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.
Dive into the challenges faced by Xbox physical games enthusiasts. Read about the community's vocal response to recent changes.
Yep, and that’s been the case for Xbox for at least a decade now.
No doubt they alienated their physical media fans, but that happened way back with the Xbox One. What they’re alienating now are just the box collectors.
Well now that their games are on PS, they are alienating the PS fanbase. I would've gotten Doom had it been on disc. If Gears isn't on disc I won't be getting it either. Same goes for any other 3rd party games.
Speaking for myself... I pretty much stopped buying physical. Unless its some cool collector edition. I find it easier to just buy from the respective eshop.... if its not on a rental service that is.
Going into the 7th gen I was staunchly against the idea of digital game. Even the few PC games I played were physical. It wasn't until digital only games starting catching my eye that I changed my mind. Now I buy mostly digital these days out of convenience but also because I have too many phyical games. SNES, GG, GB, GBA, N64, Dreamcast, DS, 3DS, GCN, Wii, Wii U, PS1-5 and Switch. That's hoarders level of gaming right there. 🤣
Anyway digital sales in several parts of the world, including here in the US have been on the rise. Factor in the Series S being the go two model for Xbox owners it just makes sense for Microsoft to scale back in regards to physical media. That and Xbox published games stay high on PSN. 😆
Unfortunate really since I am an avid collector of physical on Nintendo consoles and I bought Black Ops 6 on disc.
Wonder's role as Persona 5: The Phantom X's protagonist has thrust him into the spotlight, and there are clear parallels to the original's hero Joker.
The Xbox version of Final Fantasy XVI has failed to enter the platform's top 20 paid games list, indicating weak launch sales performance.
Day One Release vs One year later release with zero marketing to build excitement/hype.
Both Xbox and SE should know better.
Also fewer than half the consoles sold compared to the PS5 so much smaller customer base.
I get that the game was older.
But so were Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon when they came to playstation and those made it into the top download lists for awhile. So the coming a year later excuse doesn't really fly anymore.
look at stellar blade on PC. over a year later and it's already sold over a million copies. this has nothing to do with marketing or hype. the xbox audience, broadly speaking, just doesn't purchase games.
Excuses lol. Everyone already knew this would be the case. 90% of Xbox players don't buy games.
As other said, FH5, sea of thieves on PS5 topped the chart.
From reports I heard, seems SE rushed into porting FF XVI to Xbox hence performance has been less than satisfying.
If it ain't on gamepass, they ain't interested.
Great job MS for training most of your player base to not want to actually buy games, maybe SE will realise releasing FF on xbox isn't somehow going to help them match their exaggerated sales targets. Hopefully remake fairs better, probably will on Switch 2 at least.
You realize it got most of its sales on PS5 right? Not even the PC version did all that well. One platform will take most of the sales as it had moat of the hype.
No game, especially a AAA one, deserves strong sales after taking years to arrive on a platform and still asking the same price as everywhere else. You can’t just ignore a platform for that long and then expect people to be excited by the release. That cycle came and went already, there is no hype for it anymore.
Either you're all in from the start or you're not. This lazy, bare-minimum approach of tossing out a late port and calling it a day shouldn't be rewarded. If you're not willing to respect the platform, don't bother showing up at all.
But the formerly exclusive Xbox games like Forza Horizon enjoyed great sales on PS even after years past their initial release.
Your references to deserving and "shouldn't be rewarded" implies that gamers are buying games based on some moral platitude that simply doesn't exist in practice.
Gamers buy games because they want to play them.
Nah, it implies how it should be. If gamers weren't the dumbass consumer class around, being played like freaking dumbass because they can't get over the hype for a freaking second and think if that purchase even make sense.
This is EXACTLY why they wouldn't and shouldn't bother im the first place. I can't remember which FF game launched on Xbox with the Switch and Playstation version and ONLY did 4% sales on Xbox. So lets not pretend these sales would have been better because if you believe that you are absolutely delusional
"Either you're all in from the start or you're not. This lazy, bare-minimum approach of tossing out a late port and calling it a day shouldn't be rewarded. If you're not willing to respect the platform, don't bother showing up at all."
Weird. How come you don't say the same about Xbox studio games that show up some YEARS/DECADES later as well?
Sea of Thieves
Grounded
Forza Horizon 5
Pentiment
Hi Fi Rush
Gears of War
Mostly at full price and selling well. Oh right doesn't fit your BS narrative
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