LA Noire

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue May 17, 2011 3:33 pm

Ok, I guess I'll be that guy. Right now my reference point is Red Dead Redemption - without question that was my GotY for 2010. So depending on how you felt about that game, adjust your opinions about what I'm saying accordingly.

I've got about 30 minutes into the game so far, and it starts of with you immediately in the action. The game play (investigations) isn't like anything else I can recall experiencing in a game. It also has a feel not unlike Alan Wake - specifically that you're watching a TV show or made for TV movie.

Believe the hype on the facial animations because they really are ridiculous. I don't have an opinion either way (yet) about the general look and feel, but the facial expressions are amazing. I would also advise anyone with concerns over language to skip the game or make sure you're wearing headphones. I wasn't expecting a profanity-laden tirade shortly after completing the first investigation so I had to jump up and kill the sound.

I'm pretty damn excited to give this some more time tonight.

Avenger · Post by **Avenger** » Tue May 17, 2011 3:46 pm

I picked this up a few minutes ago. OMG I can't even begin. I can't drive the cop car. LOL. I so suck at consoles. The view keeps shifting as I drive.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue May 17, 2011 3:51 pm

I laughed at the cop car. I am (sort of) used to driving cars in most console games, the GTA titles in particular. This 1940s car handles like a bathtub filled with concrete.

snoleopard · Post by **snoleopard** » Tue May 17, 2011 3:52 pm

I too just picked this up and am looking forward to playing it. Although, like Avenger, I really have a hard time with the console controls for driving. Should have seen me with my horse in Red Dead Redemption, frustrating but made me laugh my rear off at the same time. Took me forever to just be able to walk the horse.

noxiousdog · Post by **noxiousdog** » Tue May 17, 2011 4:03 pm

I'm afraid my children will be forced into an early bedtime so I can get time with this. Especially since I have to go out of town tomorrow.

I did startup rockstar social if anyone wants to add in. noxiousdogg I assume if it just uses live id.

ChrisGrenard · Post by **ChrisGrenard** » Tue May 17, 2011 5:04 pm

Parental warning: I was watching a review on GameTrailers and it showed a dead woman who was naked and it was not shying away from the nudity.

There you go, that's my good samaritan deed of the day.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Tue May 17, 2011 6:28 pm

I love RDR so I guess I will have to check this out.

Defiant · Post by **Defiant** » Tue May 17, 2011 6:30 pm

I actually succumbed to the temptation and bought th xbox on sale this weekend to play this game (really,m the only other games I think I'll b getting would be RDR, Alan Wake and some of the board games available, like Settlers and Ticket to Ride). Unfortunately, UPS messed up my delivery for the game today. OTOH, until I get headphones, I wouldn't have sound, anyway.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue May 17, 2011 6:54 pm

Rip wrote:I love RDR so I guess I will have to check this out.

It was the setting and ultimately the story that sold me on Red Dead Redemption. I'm ambivalent toward the theme of LA Noire but the story and game play were the draw for me.

As an aside,the manual is surprisingly nice.

Avenger · Post by **Avenger** » Tue May 17, 2011 6:59 pm

I am loving this detective story so far. Driving makes my eyes do backflips but the story is awesome.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue May 17, 2011 7:22 pm

How L.A. Noire rebuilt 1940s Los Angles:

They relied on the services of a daredevil photographer named Robert Spence, known for documenting Los Angeles while hanging out of a plane's cockpit with his 46-pound camera.

I feel honored that I'm playing this before Hetz....well, as of this afternoon I was.

rrmorton · Post by **rrmorton** » Tue May 17, 2011 7:56 pm

I traded in a metric ass-ton of games this afternoon primarily for The Witcher 2 but I couldn't resist the siren call of L.A. Noire for the PS3. Now I've just gotta get these kids to bed so I can play!

Playing L.A. Noire is also a good excuse to read a book I've had on my shelf ever since the early days of Amazon when I bought a true crime book about the Black Dahlia case called...

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue May 17, 2011 7:58 pm

You really need to get up to speed on the Amazon trade in program. Between trade in credits and $10 and $15 pre-order promotions, it's pretty easy to get console release day games for 50%+ off -- assuming you play them as they come out and don't horde them like an old man living in the suburbs of a major American city.

F those brick n mortar bastards!

rrmorton · Post by **rrmorton** » Tue May 17, 2011 8:03 pm

You're right. I should totally look into that. Release day doorstep delivery sounds pretty appealing.

Captain Caveman · Post by **Captain Caveman** » Tue May 17, 2011 8:15 pm

Got it. Will be my first post-baby gaming if I can find the time to play. Why can't my baby be more independent? He's so selfish!

Defiant · Post by **Defiant** » Tue May 17, 2011 8:55 pm

rrmorton wrote:You're right. I should totally look into that. Release day doorstep delivery sounds pretty appealing.

As long as UPS doesn't mess it up.

J.D. · Post by **J.D.** » Tue May 17, 2011 9:11 pm

I bought into the hype and picked it up this morning. My son is now asleep, my headphones have fresh batteries, and my wife is about to head to bed. 2.5 hours of crime-solving goodness await!

disarm · Post by **disarm** » Tue May 17, 2011 9:22 pm

i wasn't planning on picking this up right away, but i got the PS3 thanks to a K-Mart deal that was too good to pass up...LA Noire, a $20 coupon for a future game, and a free $19.99 game (i picked Splinter Cell:Conviction) all for only $60. the only catch is that you have to be signed up for KMart's reward program, but i did that online in a matter of just a couple minutes. i'm looking forward to checking it out, but it is going to wait until i finish a couple other games in my backlog...

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Wed May 18, 2011 12:30 am

RDR was my favorite xbox game last year. i picked this up and The Witcher 2 today. Not gotten any time with either.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed May 18, 2011 9:54 am

Probably put another hour into it and I'm not having an easy time with the investigation portion of the game. Sure, finding clues is easy (at least with the rumble on), but I haven't quite picked up on the interrogation system yet. After deciding maybe I should RTFM, it makes more sense.

The difference between "Doubt" and "Lie" is that when you accuse someone of lying, you absolutely need proof. If you make the accusation and don't have proof, you're out of luck. Doubt (I think) is used when you don't have physical evidence but their mannerisms or their story doesn't make sense.

I'm also having a hard time seeing how the game has any replay value, though I don't tend to replay games anyway.

Historically, I want to like the GTA games, but I end up playing them for a few hours and then forgetting about them - and I think I figured out why. When you start the main story in GTA you are immediately given options to do all kinds of side missions. For Bully and Red Dead Redemption (the only R* games I've finished), you have a much smaller story scope early on and you aren't able to move off track until a significant portion of the story unfolds. Last night while riding towards my first crime scene in LA Noire, I was immediately given the option to follow up on a crime in progress. It immediately pulled me out of the narrative and quite frankly didn't make sense in the scope of how the story was unfolding.

Would it have killed them to block all side missions from appearing until you complete the first one? It's that kind of design that ultimately distracts me from progressing forward.

J.D. · Post by **J.D.** » Wed May 18, 2011 9:57 am

There is some replayability. You can play individual cases from the menu after you complete them. I only three-starred the first traffic case because I butchered the interview with the wife. I'm tempted to go back and try to improve on my result and see if I can solve it more efficiently this time.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed May 18, 2011 10:01 am

I was thinking about it this morning and I guess I'm so used to very black-and-white mission completions, the areas of grey for these investigations is going to make me crazy. For the mission you're talking about, I correctly navigated 3 of the 4 questions for the first person you interview (at the scene of the crime), but I was still able to finish the investigation and meet the wife. It's nagging me that I flubbed the one question and maybe I missed something.

J.D. · Post by **J.D.** » Wed May 18, 2011 10:11 am

I also hit three of four with the first guy but then only went .500, going 3 for 6 with the wife. The guy in the bar was cake though, an easy 2 for 2 to close out the case.

I wonder if I had gone 6 for 6 with wifey if I could have found his location without hitting up the bar.

Ralph-Wiggum · Post by **Ralph-Wiggum** » Wed May 18, 2011 10:51 am

Smoove_B wrote: The difference between "Doubt" and "Lie" is that when you accuse someone of lying, you absolutely need proof. If you make the accusation and don't have proof, you're out of luck. Doubt (I think) is used when you don't have physical evidence but their mannerisms or their story doesn't make sense.

I'm having some issues with the interrogations as well. It seems that you're locked into finding the one "correct" answer when other answers seem logical enough to me. For example (spoiler for the first real case (Shoe-store thingie)):

Spoiler:

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed May 18, 2011 10:57 am

That's interesting. I had a very different conversation with him.

Spoiler:

Interesting.

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Wed May 18, 2011 11:02 am

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:
Smoove_B wrote: The difference between "Doubt" and "Lie" is that when you accuse someone of lying, you absolutely need proof. If you make the accusation and don't have proof, you're out of luck. Doubt (I think) is used when you don't have physical evidence but their mannerisms or their story doesn't make sense.
I'm having some issues with the interrogations as well. It seems that you're locked into finding the one "correct" answer when other answers seem logical enough to me. For example (spoiler for the first real case (Shoe-store thingie)):

Spoiler:
When you're interrogating the Jewish dude, the first thing he says is that he wasn't involved. Ok, well I have your handgun at the scene. WRONG. Why? That's seems a pretty clear connection. Ok, well we have an eye-witness there. Ding.

Then it moves to the victim hating Jews and there being a dispute about money. Again, the accused claims that nothing was going on. Ok, we've got a ledger showing money owed. WRONG. Really? Why? Ok, we have a witness from the scene saying you guys got into a heated argument at your store. WRONG. Uh, alright. Well what about the handgun that places you at the scene. WRONG. In fact, I didn't figure out what was the correct response before I had to leave. Very frustrating.

Spoiler:

Only choose the "Lie" option when you're sure you have hard evidence that would prove he was lying in court, just as though you were speaking with a lawyer present. It has to be hard evidence or a witness statement. Otherwise, choose "Doubt". Since they give you the time, just go over evidence before you choose doubt.

You can back out of a question too, before you make a decision, even a lie accusation. Not sure if that affects your score though.

They did something great this time with the fast travel. If you choose to fast travel (hold Y or Triangle instead of tapping it to get into a car), after you get into the car it will still play the dialog that would normally play while you're driving to the location, except it will happen with the car on auto pilot to a montage of driving imagery. As soon as the dialog is done, it will jump to your destination, and you can skip the dialog at any time. It would be great visually, but the AI driver likes to get into head on collisions during left turns.

So, the only thing you're missing when fast traveling is just all the collectibles that you might drive by, and street crime warnings (which you can still just drive to anyway on the map). You won't miss any story or character content. Then, if you want to go back and find everything else, once you complete all the cases for a desk, you can do a free roam mode for it.

J.D. · Post by **J.D.** » Wed May 18, 2011 11:09 am

Ya, that makes sense.

Re: the Kalou interrogation.

Spoiler:

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Wed May 18, 2011 11:13 am

Pretty much. The game forces you to get into the cop mindset and the legalities of what evidence can be used, despite the setting and themes not actually supporting that.

I actually think the game is a little too in your face with the training the mechanics of it, and yet not once do they go over how to think about the evidence you've collected, which is leading to some confusion.

Ralph-Wiggum · Post by **Ralph-Wiggum** » Wed May 18, 2011 11:57 am

J.D. wrote:Ya, that makes sense.

Re: the Kalou interrogation.

Spoiler:
I had to do the Kalou interrogation four times before I figured out that I had to pick "Doubt" to the racist questioning. The eyewitness account of them arguing and her saying it was race related is not actually hard evidence, it's more her opinion. So "Doubt" is the proper response there. However, her saying he was there is an eyewitness account and hard evidence so you want to choose "Lie" when he denies he was there.

Spoiler:

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed May 18, 2011 2:36 pm

Huh. I finished the first detective investigation with 4/5 stars but apparently I missed two clues and I totally botched my second interview. I still solved the case and my boss was happy, but I think I'm going to try a replay to see what's different.

What I don't know is whether or not I can leave a particular area, interview people, get more clues, etc... and then return to places I've already been for follow up discussions with persons of interest.

Regardless the facial animations are still pretty amazing. I was initially thrown by the heft of the game manual, but in reading it more apparently most of the thickness comes from crediting the actors.

J.D. · Post by **J.D.** » Wed May 18, 2011 3:07 pm

Smoove_B wrote:Regardless the facial animations are still pretty amazing. I was initially thrown by the heft of the game manual, but in reading it more apparently most of the thickness comes from crediting the actors.

If you think it's hefty you should see the Canadian version. The first half is the thick English version you have and then everything is repeated again in French. It's the heftiest manual I've seen for a console game. And most of it is credits and French.

snoleopard · Post by **snoleopard** » Wed May 18, 2011 4:47 pm

Thank you fast travel. Before I figured that out last night, I backended a car, (woman got out flailing her arms, called me an asshole, and took off), sideswiped a delivery truck, missed a turn, decided to turn around and caused crashes all over, including myself. I just can't get used to the controller for driving. One of the reasons I played the GTA games on pc. All of the accidents made me laugh though, especially the woman calling me an asshole. Now that I fast travel, I'm enjoying the game a lot more.

Avenger · Post by **Avenger** » Wed May 18, 2011 7:10 pm

Well here we are a day later and I am enjoying the game quite a bit more. Driving has become much easier, but I sit and curse for hours through the action sequences. I am sure that its really easy to take cover and shoot the bad guys, but it drives me crazy. I don't like it and I am not good at it. I have quit several times and replayed interview segments, but mostly I just let it go, even if I answer badly. As I finished the last mission, just a few minutes ago, I was promoted to the homicide desk. I think I am a third of the way through the game now.

You guys have mentioned that you can reload saves and replay them, but I only see two save games total. I have done seven missions I think, and it saves automatically over the last one. I would like to know how you can replay individual missions.

Add me to your xbox list. I am outboardavenger.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed May 18, 2011 7:23 pm

Completed cases can be replayed by accessing the CASES section of the main menu.

noxiousdog · Post by **noxiousdog** » Wed May 18, 2011 8:05 pm

Smoove_B wrote:Completed cases can be replayed by accessing the CASES section of the main menu.

You can also set waypoints (to previous locales) using the map ala RDR.

Also, i don't think the language is over the top. I don't even really notice it for the most part, except for Jew dropping MF on me. Of course I did have to replay the scene a half billion times, so that might have contributed.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed May 18, 2011 8:12 pm

No the language isn't over the top - other than the first military flashback scene. Dropping one or two curses is one thing. Stringing them into paragraphs is another.

Avenger · Post by **Avenger** » Thu May 19, 2011 2:38 am

L.A.Noire makes headlines. A few hours ago a story about the new game appeared in USA Today. It mentions many things, like how this game was featured at a popular film festival that has never shown a game before, and goes on to really describe the gameplay quite well. The main focus, however is the new technology, and it does appear in the Technology section of USA today and not the featured story.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/201" target="_blank ... oire_n.htm

I am really enjoying the game. It looks like its going to be the hot game for the forseeable future, despite the occasional bad review from people like Tom Chick. You never can tell though. It could just be a flash in the pan. An expensive addition that never materializes. I am willing to bet though that this gets put in more Blockbuster games.

I don't understand why people are playing the Witcher 2 when L.A.Noire is starting a new revolution. Its like listening to Lawrence Welk when the Beatles hit the stage in the 60's.

J.D. · Post by **J.D.** » Thu May 19, 2011 9:34 am

I am f*cking terrible at questioning. I'm probably averaging about 60% right now. I'm trying not to let it bother me and just go with the story as intended. But I WILL be going back and replaying these cases again to get them right.

I'm on my third traffic case. I three-starred the first one (but four-starred it on a replay) and three starred the second case. I understand why I did poorly on the first case (butchered the interview with the wife), but can't understand what I did wrong on the second case.

Spoiler for 2nd traffic case, the hit and run.

Spoiler:

Loving this game so far. Only three traffic cases in and I've played for about 5-6 hours already and only done 3 side missions. Lots of content here.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Thu May 19, 2011 10:28 am

Avenger wrote:I don't understand why people are playing the Witcher 2 when L.A.Noire is starting a new revolution. Its like listening to Lawrence Welk when the Beatles hit the stage in the 60's.

Because Witcher 2 is the sequel to a great game and Noire is a new franchise? Because Witcher 2 is PC only and Noire is console only? Because until impressions started rolling in this thread I had no idea what LA Noire was other than a Rockstar game. Even after reading the impressions in this thread I don't know what is revolutionary about LA Noire.

Doomboy · Post by **Doomboy** » Thu May 19, 2011 12:04 pm

snoleopard wrote:Thank you fast travel. Before I figured that out last night, I backended a car, (woman got out flailing her arms, called me an asshole, and took off), sideswiped a delivery truck, missed a turn, decided to turn around and caused crashes all over, including myself. I just can't get used to the controller for driving. One of the reasons I played the GTA games on pc. All of the accidents made me laugh though, especially the woman calling me an asshole. Now that I fast travel, I'm enjoying the game a lot more.

Don't worry about it. I am good at driving in GTA games and the AI will always do stupid things and get you into accidents even if you are careful. My primary gripe is that they always think they have the right of way. Even when they do not. So accidents are going to happen until Rockstar fixes their driving AI.

You can always turn on the siren if you are in a cop car and just blast your way to wherever you want to go. It seems to prevent the AI cars from actively trying to hit you.