My early thoughts on LA Noire.
by mooseymcman
First off, I'd like to say that I got LA Noire today at KMart, where I got a $20 gaming coupon, and a free $20 game of my choice (I got Enslaved). So yeah, depending on the bargain bin in your local KMart (the pickings were pretty slim overall when I went), that's the place to get LA Noire this week (assuming you plan on buying another game in the near future). ANYWAY, I've played a couple hour...
First off, I'd like to say that I got LA Noire today at KMart, where I got a $20 gaming coupon, and a free $20 game of my choice (I got Enslaved). So yeah, depending on the bargain bin in your local KMart (the pickings were pretty slim overall when I went), that's the place to get LA Noire this week (assuming you plan on buying another game in the near future).
ANYWAY, I've played a couple hours of the game. Here are my thoughts!
The Good.
RockStar has been touting LA Noire's (or "Elanor," as I like to call it) facial animation for a while now. At first, I was quite skeptical, because I couldn't look past what I thought was poor skin textures on the faces to see the animations. I'm not sure if it's a result of more development on the game, or my seeing the faces in HD on my 61" TV, but now I think the faces look incredible. Easily the best facial animation I've ever seen in a game. It's good enough that my dad (who almost always complains about the faces in games, even ones like Mass Effect that are usually considered to have decent faces) thinks the faces look really good. It's really mind blowing how well the faces animate.
And the rest of the game looks pretty sharp too. Not the best looking game ever, and the framerate drops a little sometimes (rocking the PS3 version), but it's not bad at all. And the attention to detail is amazing. Everywhere there are all sorts of signs and buildings and whatnot that seem perfect for the setting (at least to someone who has never been to 1940s LA). And I greatly appreciate the olde timey music on the radios, including my dad's surprise at hearing the original version of "Move it on Over," rather than the George Thorogood classic (well, he knew that was a cover, but not that the original was from the 40s). Also, you can play the entire game in black and white. I wouldn't want to do that, because the game has some excellent use of color in the classic cars (all lovingly recreated based on real cars, and there's a car viewer in the main menu) and the various neon signs in the city.
Gameplay wise, the game is a mix of driving around (complete with short, action focused side missions that pop up along the way to story missions), searching for clues, and interrogating witnesses. The driving is realistic enough to feel fairly accurate, but loose enough that the olde timey cares are still fun to drive. The combat in the game is decent, but nothing out of the ordinary (go into cover, shoot dudes, repeat). But the main focus is on searching for clues and interrogating the witnesses. The former involves walking around crime scenes (or other important areas) and looking at various objects in the environment. And there's a great subtle "hint system" in place where dramatic music (which is great) plays whilst there are still clues to be found, and slowly dies down as there's less to find. And the controller rumbles when you're near something that can be interacted with. And, of course these can be turned off if they aren't your thing (but I think it's a great way to help you out without explicitly telling you what to do).
And then there's the interrogations. This is both LA Noire's strongest part, and one of it's weakest. On the one hand, the insane facial animation and great voice acting means that, if you're good at reading people, you can use that to your advantage. If, on the other hand, you're more like me, you'll probably stumble through these blindly. And it doesn't help that everything seems to be pass/fail, with no in-between. I'm still fairly early in the game, but I can tell that I'm not great at this stuff. I guess that's not really the game's fault, but it's hard to tell when to say someone is lying, and when to "doubt" someone. I dunno, I guess I'll have to keep playing to get a better feel for it.
On the other hand though, I do think it's pretty awesome that you can screw up talking to people, but still find other ways to the solution. Here's an example that I'll "spoiler" out (even though I'll try to be vague with it):
But as I'm still fairly early on, I have no clue if future cases will have similar secondary (or potentially tertiary) routes to solving crimes (and I mean solving them, as I have heard that it's possible to catch the wrong man, and I want nothing to do with that!). I'm hoping that's the case. It'll encourage me to replay cases to do them right.
So that's about it. This game is awesome. Go buy this game. You owe it not only to yourself, but also to the people at Team Bondi who have been working on this game for years. They clearly poured a crapload of time and love into this game, and it shows.
BUY THIS GAME!