L.A. Noire - by EvaUnit02
henke on 27/5/2011 at 15:35
Quote Posted by MorbusG
There are some dumbed-down stuff that I felt would've been nicer to be left for the player to figure out. Also a inside-the-car-view ala GTA would've been nice. One advice I'd like to offer for those who have started to play it, is to take it slowly; maybe one case per evening.
Good advice, I've done about 2 cases a night though. I agree on the camera, I can not believe that only the chase-cam and the cinematic cam are the only options. As for dumbed downness, well the game
did feel unneccesarily actiony at times in the early parts. It's like every suspect you confront is gonna hightail it, leading to a chase-scene. How come noone simply gives up? Disclaimer for those of you who haven't played it yet: it's not an actiony game. It's very low on the action-bits compared to RDR, GTA & the Mafia games for instance, but even so it still feels a bit
too actiony.
Also, "Stone cold dead in the market" is a wonderful wonderful song. I guess the developers thought so too because I hear it all over the goddamn place. Maybe it's just a coincidence but so far I've heard it in two bars and twice just driving around. Considering all the songs that are on the soundtrack I feel like I'm hearing it disproportunately often.
demagogue on 27/5/2011 at 15:57
Quote Posted by henke
I am loving the crimescene investigation and interogations. In fact let me tell you of my latest case, a "hit and run".
Sounds honestly fun. I'd be interested in how the story would have played out differently if you'd made different decisions, and how they balance the scripting & story of it, branches, and open action.
It looks like they're scripted pretty well to have good stories and still be interactive, and also just packaging the intrigue of discovery.
henke on 28/5/2011 at 08:47
Quote Posted by demagogue
Sounds honestly fun. I'd be interested in how the story would have played out differently if you'd made different decisions.
The mission the detective in Malleus' link plays is the same one I described on the last page! :D He did do things a bit differently than I did. He didn't find the knife right away, ended up going back to the bar and got into a footchase with Leroy there instead of at the house in the suburbs. I guess the biggest difference is that the wife survived in his playthrough.
Ulukai on 28/5/2011 at 11:56
I'm liking it so far, it feels like I'm actually watching some acting rather than animated voice actors and it's an original experience.
On the downside, I don't find the vehicles particularly fun to drive and the street crime missions seem can be a little repetitive or way too simple (without giving too much away - "walk to point A to save the dude!" Srsly.)
I also found out last night that it's not a good idea to have a few cheeky beers whilst having to solve a case - 1/4 interrogation questions right which resulted in a fist fight.
Also, not sure how either America or Daily Mail readers have avoided imploding, given that it features Nekkid Boobs™. Maybe they didn't play that far? Shhh.
june gloom on 28/5/2011 at 18:21
Give it six months, Fox News will do an... expose ahawhaw
SubJeff on 28/5/2011 at 21:11
Computer game controversy!
henke on 30/5/2011 at 01:18
It's 4 in the morning over here, can't sleep so I'll write about the latest case. The climax to the BD string of cases. More like an anti-climax really. Dont read this shit unless you've finished the BD cases yet.
All the driving around, following the trail of breadcrumbs back to the killer's hideout was a great build-up to what I was expecting to be a nailbitingly exciting finale. He was holding all the cards and he had us exactly where he wanted. I was expecting some end-of-the-movie-Se7en-type mindfuckery to go down. Instead it's just a shootout. After having encountered the fantastic insane Hobo Leader character a few missions earlier I had high expectations for what an interesting charcter the real BD could be. Turns out it's just a dude with a shotgun.
Also, after the third BD case when the bartender mentions that there also was a temp working there I had a strong suspicion that he was the killer. Makes perfect sense. Guy goes from bar to bar, plenty of time to not only mark his next targets but also find fallguys with size 8 shoes. The temp was right at the top of my list of suspects for most of the investigations. Unfortunately Phelps never caught on.
Malf on 31/5/2011 at 11:00
I'm loving it, yet I'm also hating it.
The sense of time and place is superb; voice acting and facial animation incredible. Crime scenes investigations are brilliant and genuinely fun to do; the sense of uncovering a crime as you go is realised almost perfectly.
And yet, I hate the interrogations.
The idea is fantastic, being a duel of intellects between you and the suspect, but the rules are far too concrete and restrictive. You can either get a question right or wrong and there's no option to go back to a previous question later in the interview. This is additionally hampered by Cole having gone to the Shepard school of conversation and saying completely the opposite of what you intended him to say.
In addition, because the interrogation rules are so rigid, sometimes using a legitimate piece of evidence to accuse someone doesn't work, because you should have chosen the other piece of evidence decided by the developer.
As an example:
In the case "The White Shoe Slaying", I found some muddy boots and a wet jacket in the utility room. When Lars Taraldsen, the husband, claimed that he had come straight home from the party, I accused him of lying and chose the jacket as supporting evidence. The game didn't like this and gave me an incorrect accusation, yet when I played it again and instead chose the muddy boots to accuse him, Cole said that he'd found Lars' "wet weather gear" and the game gave me a correct accusation.
This kind of inconsistency aggravates me intensely, and I'm sure is caused by the restriction of the interrogation game to responses of either "Truth", "Doubt" or "Lie". A more in-depth, Black Isle a-like conversation system would do the job far better than this broken 3-button system.
So, fantastic game, yet also fantastically broken.
