until the
game’s shockingly poor climax, which basically consists of a lot of dull
shoot outs with a very unsatisfying conclusion. But hey I guess an
unsatisfying conclusion is fitting for a largely unsatisfying game.
Gathering
evidence got very, very boring around halfway into the game, especially
during the homicide cases. I was getting really bored at that point.
Interrogation’s were cool to see play out, sort of a “**** yeah you’re
boned!” Ace Attorney vibe to them. Although I think Doubt/Lie were
largely the same option. Lie is merely Doubt but requires evidence.
Visuals
wise, it looks decent enough, I’m guessing it uses the same engine as
GTA IV as it looks very similar, objects in the distance are largely
blurry but at least the framerate holds up (PS3) and the design of the
city is nice.
Facial
animation was good, well it was on the males, I thought it looked a bit
weird on female characters, something just seemed a bit off with them.
Voice
actors put in a respectable performance, overall every voice I heard
was good except that god damn operator. That voice got very annoying
very fast. I dreaded having to use the phone after a few hours of
hearing “How can I help detective?”.
I
didn’t think the soundtrack was very good, admittedly there’s not very
much music in the game but compared to say Mafia II it falls short big
time.
Conclusion
All in all the game is quite enjoyable at times but is definitely too long, quality over quantity. I don’t think the games nature really lends well to a game of this length. It just gets too dull, maybe I played it in too short a space of time and should have went for a more episodic approach.I’m a bit annoyed at myself for once again buying into hype surrounding a Rockstar* game, both GTA IV and RDR were also nowhere near as good as reviews made them out to be, actually all three of these games suffer from the same thing; they’re too long and the end result is things get tedious and boring.
*oh yes I know it was made by Team Bondi, but it’s still hype largely brought on by the Rockstar name.