My Face, My face!

If you are looking for GTA in the 1940s, go get Mafia 2. LA Noire has almost nothing to do with its GTA cousin. It is an open world, but you won't be running around blowing stuff up with a RPG anytime during the game. The game even chooses when to let you pull out your gun, so you really can't do much but drive from place to place, while occasionally stopping for a side activity. This game is an adventure game at heart. It uses a new revolutionary face mapping technology that is slightly mind blowing. It maps the actors face and head to the video game. As you roll thorough LA Noire's story you will go to different crime desks, ie: You start as a beat cop and work your way through traffic desk, Homicide desk,  Vice desk and finally Arson desk. These  level based mechanics are great because you will be scored during your case and replaying it to get a better score is a good way to pack in a
 little replayability. The basic parts to this game are very basic, and would be very repetitive if it weren't for the varied activities. These basic portions are:

• The Crime scene investigation - In this portion you will search for evidence in the crime scene and examine bodies and other points of interest. This section is a well built  point and click style portion. You feel a vibration in your controller and a sound will ring off in the game when you are near evidence. From there you simply press "A" to pick up the object and use the thumb stick to rotate the object or body part and search for details. 
• The questionings - Arguably the thing that makes this game, these are the portions where the excellent face capture tech comes into play. There is not a single bad performance in this mode, The actors are all solid. The game play here consists of you listening to the suspects story of the case and deciding whether or not they are lying, withholding information or telling the truth. After the story you get a often cheesy expression on the face of the suspect that lets you choose your option. If they are lying they will not make eye contact or shuffle there feet, and if they are telling the truth they simply look right at you. You get three button prompts to choose from "Truth", "Doubt" and "Lie". It will then be up to you to choose. If you select "Lie" you will have to back up your accusation with a piece of evidence you found. Screwing up an accusation will render you unable to get any more information from the suspect. Get a doubt or truth wrong and you will miss some information, however you can continue questioning.
  
• The side activities -  These are basically thrown in between the first two sections. These most often occur when in transit between different areas that your case takes you. They are almost always a shootout with some baddies, or a chase scene. There are a few other ones, but they are less frequent.  The hand to hand fights are fought with a fairly standard control configuration, a punch, a block and a finisher.  

All these activities will lead you through a great storyline with top notch acting. My gripes are this: Not enough to do outside of these activities, so LA Noire can get a little boring if you play it for long periods. Also Why three disks! Its not like its an ENORMOUS game! The ending is disappointing in a way, but also kinda well done. The insane looks on peoples faces to tell you if they are lying are so unrealistic, but what can you do about that? Last gripe is that sometimes the heads of the characters looked like they were on a spring at times and almost looked floaty. All in its a great game with nothing else quite like it so, 
Go check it out!