Any title by Rockstar excites the gamers.With GTA and Max Payne on their resume it's not hard to predict why.When L.A. Noire was announced, many thought that L.A. Noire would have a similar effect like Red Dead Redemption - Game of the year 2010 - in 2011.Although the game looks like a sandbox action adventure like Mafia, Red Dead Redemption or GTA, it's safe to say L.A. Noire is quite different than them and unique in some ways.
The game developers love to chat about their game before they are released. They proudly talk about how great the story would be, how great the graphics and the gameplay would be. Normally what we see when we get our hands on is quite different than the developers claim. About L.A. Noire, before getting our hands on, the game was dubbed as another GTA where you control the cops this time and make several crime investigation. However, L.A. Noire is more similar to Heavy Rain than it is to GTA.
First of all the game is not sandbox. It might be called "semi sandbox" - it's a term that I came up with- perhaps. Sure you can roam around the city of L.A. but there are not enough attractions. There are only a few things that you can do such as finding hidden cars, interfering street crimes and discovering new locations. So mostly, you keep track on the main plot and figure out how to solve crimes one by one and getting promoted in the process.
And yes, investigation and interrogation are the most important aspects of the game. The combat is minimal and composed of high rate of chasing criminals and low rate of having a shooutout with them. That might disappoint some how expected to see more action. But it is the reason why I would compare this game to Heavy Rain than to compare it with GTA
So What's good, what's bad at L.A. Noire ?
***** Facial animations are awesome ! It is one of the best we have seen so far if not the best. Also interestingly - i say interestingly because that doesn't happen often - L.A. Noire is a game that is designed on a strong technical aspect - facial animations - . If it wasn't that good, interrogation part would be completely useless. It is interesting because normally the game is built on different aspects and technical side is just a polish for them, not the case with L.A. Noire though.
*** Interrogations are fun because it's almost real - the facial animations again and the voice acting also - but
--- They are short. You only have 2 or 3 questions to ask to a person in a interrogation at average. I wish it was more.
*** Investigation is fun but..
--- Crime solving is not.. Because it is scripted. I wish we had a chance to fail in a case. What I mean by fail is not dying in a shooutout. What I mean is, accusing a wrong person and sending him to jail.
--- Also I wish we had a chance to explain WHO made the crime WITH WHAT and WHY at the end of each cases. Since we can not do such thing, it feels like we are playing a game that is scripted heavily and we are gonna solve the crimes no matter what which could also mean ;
--- The game is easy. Too easy for hardcore gamers actually. But why we like this game so much ?
Because it is fun to play and it is a type of game that we don't have often and also we love to solve the crimes, investigate the crime scenes and etc. It's great to play as a cop, or as a detective and the city looks good even though there are not many attractions it still feels great to go up and down in the city of angels.
I would rate L.A. Noire as 8 out of 10 and as another solid game by Rockstar.
Game of the year ? Not likely. Maybe not even a candidate for it. But it's still unique in some ways - facial animations are incredible - and the story is quite engaging, making L.A. Noire to have at least a look at the game for any gamer.
The Epic Games Store continues to throw free games at us, and this week there are two more.
While AAA games make headlines all over the internet, AA games are quietly and profoundly impacting the gaming industry with their creativity.
No sh!t, like that's one thing that I will give the modern game industry is the re-uprising of the mid-tier. It's not as big as it was during the PS2 like Golden era of the mid-tier, but it's pretty damn good at the moment.
Can we even call half of these games mid-tier when they're just 10 dollars short of full price? And if we're talking about indies that charge around 30 bucks, do many of these games honestly deserve the praise when so many chose the E.A. approach? They mention Hellblade 2 in the article, how can a game that took 5 years to make be considered "mid-tier"? Who knows what that budget was with how much work went into the visuals and sound design and mo-cap.
what's wrong with the early access approach? Supergiant games got so much help from the community and took the feedback to heart and created one of the best roguelikes. The early access that you pay 40 bucks to play the game earlier is awful, but this is actually super beneficial for the devs and also the gamers. Same with DoS2 and Baldur's gate 3.
@Michiel
There are few exceptions in E.A. but let's look at The Rogue Prince of Persian. Why in the factual is an Ubi funded game in E.A.? There are games that are in early access for years, I'm talking 7-8 years. Look at 7 Days to Die, apparently it's coming out of E.A. and they're charging 54 bucks for the 1.0 version on consoles. Crowd funding also brought in a lot of problems, with many games funded turning out crap or then later signing a deal with a publisher regardless. The "mid-tier" market has a lot of shady business practices.
I have enjoyed some amazing AA gaming this gen, and the Portal has been a surprising catylist for me getting into these.
"The London-based (the UK) indie games publisher PQube and Wrocław-based (Poland) indie games developer Crazy Goat Games, are today very proud and glad to announce that their pirate-themed city builder/RTS “Republic Of Pirates“, is now available for PC via Steam and EGS." - Jonas Ek, TGG.
One of the better reivews i've read in a while
Short and to the point - gud work bro
If anything, i would say to forget the scoring system...its deteriorated into meaningless BS anyway
Thank you bro, glad that you liked it
I agree with the scoring system as well.
Great review man. I agree with just about everything you stated about L.A. Noire.
Thanks. I try to keep it short and to the point to not to bore readers