A Crime thriller set in 1940’s Los Angeles after the Second World War, L.A Noire puts you in the shoes of newly appointed golden boy Detective Cole Phelps who discovers Los Angeles in the 1940’s isn’t the most trouble free place to be!

‘Everyone lies. Murderers lie because they have to; witnesses and other participants lie because they think they have to; everyone else lies for the sheer joy of it, and to uphold a general principle that under no circumstances do you provide accurate information to a cop.’ Rockstar’s L.A Noire, proving David Simon’s Point (Homicide – A Year On The Killing Streets) with it’s questioning system, which after hours of set gameplay becomes quite tedious. I think through the entire game I pressed the ‘truth’ option about Ten times. At one point during questioning a grieving wife on the murder of her Husband I happened to ‘doubt’ one of her answers. Rather than tactfully broaching the delicate subject to a clearly upset ‘Moll’, antagonist Detective Cole Phelps decided to hail a torrent of abuse and accusation her way, stating, “You’re lying, you killed your Husband in cold blood!” Not the most sympathetic of men are you Cole! It was this questioning system that caused hours of frustration in the end the Three options of Truth, Doubt & Lie working well for some lines of questioning but the doubt option not being broad enough to maximize the outcome of questioning. I would have liked to see the doubt option being used if you couldn’t find the right evidence straight away rather than it simply being the wrong choice!

Another odd thing in L.A Noire was the narrator. For the first Five or so cases a guy with the trademark gritty voice narrated at the beginning, truly setting the ‘Noir’ scene. Well after the Fifth mission this guy just disappears! No explanation at all, just silence at the starts of cases from then on! I actually started to convince myself that I’d perhaps killed him whilst racing around L.A in a previous chapter. It makes you wonder why Rockstar decided to drop this narrative. Did they run out of cash? Did the voice talent die? Did they actually just wake up one morning and say ‘We can’t be arsed!?’ Or did they simply make a mistake and forgot to put the audio in the final code?! I guess we’ll never know!

I can’t be 100% positive about the game and this is extremely unusual for me as I instantly love and praise everything that Rockstar produce! Don’t get me wrong, L.A Noire is a bold attempt at creating a genre no one has ever played and parts of it are absolutely genius. I mean it looks amazing with 1940’s L.A crafted and dotted with so much detail and the new face motion technology makes every character that populates the city scarily realistic! It’s just that all this wealth of excellence is slightly tarnished by some awful glitches and somewhat repetitive mission types. Glitches such as getting stuck on scenery or when investigating down corridors or alleyways your partner gets in the way and won’t move!

After the Third mission you can more or less work out what to expect for the rest of the game. Find clues, Call the office, Find an address, Chase a subject, Have a bit of fisty-cuffs, Arrest suspect, Interrogate, Charge! The only real difference to this pattern is that you get to chase your suspect in a car and every now and again you get to shoot someone.

L.A Noire’s story pans out over Four departments of the L.A.P.D, Traffic, Homicide, Vice and Arson, also if you make some wrong choices you get a few missions on Patrol. Homicide is by far the most interesting of the departments with you trying to a serial killer around L.A with new bodies turning up seemingly every day and a whole host of suspects! One of the best missions of the entire game was on the Homicide department on the crescendo of the serial killer case. The murderer left cryptic clues around L.A and you had to decipher them to get you to the next landmark and clue, like a sick game of ‘Treasure Hunt’ just minus the helicopter and Anneka Rice running around in tight blue pants!

The replay value of the game is also lacking. Finding 30 landmarks (beautifully reconstructed), 50 film reels of classic film noir titles, 95 vehicles (which proves quite difficult because a lot of the cars look identical!) These tasks add a couple more hours to the game but completing them isn’t exactly fun and honestly feels like a chore! The 40 random street crime callouts are a nice distraction, but again they prove to follow the same pattern of chase and capture and in the end you find yourself just wanting to get them all finished of ignoring them all together!

I would of also like to have seen L.A Noire being ‘more’ open world. By that I mean have extra things to do in L.A Noire. It’s all well and good being able to drive, walk and explore 1940’s Los Angeles, but there’s actually no point to it! There’s a beautifully constructed vintage bowling alley where you couldn’t bowl, A cinema you couldn’t visit to watch a movie, bars you couldn’t drink in… generally just a lot of missed opportunities to immerse yourself in the world Rockstar has created! And no addition of multiplayer?! Surely this was the game to have a great game of ‘Cops & Robbers’ I can see a multitude of game modes that could be implemented in L.A Noire which would have increased the appeal to a lot of gamers. Imagine a game mode where a team of gangsters had the objective to rob a bank and escape through the streets and a team of cops had to stop them…FUN!

Perhaps I’m being a tad critical because of the fact that both G.T.A and Red Dead have environments in which you can happily spend hours doing a variety of things away from the main game and L.A Noire is nothing like them. This is in a way Rockstar’s first one shot game! This isn’t G.T.A, This isn’t Red Dead, and this is where I’ve been slipping up!

I’m not saying to avoid this game, far from it in fact! You certainly have to experience L.A Noire for yourselves and see through the non-G.T.A set up! Go in there with no expectations and appreciate it for what it is, an interactive film noir story that stays so true to what it set out to do, (even having the option to turn on ‘Black & White’ mode to get the full noir experience!)

It’s obvious that Rockstar will more than likely release more cases as D.L.C and I hope that they surprise me by giving a story away from the usual chase and capture!

Overall it pains me to say it, but I’m somewhat let down by the final product. Don’t get me wrong it’s graphically superb, acting & dialogue are exactly what we’ve come to expect from a Rockstar release and there are some truly inspired set pieces in there. I also don’t think this will the last of it’s genre and don’t be surprised if the studio revisit it in the future. Personally I think they could make a quality sequel set in the modern day, where you can play as a regular police officer or detective working his was up through the force using the modern processes to solve crime. Think C.S.I meets Blue Bloods (Sky Atlantic) meets Grand Theft Auto with L.A Noire dynamics thrown in there for good measure and mix it up with some new gameplay features and you have the recipe for a great game! Rockstar if you’re reading this you have my email address you heard it here first… let’s work on it!!!

Mojo

No, no – the other Dexter

Please note: As you read this we’ll be enduring airplane food somewhere out across the mid Atlantic, ready for our coverage of E3 week to begin on Monday. Given the importance of the event, and the difficultly in covering it all, we’ll have to cut down to just one Inbox a day (the evening one) from now and until we get back. Do keep the emails coming though as we will still read them and a Hot Topic is running as usual. If we don’t seem to be answering specific questions though, it’s because we’ve only got a skeleton staff running things back at GC Towers and they won’t necessarily have the time or knowledge to help. Enjoy the show!Genre-bendingLoving L.A. Noire at the moment and in the process of watching the Dexter series. I can’t help wondering how awesome it would be to combine them both into a game.Playing as a cop who wants to rid a city of evil through the rules of the law but you hold a dark secret and you end up turning to your serial killer instincts if the law fails. Imagine the way you would have to review every case to make sure you have the evidence for conviction or enough proof to go for the kill yourself. Paying terrible prices for killing the innocent. You could use your skills of reviewing a crime scene to create your own and would have to think of locations, best time to strike your target, clearing your crime scene and disposing the body to leave no evidence.The newspapers used in L.A. Noire could be used for back stories about your crimes and victims from another detective that would indicate whether you’re making mistakes or making too many kills. The game could lead down two paths of you catching a serial killer at large, becoming a hero or being hunted down yourself – ending with either imprisonment or worse. What do you guys at GC and your readers think?Terror4merRather than having a Mars Attacks-style add-on for L.A. Noire, how about one based on Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Have Cole Phelps deal with a case where someone has murdered their spouse because they claim they’re an imposter, then have Carruthers discover in the autopsy that the deceased was a pod person. Then have a tense investigation to find out what’s going on and find the location of the pod person base, as Phelps gets more paranoid and unhinged as more of his colleagues and friends get turned into pod people.Monkey TimelordI hope the downloadable content for L.A. Noire includes zombies, you just don’t see them in games these days.Steve ParkinGC:These ideas are all great (well, maybe not that last one). We really hope Rockstar end up being as imaginative.The only way to be sureTo the people who’ve written in saying they’ve yet to play Call Of Duty, I’d say give it a chance. With you on Halo’s campaign being overrated (as opposed to the enjoyable online), but I’ve found the Call Of Duty solo campaigns great fun, with some of the best set pieces around. Even the weakest entry. World At War was more fun than your average shooter. Modern Warfare 2 easily sits in my top five first person shooter single player games, must have played through it a dozen times. Weirdly Modern Warfare 2′s online was the only one I couldn’t get into.Short story, give one of them the Call Of Duties a try. If you don’t like it then at least you know.Ty ConlonThe biggest weekI actually had a holiday booked for next week but I wasn’t going to be missing any E3 or Duke Nukem so I cancelled it. Had to make it the week after but what game is coming out that week? Only blimmin’ Zelda! Aw crud. Shouldn’t have to wait long for it though, only about a day but that’s frankly enough.BobbleheaddyPS: I still can’t tell if Duke Nukem is going to be good, I’ll probably get it anyway. I’ve waited long enough for it.

Catch up on every previous Games Inbox here

BO (box office) cloutGC, I can no longer access your old reviews! I wanted to reread your Super Street Fighter IV review as I’ve only just got around to buying it, but it just doesn’t seem to be there anymore! Does this mean it’s gone forever?Also, RE: Mark Armstrong. l think dismissing all console first person shooters because ‘consoles have never been suited to this style’ is a poor excuse for missing out on some of the best games of recent years, it’s different and needs getting used to but a controller still proves a nuanced interface when done well… like in Halo… the critically acclaimed masterpiece…. that even GC admits has possibly the best gunplay of any game ever… and has a Metacritic score of 97… and you smell.Jokeb (gamertag)GC:The review is right here (here’s the 3DS version ). The site was acting a bit twitchy yesterday, it must’ve been some kind of temporary fault.

A pirate’s life for meJust enjoyed the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and regarding the midweek feature a couple of weeks back, and the success of all the Rockstar sandbox games of the last few years, with the different scenarios from Western to the 1940s noir backdrops, the pirates are definitely the next thing if Inbox magic has its way.Think a more realistic version of Zelda: The Wind Waker with its many islands of all sizes, from huge main plot ones to the little hideaway treasure ones. The many forests, swamps, mountains, caves, lagoons, sunken ships, beach-wrecked ships, soldiers forts, Governor mansions, Voodoo graveyards and wooden voodoo huts, etc.All this to find on a customisable ship, to upgrade from a mere pathetic cheap charter boat to a fully armed war galleon type pirate ship to take on the Imperial navy or a sadistic Governor, or another ruthless [Pirate crew. Heck throw in ghost ships, real-time weather, from the calm seas to tempest type storms, and sea monster attacks!With this game, you don’t have to stick with complete fact, as the myths alone are worth exploring. Ship battles can be from chasing and cannon fire to engaging side to side and eventually swinging onto the ship with great fighting mechanics for your character. Trading in bars or with merchants on or off shore. With townships or costal ports for your ship upgrades or side quests, all with a fantastic story taking you on a voyage of dreams and the famous treasure map for your pieces of eight.AlucardPS: Did anyone see Bones a couple of weeks back, if that was not Uncharted influenced, then I’d be very surprised. It had nearly everything an Uncharted game is famous for, including a good would-be Nathan Drake.Moving the fridgeAll this talk of next generation hardware makes me wonder about access to the current Xbox Live and PlayStation network content on new hardware. Will all our digital purchases be accessible? I’m guessing there wouldn’t be any compatibility issues, but where would customers stand if it was announced content wasn’t transferable?There is also the issue of storage, if you’re a frequent shopper on the digital stores it’s not hard to exceed 40 to 50GB worth of space on a hard drive. I hope the big three take this into account with their new hardware.Jigsaw Monkey (gamertag)Fake moneyI recently joined the smart phone revolution and got myself an iPhone 4 and purchased Infinity Blade for £1.79 from the App Store. I am thoroughly enjoying this game by Chair and I am pretty hooked. Now for the downside, you guys thought Call Of Duty map packs were a rip-off, how about paying £2.99 for 25,000 pieces of gold at the App Store in-game, £6.99 for 150,000 gold pieces, £11.99 for 750,000 pieces, and a whooping £29.00 for 2,500,000 pieces of gold.Somewhere out there there are people paying for this to speed up their development and progress in the game, so people are buying fake money with real money now. I think morally I would like to see such a thing outlawed removed from video games, priced items within games should not be allowed.G1OAT (gamertag)Recycling aweRE: RockinBones. ‘I thought I was going to go blind it was so visually amazing’. Laughed out loud at that one, thanks. But I know what you mean. There have been so many games in the past where I’ve thought that things just can’t get any better. The character models in Donkey Kong Country, the animation in Impossible Mission, then Another World, the amazing graphics of Spectrum classic Tomahawk (if you managed to get past the LensLok security!), the living open world of Grand Theft Auto III… It’s also the same with movies. The special effects for the liquid metal T-1000 in Terminator 2 come to mind.At the time these were cutting edge, but we quickly come to expect that quality as the norm, then technology advances and the next stage begins. It’s an endless cycle of amazement.WanEye (PSN ID)PS: Thanks to everyone who gave Highway Hog a go. There’s a pretty high ‘hog mortality rate, so some people are clearly struggling. Think of it as a road crossing simulator (not affiliated with Garbage Truck Simulator or Street Cleaning Simulator in any way!). And there is some simple fun to be had in the Credits screen.Limited time offerI wrote in a couple of weeks ago complaining about pre-order bonus content and how it would end up as paid for downloadable content. Well it’s happened already as the L.A. Noire Rockstar pass, priced at 800 Points. I was wondering if you be reviewing this and if not is it worth buying, as the pass is only available for two weeks and then the downloadable content will be sold separately and be far more expensive. I am really enjoying the game but I am reluctant to pay for content which I feel should have been on the disc and has been held back simply to make money. As for the game itself I am very impressed, the new technology makes a significant impact and actually makes you invested in the people and their stories, it does get very hard towards the end trying to work out who is telling the truth, also great to see John Noble from Fringe involved. The computer drivers are rubbish however and why when you reach the Vice and Arson desks, why do the street crimes occur on the other side of the map? It’s extremely tedious and it takes longer to drive to the crime then it does to deal with the situation.DazbaggieGC:Thanks to E3 we haven’t got time to play all the downloads, but it seems a reasonable deal if you’re a fan of the game. We’re sure a reader can comment specifically though.This week’s Hot TopicIt’s almost here! Next Monday will see the beginning of E3 week – the biggest trade show of the year and potentially of the decade.More new games and consoles will be announced this month than the rest of the year put together, many of them never previously seen or even hinted at. So before it all begins we want to know what you hope and expect will be at the show.What confirmed games are you most looking forwards to and which unannounced ones are you hoping will get their debut? What do you hope Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo will have to say for themselves in terms of support for new formats like Kinect, 3DS, and NGP – as well as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3? Are you looking forward to seeing the successor to the Wii and how much do you think Nintendo will show?

E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk

The small printNew Inbox updates appear twice daily, every weekday morning and afternoon. Letters are used on merit and may be edited for length.You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word 4Player viewer features at any time, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.If you wish to vote in the Readers’ Top of 2010 simply send us an e-mail with a list of your three favourite games of the year so far. Please vote only for games released in the UK during 2010.

“Friends who want to stay friends don’t discuss religion or politics. In my case, you can add the war to that.”

Everyone has something to hide. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, the school you attend or the company you keep; you have a secret. There’s something you keep within yourself that you don’t talk about, to anyone. Ever.

In 1947 Los Angeles, for example, nobody can be trusted. Every man, woman and child who inhabits that sprawling city is a liar. You can see it in their roaming eyes, in their pursed lips. Every dry swallow indicates another half-truth, and every hand movement is misdirection. There are no allies and there are no enemies; there are simply agendas. Whether or not you stumble upon them is mere chance.

Cole Phelps – war hero, rising star in the LAPD, family man – is hiding something too. He’s hiding something that makes him the man he is. It hides within his subconscious, growing, creating a burden that no regular man can carry.

Cole should fight that burden. He should face it head-on, challenge it, explore it. He should question why it continues to haunt him. His actions were justified, were they not? Everyone makes mistakes, don’t they?

Yet he doesn’t fight it. He doesn’t fight it because he’s a coward. Instead, he hides it. Behind the sharpness of his tone and the cruelty of his words; amid the veil of his triumphs and the shroud of his dedication, it lies covered. Buried. Invisible and dormant, but very much alive.

The City of Angels thrives on the secrets men like Cole Phelps hide. Betwixt it’s faithfully recreated skyscrapers and it’s chatty, lifelike inhabitants, there is only glue – a viscous adhesive comprised of lies and deceit that holds the whole place together.

Playing L.A. Noire feels like wading through that deception. You can feel the dishonesty clinging to your heels; see the stalactites of slander dangling from your fedora. This whole place is an illusion. The people here aren’t real. This isn’t an open world, and as such we can have no influence on it. This train is on a one-way track, and clinging to it kicking and screaming is the only way we can experience the journey.

At around the time I was sentencing my fifth innocent man to the death penalty, a subconscious dialogue occurred between myself and the game I was playing:

Me: These men are innocent. I know they are.

Game: No, they’re guilty. You only know what I give you permission to know.

Me: But it’s obvious. These women have been killed by the same guy.

Game: It’s obvious that they’re guilty. This guy has some overalls in his car. That guy had size 8 feet.

Me: I’m going to tell someone about this. Rusty will believe me.

Game: You can’t. I won’t let you.

Me: I won’t accept this.

Game: The case won’t end until you charge somebody. You have to accept it.

So I accepted it. What other choice did I have? Turn the game off? No, that’s too much like surrender.

Whenever I found a bloody socket wrench or a piece of triple-braided rope, I knew I was being deceived. The game was handing me motives and dangling evidence under my nose. I was being told quite blatantly that this man – this husband, this father – was a killer.

But he wasn’t. I knew he wasn’t. I just couldn’t do anything about it.

One deception compounded on another until not even a sliver of truth remained. This whole thing was a sham. I had not even my common sense to rely on. I was being played like a blood-soaked, size 8 fiddle.

And for what? So that the biggest, most obvious deception had more gravitas, that’s what. Such a miserable failure. Standing amid the pews of the Christ Crown of Thorns Church, beneath gilded windows and enveloped in dim candlelight, weapon in hand, the truth was finally revealed.

Even in the giant, cavernous room, the note fell flat.

The truth, the revelation, is simply the arrival of a pre-determined certainty. I knew this was going to happen. I knew because so many lies had been swept under the metaphorical rug that they were spilling out from beneath it. In its eagerness to baffle and confuse, L.A. Noire unravelled its own mystery. The opacity of its secrets faded to translucency, and finally to total transparency – everything the game had to show me was revealed, every card it held close to its chest was laid out on the table for me to peruse.

Bluff.

Everyone has something to hide. Yet, small truths make big differences. A fraction of honesty in a world of deceit is but one drop in a vast and limitless ocean – though what is any ocean other than a collection of drops?

Here’s my drop in that ocean: L.A. Noire isn’t the game it could be, or should be. Sometimes, the truth hurts.

For the benefit of the uninitiated, let me firstly sum up in a nutshell what the game/story is all about: It is set in 1947 Los Angeles and you play Cole Phelps, a returning war hero who joins the LAPD force.  You start off as a patrolman but as the game progresses, you quickly rise up the ranks of the department.  With each case solved, Phelps delves deeper into the criminal underbelly of  L.A. and soon learns that nothing is as it seems; that underneath all the glamor and fame of the post-war boom, crime and corruption are rampant.

The game is greatly influenced – visually, stylistically and thematically – by film noir.  For all you non-film-geeks out there, film noir is a style of film made during the 1940s and 1950s which have a distinctive “look” (and sound) about them – they are generally shot in black-and-white and with low-key lighting, involve plots that center around sex, drugs, corruption and moral ambiguity, and accompanied by a haunting jazz soundtrack.  The game incorporates all these elements, even down to having the option of playing the game in black-and-white!

This was the first thing that attracted me to L.A. Noire.  The history of (American) film has always fascinated me and I have always been particularly drawn to film noir – I even took an entire paper on it at uni!  There’s just something about crime/ detective stories that peak my interest, for some reason.  L.A. Noire – put simply – is completely and utterly AMAZING.  I haven’t played many games as I am still fairly “new” to the gaming scene, but I have a deep, innate appreciation for the arts (yes I do consider games to be an art form) and thus believe I have a pretty good grasp on what is a good game, or what makes a game good.

The game is brilliant and impressive on so many levels.  The world is beautiful – what’s amazing is that 90% of what you see is historically and geographically accurate…minus a few artistic licenses here and there.  The production team spent months and months painstakingly researching to recreate 1947 L.A. as accurately as possible – even down to mirroring color palettes of corridors in certain key buildings, products/brands used at the time and billboards displayed on the streets.

Hundreds of aerial shots were taken so as to perfectly map out the streets and locations of landmarks and buildings of L.A.  This staggering attention to detail is truly incredible; it really makes you appreciate the game so much more when you know the lengths that the production team went to and how much effort was put into creating the world.  If you find this intriguing and want to learn more, check out this feature article.

Many of us enjoy entertainment mediums like film and games because it provides us with that few hours of escapism.  L.A. Noire does this brilliantly – the whole time I was playing I was completely immersed in the world; I really felt like I had been transported back in time.  Being able to experience this period in history – one that would have otherwise been impossible to experience firsthand – and especially one that is so significant and one in which I have a personal interest in, is what made the game all the more enjoyable.

I’ve watched many a film noir and yes I’ve felt connected to the stories, the characters, etc.  But here’s the big difference with games, a “leg up” over films, if you will – in games you get to interact and actively engage in the world.  You don’t just passively sit and watch the world unfold before you (literally), instead it is your actions in the game that sets in motion how the events will unfold.  Of course, some games are more restrictive than others, in terms of your control over the narrative/outcome.

I think the more seasoned, hardcore gamers will probably criticize the linearity of the game.  It is considered a somewhat open-world game (like it’s predecessors, Red Dead Redemption and the infamous GTA series) however after you’ve completed all the usual “easter egg hunting” (in this case, collecting Hollywood film reels and solving street crimes), there really isn’t anything else to do on the streets apart from literally just driving around sightseeing.  Unfortunately your ability to interact with the people and places in the city is virtually non-existent.

In terms of the actual storyline, there are some forks in the road (e.g. bringing in multiple suspects for questioning and having to decide which one to charge) but for the most part, the story is set in stone.  Many will see this as boring and unimaginative but do not be fooled – there is more to the narrative than meets the eye.  The story does have a lot of depth and many layers that unravel at the opportune time.

There are many subtleties and “hints” that are purposefully placed at specific points in the game that you later discover were there to foreshadow future events.  In a well-executed film, every camera angle, every shot, every choice of soundtrack, is there for a reason.  Similarly in L.A. Noire, everything you see, everything that is said, has a specific purpose that serves the narrative.  I felt the plot and sub-plots including the side missions (street crimes) were for the most part perfectly written, perfectly timed and perfectly intertwined – this is something that is not easy to do so it is mighty impressive that they managed to pull it off so seamlessly.

I have to say I really enjoyed playing detective.  All the cases you investigate are based on or inspired in some part by a real-life crime story that happened in and around L.A. circa 1947.  You can read about one of them here.

As you get promoted within the LAPD you get the opportunity to work across different “desks” – namely traffic, homicide, vice and arson.  I found the homicide cases to be the most intriguing and exciting.  This aspect of the game, however, loses brownie points in terms of replayability as I can imagine it could get a tad tedious having to go through the motions of searching for the clues all over again; even inspecting dead, mangled bodies in just the first playthrough starts to get a bit routine towards the end of the game.

Detective duties aside, there is enough action to keep you hooked and entertained – on-foot and car chases, fist fights, and shooting aplenty.  I was actually dreading the chase and gunplay sequences quite a bit, knowing full well that it will be a struggle for me.  As expected, I completely sucked at driving, and even moreso when I had to speed after fleeing suspects, however to my utmost surprise I’m actually not too shabby with a gun!

One of the awesome things about this game – and I believe it’s a first – is that after you’ve failed a sequence a few times, you will actually be given the option to skip it and move on.  Personally it is a bit of a slap in the face because it’s like you’re being told “hey it’s obvious you suck at this, you should just give up” but then looking at the big picture, it’s actually bloody brilliant.  Had this option not been there, I would probably not be very far in the game and eventually get too irritated/impatient with where I was stuck at and give up and not finish the game.  Or I would have gotten a more experienced gamer to give me a hand

The decision to have this option available to the player can be seen as a cop out, but I see it as a “free pass” to more casual gamers like myself who are not necessarily so skilled with the controller but still want to engage in and enjoy the whole gaming experience.  It is what I feel makes L.A. Noire such a remarkable game – it’s more about the story than it is about gaming prowess.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the game is how real the characters look, in particular how realistic their facial features and expressions are.  This is all thanks to a groundbreaking new technology called MotionScan which closely and accurately captures every aspect of an actor’s facial performance using 32 surrounding cameras.  It’s really amazing stuff – check out how it all works here.

The difference in visual quality, and more importantly, in the level of realism of the character is mind-blowing.  Combine this with the use of motion capture to record the actor’s physical movements and you’ve got one very real, albeit digitalized “human being”.  Aaron Staton (of Mad Men fame) plays Cole Phelps and when you look at him in person and compare it to his character in-game – it is essentially the same person!  It’s him through an animated lens…quite freaky really.

The game gets to really show off this fantastic new technology when you interrogate suspects.  Once the suspects have responded to your question, you have to determine whether they are telling the truth or lying.  I don’t claim to know a lot about the technologies and engines used in gaming but I daresay that it would have been near impossible to construct believable reactions and true facial expressions…least not ones that are realistic enough anyway.

Heavy Rain comes to mind when I think of this – it came pretty damn close; the characters overall were pretty life-like but when it came down to actually conveying true emotion (e.g. anger), it fell short.  But in L.A. Noire, thanks to MotionScan, it is pulled off seamlessly – the level of detail is astonishing; if a suspect is lying and you are attentive enough, you would be able to catch even the smallest nervous tic.

It’s blatantly clear from all the praises I have sung that I think this game is the best thing since sliced bread.  However anything man-made, no matter how great it is, is not perfect.  The game does have some flaws.  First thing that comes to mind: the passersby on the streets say things to/at you as you walk by.  The trouble is they have very limited dialogue – the things they say are on a very short loop so it repeats fairly often; after awhile it starts to feel like Groundhog Day.  Of course this is a very trivial gripe – the city folk do not affect the narrative in the slightest so it doesn’t matter and I can see why not more thought was put into it.  However one could also argue that with everything else being so hyper-realized, it does put a bit of a damper on the experience.

Additionally there are some minor continuity errors (e.g. my car ending up at a different location from where I had originally parked it)  and plot loopholes that I noticed in a couple of the cases, plus I don’t quite understand certain decisions that were made near the end of the game (I won’t be more specific, don’t want to spoil it for anyone!) – but overall these faults are very few and far in between.  The positive aspects far outweigh the negative and thus these shortcomings can be forgiven – in my humble opinion, anyway.

A good story is built from great writing and excellent storytelling.  I thought the script was skillfully written; very true to 1940s America -  in particular the slang words and phrases used in the dialogue – this made the characters believable and seem more like actual real people, not “talking puppets”.  I felt Cole Phelps was a very interesting and complex character to play; I enjoyed playing him and very quickly got invested in him and his plight to “right all the wrongs”.

In addition, the accompanying jazz soundtrack was exceptional – again, very true to that period in time and particularly to film noir.  When you are driving, the radio plays actual songs from artists of that era and also actual radio shows that aired during that time – yet another admirable effort at making the world as realistic as possible.  The score which plays at crime scenes, interrogations and the action sequences perfectly complement and add on to the experience – for me even moreso during the more “intense” situations.  For example I remember my heart literally pounding out of my chest when I was chasing a crazed serial killer throughout a long maze of catacombs – most seasoned gamers have probably become really jaded by sequences like these, but I really felt like I was Cole at that point in time, fighting for justice and for my own survival – never been so terrified in my life!

And this is why I have taken quite a keen interest in gaming lately, specifically games that blur the lines between the filmic and gaming worlds.  Some gamers are of the opinion that games shouldn’t try to be like movies, that by doing so they are just being “lazy” and not utilizing the full potential of the gaming medium and what it can offer.  To some extent, I agree.  With technology getting better and better every day, games have the ability and ongoing potential to do so much more – things specific to games which are not possible in a movie – so why play safe and take the “tried and true” route of making just essentially a playable film?

Here’s where I play the devil’s advocate: I do not see anything wrong if the game developer knowingly and intentionally wants to make their game in the style of a film.  Making this choice doesn’t necessarily make them uninventive or unambitious, but could very well just be their nominated style of making games.  In some ways I see games like these – and L.A. Noire is obviously one of them – as categorized under an altogether different kind of game genre in its own right.

It’s a mission on its own making a good film, it’s all the more challenging making a perfect marriage of the two, a “game-film” that makes sense in both universes – one that looks and plays out like a film on the game-screen but also simultaneously manages to interact and actively engage with its audience the way only really great games know how.  But if you get the balance/mix right – absolute magic is created.

With that being said, I feel L.A. Noire has hit the nail squarely on the head in this respect.  I think the fact that it is the first game to be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival speaks volumes on what it has achieved in terms of closing the gap between game and cinema, and how taking this route could potentially make for a truly remarkable masterpiece of a game.

It has its issues but overall L.A. Noire is a visually stunning film noir-style crime thriller that promises an interactive gaming experience that you will not soon forget.  From start to finish I was completely immersed, engaged and emotionally connected with the world, the narrative and its characters.  I was transported back in time and experienced an important era in film history through a game – that is what great escapist-entertainment is all about!

It has undoubtedly set a benchmark for any future game developers who wish to make film-style type games but regardless of how many other “game-films” that come along from now onwards, I firmly believe that L.A. Noire – and what it has managed to deliver visually, stylistically and emotionally – will always own a piece of important gaming history.

Whimsical Banana rates L.A. Noire:

A well-deserved 5 bananas!!  I’m also stoked to say that I have become a slightly better gamer because of it

Let me take a wild guess: Bitten by a vampire with large teeth! No? Well then I give up, this case has me totally stumped!

My girlfriend loves little image search type games you can buy online through the PC where you in effect have to look at a scene of some sort and then find all the small items hidden within it in order to get through the levels of the game.  A horseshoe here hidden within a lamp post, a walking cane over there hidden as the handle of an umbrella, a fish outline on the side of a home…  A hunt and pick game and should you get stuck and unable to find something that is on the list, no worries because if the missing clue doesn’t light up for you at some point, there is always a large ass button to the side that will somehow direct you to the object without reaching through your computer screen and hitting you with it in the name of just getting you through the game.

That in effect is what playing L.A. Noire is kinda like.

The premise of the game is that it is the late 1940′s and you are Cole Phelps, honored world war two hero back home in Los Angeles and now joining the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department.  Not content on just being a regular patrol cop, Phelps starts to show initiative right out of the starting blocks by snooping around on cases and doing the detective work before the actual detectives get  chance to do anything when it’s not really his job to do so…

You start finding out later through strange flashbacks to his war days that this isn’t the first time Cole has bucked the system so it’s par for the course.  Anyway your work gets quickly noticed and the higher ups at the LAPD start bringing you up in the ranks into detective work and it’s there our story really gets underway as you and whatever partner you’re given tackle case after case that at first seem all like separate incidences but are all leading up to a much bigger overall case and storyline.

L.A. Noire’s game play comes down to two basic gameplay elements:  Search a crime scene for clues and then question witnesses and other such people of interest.  The first part is pretty cut and dry and kind of a bland exercise that is very similar to the aforementioned image search games.  You walk around a crime scene, pick up various objects and look at them.  If they are of no used to you, you hear Cole mention that it seems to be a waste of time looking at it, or if it is something related to the case Cole seems to know right away and notes of said object are recorded.

Your search by the way is aided by your controller vibrating anytime you get near something of interest.  It’s a feature that can be turned off to make the hunt a little bit more of a challenge but a lot of these objects don’t exactly stick out and if you’re playing the game on anything less than a big widescreen TV it could be a little difficult to see something that you should be picking up and looking at.  Also background music will stop once you have found all the clues at the given scene your at which is your cue to not bother looking any more even if there is more junk and other parts of the scene to look at.  Again, it can be turned off but then you do get a feeling that you’re just wasting time.

Next it’s on to the other big feature of the game and the biggest selling point, questioning people and reading their facial features.  It actually works quite well and the tech that they’ve used to pull this part of the game off is quite something to see.  Some people you question look guilty as sin the moment they aren’t entirely truthful with your questions while others have a pretty darn good poker face and it’s a challenge to figure out if you should trust they are telling the truth, wonder aloud if they are giving you the runaround or just flat out accuse them of lying to you which is in the end what you’re supposed to figure out.

Picking the right actions progresses you closer to the case obviously while calling someone a liar when they aren’t or being a trusting soul to a con-artist sets you back.  The problem is it really doesn’t set you back that badly, but I’ll explain in a moment…

You also get to do other fun cop type stuff like car and foot chases to track down people, little stakeout operations where you have to trail someone but still stay far enough away from them and of course gun shootouts with the bad guys that obviously take more skill with a controller than simple pushes of a button that the first two elements mention.  But again if you struggle with these parts of the game and fail at one three or more times, you’ll be asked by the game if you just want to skip that part and move on with the game.

It’ll hurt your overall score – you get scored on these cases and given a rating – but you still go through the story as intended all the same.

Rockstar has made a game that feels like they really want you to get through come hell or high water or horrible attempts at solving these cases and as such it feels like your hand is held throughout the entire case solving process.  (Hence the mention of the big ‘hint button’ in the first paragraph.)

In that respect I’m torn about this game because on one hand it’s a very solid story and one that I do want to get to the end of at some point.  Rockstar has captured 1940′s L.A, the music of the time and the people of the period wonderfully right down the gritty (and sometimes disturbing) reminders of women being treated like objects and punching bags to non-Caucasian ethnic groups being dismissed as second class citizens..  It’s a very immersive game and one that sucks a player in.

But is it really a game or just an interactive choose-your-own adventure story?  it’s clear there really is only one final goal of the game and the game will make damn sure you get there with lots of prompts, hints and flat out asking you if you want to skip over parts you can’t seem to finish.

While the uncoordinated gamer in me appreciates pushing me along, the competitive gamer in me wonders just how special is it going to be to say “I finished L.A. Noire” when I’m pretty sure a monkey making random button presses could pull of the same feat?

Not to mention after about the fourth case the whole ‘look for clues, question the people, take part in extra curricular gun play / car chase’ sequence starts to get a little boring.  The story itself I guess is what is supposed to keep your attention and the cases do ramp up in difficulty, but again the game is there to hold your hand and help you along…

L.A. Noire overall is an enjoyable game and something completely different from anything really out there and in that I am thankful.  The facial capture technology makes for a great twist on things and does have me wondering what we may see with it in the future (poker games where we can finally read people’s faces anyone?) while the whole idea of a good detective game gives me hope that someday maybe we’ll get to play a “Law And Order” brand game where we can fill the shoes of a virtual Elliot Stabler or Fin Tutuola.

Until then L.A. Noire scratches an itch for a kind of game that I didn’t know I really had until it came out, but leaves me wanting more and maybe wishing there were actual consequences for bad detective / shooting / driving work instead of a black screen going in effect: “That’s ok champ, lets just skip this part and move on shall we?”

Final rating:  7 out of 10

This is episode 16, bitches. In this episode, Stefania and I discuss my latest game among game – L.A. Noire. We talk the good and (yes) the bad. There’s some minor spoilers in here, but I’ve only played the first couple hours so… not much to hide really. We also talk a good bit about Heavy Rain, as that’s where there’s a lot of comparisons going on.

The podcast this week is 34 minutes-ish long and it’s very good. Trust me. I’m not biased about this.

NoireCast download link (right click and save as).

When a game as talked about as L.A. Noire has been in the last few months finally sits in your console ready for action the sense of anticipation is matched by one of trepidation. Let’s face it, we’ve all been here countless times before, expectations built high by hype, expectations that you’re about to embark on a gaming adventure of previously unseen epic proportions only to become utterly deflated after five minutes play. As I’ve written previously it’s a situation I’ve encountered more than a few times myself. In many cases the games involved have been superb, it’s just that riding into it on the back of hypes wave left me, initially at least, feeling let down.

So as I heard the familiar sound of L.A. Noire’s disc spinning into life, trepidation was the order of the day……I don’t know what I was worried about.

L.A. Noire is quite simply, stunning! Without a doubt what we have here is one of the most amazing games that this generation has delivered, in fact make that any generation.

Team Bondi and Rockstar Games have done an incredible job. They’ve managed to create a wonderfully authentic game, the outfits, vehicles, music and dialogue all do their bit to transport you back to the 1940′s, and the city, recreated using Robert Spence’s aerial photographs, is truly incredible. L.A. Noire just oozes atmosphere from start to finish.

If ever a game blurred the lines between game and movie then this is it. Playing as Cole Phelps, a returning war hero, you begin life as an L.A.P.D. Officer walking the beat on the lovingly recreated L.A. streets, Phelps own ambition and drive to succeed see you quickly climbing the departments ranks and working time on the various desks as detective. During your time working on the likes of Homicide and Vice you’ll encounter the real underbelly of darkest 1940′s L.A. and using a combination of wits and gunfire will strive to deal out some much deserved justice.

The story is a sprawling, twisting, masterpiece, it has the power to grab you and demand your attention from the very off, and believe me when I say that once you take your first footsteps in Cole Phelps smart shoes there’ll be little else seeing any action on your console. You can always tell a game’s going to be something special when after an hours play you’re already worrying it’s all going to be over too soon. Bearing in mind L.A. Noire spans three discs that’s quite something.

Gameplay wise there’s a nice mix of styles going on. There are moments that will undoubtedly bring other games to mind, the action sequences are of the GTA and Mafia II variety, you can cruise around L.A. in a large array of vehicles with the music of the times dancing merrily from the radio, interspersed with the usual radio DJ waffle, but of course in L.A. Noire we’re playing the good guys so every now and then the police radio crackles into action with calls for assistance on a variety of incidents taking place at any given time throughout the vast expanse of the city. These can range from bank heists to the husband going nuts at his home with a shotgun and nicely take care of the games side missions. Most end in either a shoot-out, chase sequence or hostage situation, but each of these missions has a neat little intro cut scene to at least add some meat to the bones of the drama. The only problem I found with the side missions is that at times they seemed to be on the other side of the map from where my next main storyline objective was and it could be a bit of a drag getting there. All the side missions are of course optional but if you want to milk everything you can from the game sometimes the only option is to drive.

Shootouts in L.A. Noire are simple yet effective, anyone familiar with either the GTA or Mafia games will know what to expect. We get the classic over the shoulder view, a quick pull of the left trigger to aim and fire away with the right. You can move in and out of cover with the left shoulder button and that’s all there really is to it. As I said simple yet effective, but with one tiny gripe, sometimes movement in and out of and between cover feels a little clunky, it lacks a certain fluidity, it’s not enough to ruin an action sequence but can certainly be a tad frustrating at times.

But enough of that because as fun as the action is in L.A. Noire it’s merely a side dish to the true main course of this game, the detective work. Each case within the realms of L.A. Noire is a total gem, from the early more straightforward affairs to the later spiralling, multi-layered mysteries they’re all wonderful. As each new case begins and we’re greeted with the title screen there’s an overwhelming sense of intrigue and anticipation for what’s to come. A case in L.A. Noire basically runs like this: quick briefing from the department Captain, head off in the car with your partner to the crime scene, upon arrival it’s now your job to start to piece things together. Examining the body, searching the surroundings for clues and speaking to potential witnesses and the coroner are all key to solving the case at hand. The clues and interviews you conduct at the scene will then open up new leads and the case evolves from there.

As you search the area for clues the game helps you along in two ways, firstly there’s a particular piece of music that plays in the background, the music will continue to play until all clues at the scene have been found and secondly a chime and pad vibration will alert you when you’re near a new clue. Thankfully these hints can be turned off at the menu and I’d strongly recommend doing so, or at the very least turn the second of these off, with them on it just feels a little too much like the game is holding your hand through the investigation and it’s far more satisfying to piece everything together yourself.

The interviews throughout each case are superb. Open the notebook and choose to quiz the suspect upon a certain aspect of the case, then observe closely as the suspect answers, before choosing one of three answers to their statement. The choices are, Truth, Doubt and Lie, but beware, if you decide the suspect is lying you better make sure you’ve the evidence to back this up. Choosing the correct response will open up more dialogue and more potential suspects, get it wrong though and the interrogation will be short lived and fruitless.

Which brings us nicely to the nicely implemented Intuition feature. As you progress along the L.A. Noire road intuition points will be earned. As you climb the ranks these points will build up and can then be spent, hopefully wisely, during investigations. The first situation in which these points can be spent is when searching for clues at a crime scene, drawing a blank? Then spend an intuition point to highlight where the remaining clues are lay. Even better though is how the points can be used during interrogation segments. Basically if you find yourself struggling to decipher truth from lies, the brilliance of the characters and voice acting means this can be a fairly frequent occurance, then it’s time to open the intuition bag and get some help. In the case of interrogation’s, intuition plays like ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire.’ Spend a point and choose to either remove one incorrect answer or ask the community. Removing an answer narrows things down to a fifty fifty chance of success while asking the community brings up a percentage next to each answer highlighting the most chosen answer by other gamers. Thankfully throughout this Chris Tarrant is nowhere to be seen. Intuition points are a very nice addition to proceedings and at times prove invaluable to a succesful outcome of your investigations.

It’s hard to do justice to just how seamlessly all this fits together, lets just say that during your time back in 1947 you’ll, for a few hours at least, completely forget that it’s 2011, as L.A. Noire’s incredible combination of gameplay, graphics and atmosphere hold you in a sweet hypnotic stupor. It’s a game that’s had me so involved, had it gone on any longer I’d probably be reading my divorce papers now.

Graphically there’s only one place to start really as it’s received so much pre-release hype, and that’s the facial animations. I’d read plenty about the incredible realism I was about to see within the faces of L.A. Noire’s cast of seedy and dubious natured characters but it hadn’t prepared me for playing the game first hand. To put it plainly the characters within Team Bondi and Rockstar’s new baby have a depth that is unparallelled, there’s life behind the eyes of these folk. Even the walk on walk off bit part players seem to have stories to tell of a life lived in these bygone times. Combined with possibly the best voice acting ever heard it amounts to a game with more life and soul within it’s fifteen or so hours than any game has managed before. This new depth of character and animation isn’t just for show though, it’s actually a vital ingredient in separating fact from fiction when interviewing suspects. A picture tells a thousand words and a slight shifty look here or worried look there from a suspect speaks volumes and can be enough to pin something on them.

Another nice feature here is the option to change between colour and black and white while playing. I played the first hour or so in colour and it’s lovely looking, not shiny and bright sort of lovely though, more a gritty, dark and subdued lovely, still very impressive all the same. Then I made the switch to black and white and, well, wow! It seems strange to say but taking away the colour from the streets of L.A. and the game just takes on a whole new dimension. The previously mentioned facial impressiveness is even more apparent, features take on more detail and it looks truly astounding. Also of course the switch to black and white adds a little more authenticity to proceedings, 1947 L.A. bounces out of the screen like some classic old movie you used to watch with Grandad at Christmas, albeit with added bodies and guts.

Sonically the game is solid, cars sound as they should, guns are nice and loud and the sirens wail beautifully as you put pedal to the metal and roar towards a crime scene. But it’s the voice acting that is truly setting the bar to previously unseen highs here. It’s phenomenal. Never before have such a cast of inspired characters been put together in the video game world. Every sentence seems to have been well thought out and every performance is inspired. Captain James Donnelly is perhaps the most wonderful character I’ve ever met, coming at you like Sean Connery in the Untouchables every scene with him is a joy to behold.

So what else is there to say? Overall L.A. Noire is compelling, intoxicating, beautiful, dark and wondrous. It is a serious contender for Game of the Year and is a bright jewel in the Rockstar crown. It’s adult in nature, some scenes are particularly disturbing, and it’s brave in that it steps away from the usual high tempo, adrenaline fuelled bullet fests we’ve become all to accustomed to and asks instead that you use your brain and wits to proceed. It still throws up enough action sequences to keep everyone happy but is so much richer for slowing the pace and relying on strong characters and beautiful storytelling to make it’s mark.

Sure it may lack a little replay value, but when a game’s as good as this it’s of little consequence. L.A. Noire deserves, no, needs, to be experienced by adult gamers everywhere, it’s simply incredible!

There’s a type of person that normally buys games distributed by Rockstar. They’re the kind of people, like myself, who have grown up with GTA (maybe not the best thing to have as a child) and followed them for most of their major releases, like the Red Dead games and so on. So obviously there’s going to be a massive commotion online and offline whenever Rockstar bring out a new game. Unlike some other developer-distributors I could name (Infinity Ward and Treyarch) who pump games out every (other, technically) year for the money and fame that it brings, it seems to me like Rockstar has a good heart, caring about the people who play their games and what they spend their money on. This is the reason that GTA and RDR have had so much gameplay time compared to other massive franchises such as CoD. I’m not putting down CoD at all but let’s face it, they’re slipping away and in maybe four or five years we’ll all be playing some other franchise every hour of every day.

Team Bondi, the developers for this title, on the other hand, do not have a very large repertoire of games already on the market. In fact, I had never really heard of them, and almost wanted to put this game down to a sole Rockstar effort. But that would be so very wrong. These guys are actually behind the entire development process, and as I understand it, just needed Rockstar to slap their name on it for successful distribution’s sake. So I’m going to stop talking about Rockstar from this point forward.

LA Noire was released in the UK on Friday, and I believe on Wednesday or Thursday in the US. This meant that on those days, Twitter and other social media sites were exploding with trends about the game and storyline and characters. Rockstar were even encouraging people to tweet their favourite quotes from the game. This is a company that cares, clearly.

However, I came home for the weekend, and stupidly left my Xbox at back at Uni, which means that I, as of writing this part of this post, have not played the game yet. I haven’t even bought it. Don’t get me wrong, I really want it, and I can’t wait to get it, and it got to the point on Friday that I decided I’d drive to Asda to buy it and come and play it on my brother’s Xbox, even if it meant starting all over again when I got back to Uni. They were sold out though – no surprises there.

So, unfortunately, this means that it’s not going to be until tomorrow (Monday as I write this) that I’ll be playing it. And that’s if I can get a copy to take back to Uni, or get one once I’m back. So as I bid farewell, it won’t seem like I’m going anywhere, because my comments on whatever I’ll have played by the time I finish this post will be below.

*

So, I’ve played a little bit of the game. Maybe three or four hours of gameplay; I don’t know, it’s hard to keep track of time with any good game. And yes, I’ve said it. This is a very good game.

For one thing, it’s exciting because it comes on three discs. No game has done this since Final Fantasy, has it? That in itself is awesome. Apparently that’s not the case for PS3, but to be honest, they’re the ones losing out… Surely.

Gameplay footage really doesn’t do this game any justice. Although when you’re watching somebody else play it I can imagine it being excruciatingly mundane, it doesn’t give that vibe when you play it. The whole detective thing is very interactive, and much better than any other game in the genre I’ve ever played. The movement, cars, gunplay, it’s all tailored to the high quality we expect from Rockstar, and you shouldn’t have any trouble adjusting from GTA or RDR for this game.

The new facial animation technology, as everybody is talking about, really does live up to the hype. Although at times it looks a bit odd to see what looks like a real mouth moving on a computer generated background, it really brings a lot to the game, especially when you’re interrogating somebody. What an incredible addition.

There’s nothing I can say at this point (several days after release) that hasn’t already been said, but I will say the following things did annoy me.

1. The graphics, other than the facial ones, haven’t come a long way since GTA, which I believe was three or four years ago. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with them, but I think it’d be nice to see some improvement in something other than the realism of the characters.
2. There is some frame skipping and mild lag. I was chasing a guy through the streets earlier and it seemed like he was getting away a bit too fast – turns out this was because for some reason the lag didn’t effect him … even though he was AI.
3. The main character, Cole “I’m A Twat” Phelps. Wow. I don’t want to even talk about how much I hate him … but I do.

Other than those three minor things, this is a cracking game. Go buy it. Right now.

Zelda: A Link To The Past – classic combat?

Classic combatI know you guys still have respect for some of the ‘classic’ games of yesteryear. So I’m hoping for some insight from you guys. Let’s take the classic Zelda: A Link To The Past. Now obviously, this title isn’t remembered specifically for its combat, but that is where my question lies. If you had to do a retro review on the title, what would you say about the combat now? Would you say it’s basically nothing more than an ‘A’ button mash fest? Or would you say there is at least some nuance to it? Such as positioning yourself for the best angles and such? And taking this a bit further, would some adventure games be better off if they didn’t implement any combat at all? Or is even mindlessly shallow combat better than none as long as it’s used sparingly?Tom ShieldsGC:We’re not sure we see where you’re going with this, but clearly there is nuance in A Link To The Past’s combat – particularly in boss battles and in terms of crowd control against normal enemies. But combat is always a secondary focus after exploration and puzzle-solving, in both classic and modern Zeldas.Justified expenseYou’ve had a lot of letters in the Inbox about 3DS games being way overpriced compared to games for the iPhone and I’m wondering how the difference can be justified/explained? I know Nintendo and the retailers take their piece of the action but not £30 worth, and at the same time Apple must take a small amount themselves.Are games that much easier to make for the iPhone or are developers using many of the resources from the other console versions to subsidise the versions for smartphones? Are 3DS games the price they are because that’s historically what they’ve got away with charging for them? And finally do you see a time when games on smartphones start to increase in price when the phone becomes the lead handheld format and more games are designed from the ground up for it?Danny BoydGC:Everything you’ve said there is a part of it, but the most important issue is simply that DS, 3DS and PSP (and NGP) games are more expensive to make, in terms of their graphics, length and complexity. And as you suggest, the more complex smartphone games get the more publishers will try to charge for them.Never as goodVery good review of The First Templar GC, though I obviously don’t agree with your score (from my email a couple of weeks ago). More a 2 or 3 out of 10 in my humble opinion. I was also very disappointed with Gothic 4 (again for Xbox 360), though I would rate that a 5 or 6 out of 10. The problem is when you’ve come from playing something like the mighty Demon’s Souls on PlayStation 3 as I recently have – and still can’t quite let go, that you really need another 10 out of 10 game to be able to move on and appreciate newer games. Have you seen much of Hunted: The Demon’s Forge, due out 3rd June? The next hope for some good sword based adventuring…As always, thank you for your time and efforts.  natabusGC:We played a couple of levels of Hunted in a preview and weren’t terribly impressed. We should have a full review next week.

Catch up on every previous Games Inbox here

Bleach partyWell, I’ve got egg on my face. After celebrating my birthday at the start of the month I went and brought a Wii (which in it’s defence was the shiny black one with a Wii MotionPlus remote and Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort) for £150. After all the games and accessories I brought it came closer to £300! If I held fire thou’ I coulda had one for less than £100.Surely as it is less than two weeks old I should be given a refund as I paid a higher price? Just wanted to ask GC what they thought of the Bleach DS and Wii games? As a fan of the anime/mangas I brought them anyway.TheSpectre N8 (gamertag)/TheSpectre_N8 (PSN & Steam ID)GC:The Blade Of Fate and Dark Souls on DS are by Treasure and two of the best portable fighting games ever. The others are not by Treasure and are not as good.Narrow marginsWith the price of the Wii falling below £100 and the price of the 3DS at around the £170-£200 mark. I have been wondering how is it that the prices can come down when Nintendo must have set an initial price point? I understand that there is a price war but does someone lose out when the prices continually falls? I find it even more confusing considering Nintendo always ensure that they make a profit on a console. Does the retailer lose its profit percentage or does the console manufacturer lose out?Alek KazamGC:The price to you the customer may go down, but the price Nintendo – or any console manufacturer – sells it to shops changes only a few times in a console’s life. We assume retailers are still making a small profit at below £100, but either way it’s irrelevant to Nintendo themselves.Long tailIf the Wii is not selling as much as this time last year why are Wii games such as Super Mario Galaxy still relatively expensive considering they have been out for over a year? You can pick up most Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games which have been out for over a year for under £20.RichardGC:Nintendo titles always have a much longer lifetime at retail than other games. Many of their Wii games are still in the charts years after their original release.Dragged back inA last minute BBQ meant a dash to an Asda to grab some food. On the way out, clutching bags full of various processed animals and cheese slices I saw L.A. Noire for the not-unreasonable price of £34. Next to that was a pre-owned Wii section so I was chuffed to bits to pick up Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom for £17 and MadWorld for just £2. There was also a healthy selection of decent pre-owned DS games which I didn’t have time to go through properly but looked promising.I’d packed my consoles away weeks ago, having given up on gaming but the above, alongside DiRT 3 arriving shortly, makes me think I’ve been a bit hasty. If anyone is interested, there were several copies of the Wii games I bought and it was Asda on the inner Norwich ring road.Phil303Don’t botherHad been waiting for Homefront to drop in price, after reading about the short single-player campaign, but did not expect my son to do it in two and a half hours! He made the point it’s getting to the stage where games companies just won’t bother with a single-player story or campaign and just release game solely for multiplayer. Which made me feel sad as I enjoy both equally, depending on my mood, but wouldn’t want to buy games solely based on multiplayer as a story and characters you meet in single-player give the multiplayer more fun and meaning.two macks (gamertag)The smell of crimeThought I would pass on my recent experience upon visiting a certain GAMEing emporium, where I overheard the assistant trying to sell (in his words) ‘The newest Grand Theft Auto game, Lenor.’I had no idea Rockstar had made a fabric conditioner simulator and have tried to find out more about this game, but with no luck as of yet. So I was wondering of you guys at GC had any news on it. What consoles it is available for and does it come in a choice of fragrances?Steve PerrinNo big deal?Am I the only person not getting the big deal with the faces in L.A. Noire? Apart from one interview where I got all the answers right, I don’t seem to be able to spot the tells at all. And yet I feel there’s not enough punishment on the player for messing up interviews. I’d have preferred if cases could remain unsolved and the only way to progress through the ranks would be to solve (complete) the street crimes.I also have other complaints specifically relating to the homicide stage that I can’t go into here without including massive spoilers. The ’40s setting is starting to grate too. I still think the game is worthwhile though. I’d love a Lethal Weapon inspired sequel, going around solving cases as Riggs and Murtaugh.MrtankthreatFirstly let me just say I am loving LA Noire. However the motion scan is so good that the usual gaming gripes we all know, love and forgive are more pronounced. For instance not being able to climb up the tiniest of ledges or not being able to investigate every single item at a location, I can pick up one cup but not another. Having rooms in a suspect’s house off limits and worse of all red barrels. There was something cathartic about Deadly Premonition’s driving sections, L.A. Noire’s are a bit boring. I have not played it but I remember Mafia II was criticised for being a linear game in an empty open world, it seems the same could be said for L.A. Noire.Perhaps I have not been off the beaten track enough but all I have come across is people telling me I am the policeman from the papers. The cases are good, if all wrapped up a little too quickly and a lifetime of police shows has made most of the cases a little obvious. I am only on disc two maybe they will get longer and more complex. Reading this back I know I sound negative I really do not mean to. It is not against LA Noire in particular. Just its greatness exposes the gaming conventions that remind you, you are playing a game.PowerFeeling (gamertag)I really think L.A. Noire should have a disclaimer on the box that asseverates the fact that this is not Grand Theft Auto: 1940s. I fully expected it to be another Grand Theft Auto clone set in different time period but instead I was very pleasantly surprised.Almost every case in the game has more intrigue and suspense woven into them than most games posses throughout their entire story. I also like the fact that they haven’t made any concessions in terms of the rhetoric of the game or the crime scenes as this makes the game feel very believable and authentic to the period: with racial slurs being thrown around fairly liberally and the ‘full frontal female nudity’ part being particularly gruesome.The gunplay is solid but the action elements that really shine are the foot chases that have you scurrying up drainpipes as well as jumping across buildings and car chases involving vehicles flipping over repeatedly. These action sequences wouldn’t feel out of place in a terrible Michael Bay movieiLike Fat Ladys (gamertag)/ Selfish_Lover18 (PSN ID)Inbox also-ransThe Modern Warfare 3 gameplay trailer looks pretty exciting with some quite epic scenes. No hint of any multiplayer in there, so looks like it’s single-player only this time round.WanEye (PSN ID)GC:Yes,  there will be magic unicorns in it this time too.I don’t run. I prefer walking, I tend to see more.AndyWell the world didn’t end, and we didn’t all go and live under the sea. I was personally looking forward to The Rapture, I’ve always wanted to fire bees out of my hands…mark bothickCheck out my new song Overheated at www.pfeva.comPfevaAlthough Cole Phelps is standing for the right side of the law I can understand why his work colleagues don’t like him. He’s a bit irritating,DaveAmazon currently have a load of games under £15 including Mass Effect 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Deadly Premonition,  Assassin’s Creed I Game Of The Year, Just Cause 2, Enslaved, Lost Planet 2, Bayonetta and more, many under a tenner too.TrevorMcFurr (gamertag)

This week’s Hot TopicIn two week’s time, at E3, the Wii 2 (aka Project Café) will be unveiled – becoming the first eighth generation home console. But when do you hope and expect to see a new Xbox and PlayStation?Nobody is predicting an announcement of new home consoles from Microsoft or Sony this year, but there’ll probably be at least a hint of them in 2012. Is that too soon or too late? Do you feel the technology of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 has been fully exploited and if not how long would you be happy for them to continue?How much better would the graphics have to be on a new console for you to deem it to be worthwhile? Would you expect them to be photorealistic? What other features, including controllers and online, do you want from a next gen home console?

E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk

The small printNew Inbox updates appear twice daily, every weekday morning and afternoon. Letters are used on merit and may be edited for length.You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word 4Player viewer features at any time, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.If you wish to vote in the Readers’ Top of 2010 simply send us an e-mail with a list of your three favourite games of the year so far. Please vote only for games released in the UK during 2010.

Monster Hunter Tri – do Capcom need to try harder?

Once upon a time in the WestRegarding the comment ‘a move that’s likely to be of little interest to Western gamers’, you’ll be surprised at the amount of Western gamers begging for the Monster Hunter franchise to be released in Europe on popular consoles. If they’re basing their decision on Wii sales, then Capcom really need a poke up the rear with a reality rod! Monster Hunter Tri didn’t sell so great because it was only released on the Wii, which let’s face it, is a ‘family’ console aimed at ‘families with children under 12′ with their 100s of cutesy age 7+ games and their pitiful handful of age 16+ games.Literally on release day Xbox 360 owners and PlayStation 3 owners were miffed at Capcom’s daft move to release this game on Wii only, when the real Monster Hunter target gamers all have PlayStation 3s or Xbox 360s I mean, several flavours of Monster Hunter Frontier are out in Japan on the Xbox 360, why not Europe?! Role-playing and massively multiplayer online is just as massive here in Europe as first person shooters. Look at World Of Warcraft or City Of Heroes.  Capcom are seriously missing a trick! Team Monster Hunting with fellow Xbox 360 players! Let’s hope Dragon’s Dogma’ will set the milestone for a Monster Hunter Europe, and slap a bit of reality or reason into Capcom’s face!Lord LethrisGC:That’s a pretty patronising view of the Wii and its audience. We don’t remember Monster Hunter storming the UK charts on PSP or PlayStation 2 either.

Scales of justiceRE: Mch2011uk. Other great exclusives for the Xbox 360 that are definitely worth a try are Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, Mass Effect, Ace Combat 6, Crackdown 1 and 2, Battlestation: Midway and  Pacific (though I prefer Pacific),The First Templar, Tenchu Z, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Darkstar One: Broken Alliance, and Project Gotham Racing 3 and 4. Hope that helps.On a different subject, I was explaining to my girlfriend today, how your review systemworks like a set of scales, in that 5 is the middle and the more it is above 5 the more it is over the average and the more it is lower than 5 the worse it is. She thinks that’s a great system, that it makes sense and doesn’t understand why everyone else doesn’t use it.Spartas Edge(gamertag)/Spartan-Edge (PSN ID)

Maintaining your baseReading Ethan Lawrence’s reader feature he mentions ‘upgradable drives, power and controllers’.  Now for me a console should be plug-and-play otherwise it becomes complicated and this is why I think things like the Sega 32X and Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive fail.  Developers don’t want to alienate part of their target audience by having a game that can only be played on a console with upgrade ‘A’ or ‘B’ and I think beyond the hard drive, few console owners would want to upgrade their console every year or so just to be able to play the latest games.Casual gamers are even less likely to fork out for an upgrade if they only want to play one or two games on it and the upgrade isn’t seriously significant. Controllers have almost always been the evolutionary part of a console’s life, while the main hardware remains constant (apart from the few failed attempts at add-ons/upgrades).From extra buttons to analogue sticks to motion control the progress of controllers seems to have been a steady improvement each generation. Who would have thought back in the 8-bit days, when joysticks were a stick and one ‘fire’ button that controllers 25 years on would have two sticks, eight buttons, Start, Select and a D-pad.There is also the consideration of compatibility issues with a variety of combinations of upgrade parts too and glitches/bugs needing patches could become a bigger issue. I don’t like the idea of upgrading the base console. If I was happy to upgrade frequently I’d buy a gaming PC but I just want to stick the disc in and play straight out the box, without checking what specs are required.  Maybe it’s just me but I’d be interested to hear GC’s and other readers opinionsOpt1mus76 (gamertag/PSN ID)

Catch up on every previous Games Inbox here

An ex-fanI must take issue with PazJohnMitch’s assessment of the Final Fantasy series. As a former fan of the series, I think his rendition of the relative quality and reasons for buying subsequent games is flawed. I bought VII after seeing it played at a friend’s house and it was a revelation, a brilliant game. Based on this, I bought VIII which, unlike PazJohnMitch, I felt was even better than VII and so I duly picked up IX when it was released.This was a weak point in the series, I didn’t like the weapon system and it was far too easy (though the card game and chocobo side quests were, admittedly, fun). FX was a real upturn after IX, all nicely polished with lots of secrets and a faster, more fluid battle and weapon customisation system. X-2 was very, very girly and I am a little embarrassed to admit that, story aside, I actually quite liked it.Mostly, this was again because of the battle system. I thought that although very effeminate, the dress spheres worked really well as a gameplay mechanism – allowing you to change fighting styles on-the-fly and allowing for some degree of tactical planning.I didn’t even bother with the online XI, having seen my friend playing through a horrible soulless grind of a game. And XII, which everyone raved about at the time, I hated. I bought it and honestly tried to persevere through the by now overfamiliar plot, but none of the characters were likeable and I really hated the battle system. It was like they tried to take the system from Vagrant Story (which I had no problem with), graft it to the Final Fantasy template, and make it as clumsy and irritating as they possibly could.Eventually I lost the will to play and XII remains the only Final Fantasy game since VI (I bought the PSone re-release) that I’ve bought but not completed. I didn’t buy XIII, having seen a friend trudging through what appeared to be a corridor for several hours. Both the linearity and the fact that you could only directly control one of your party swayed me from giving the series another chance. I don’t foresee ever buying another Final Fantasy game, so I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with Cthulu Saves The World until something with a bigger budget steps in to fill the void…Oz

Only man in the worldDespite having my Xbox 360 since 2007 I am yet to own a first person shooter of any description.  One of the main reasons is that I don’t have the free time or interest in playing online.  I’ve avoided the likes of Call Of Duty because they seem centred around multiplayer and treating the single-player as an afterthought. I may be wrong with this pre-conception and am happy to be corrected if this is not the case.The last first person shooters I played and enjoyed were TimeSplitters 2 and Black on the PlayStation 2. The only one I have played on this generation of console is Halo 3 which I borrowed from a friend and didn’t enjoy at all.   So I’m not the only person in the world to own an Xbox 360 and not have a first person shooter I thought I’d ask for one for Father’s Day. I’ve narrowed it down to Bulletstorm, Crysis 2 or possibly The Orange Box. I’m unsure about Half-Life though, ever since switching the PC version off many years ago after it decided it was Super Mario first person and had me blindly jumping across barrels floating on water. It stands as the only game to make me feel motion sick other than Descent. Can you recommend any others I should consider?PEGC:We wouldn’t say the single-player was an afterthought in Call Of Duty, it’s just the other side of the coin. Any of the games you mention are worth a try, or BioShock 1 or 2.No time to wasteJust tried to play Killzone 3 online today but turned off in anger because, as usual, I happen to be employed and have a family and social life so I cannot put in the required time to unlock everything I need to compete at the level required.I don’t ask for much, maybe just a game type with everything unlocked so people in a similar situation as me can jump on and have fun without the feeling the odds are against me because I have not got the time to play it as much as I would like to.michelle gillinghamLive action adaptionI don’t know why Seinfeld keeps getting mentioned, I must have missed the letter that initially referenced it. I used to hate it, but it grew on me. Did you ever see the Frogger episode? The pizza place opposite Seinfeld’s apartment is closing down. They’ve had a Frogger machine for several years, and Seinfeld’s friend George decides to buy it as his high score and initials are still on it.Towards the end of the episode, he goes to collect it with a sack truck. The camera shows the scene from above as he struggles to get it over the busy road, resembling a real life game of Frogger! There’s a clip on YouTube, if you can’t stomach watching a whole episode!Tim KeelingGC:Someone asked whether we liked it and we said no. But then we haven’t seen that episode…Hats offI’m really enjoying L.A. Noire so far, especially the hats and the face capture technology which is very eerie and adds to the immersion. Do you think Rockstar will use the same tech in the next Grand Theft Auto game? If the same process is used it’ll certainly make characters appear more human and perhaps cause a player who employs pointless slaughter to doubt their reckless behaviour. I also love the fact that when I am hat-less in Noire I feel somewhat naked and incomplete. Perhaps it’s because I wear a baseball cap in real life to combat my bald patch.MSVJust wanna email in to say I’m loving L.A. Noire. At first I thought it was a cross between Mafia II and Heavy Rain but the story has really sucked me in and I love how your character is slowly working his way up the police force. Anyway the main point of my email is to say can you imagine the possibilities for future games?A Dirty Harry style game set in the ’70s and ’80s, a modern version of the game set in the present with all of today’s forensics. I think Rockstar have got themselves another winning franchise and should be commended for allowing a game like this to be made instead of just another Grand Theft Auto clone. Keep up the good work.jonJust got my copy of L.A. Noire and want to say what a fantastic game this is so far. For me, the narrative is its key strength, and indeed, I cannot think of another game as well written. The other major strength of the game is just how different it is from anything else on the market, which makes it feel fresh.  Also, finally got round to getting a 3DS last week and from what I have played (only got Ridge Racer 3D so far) I am relatively impressed. However, I was curious whether anyone else finds it strains their left thumb to use the D-pad or Circle Pad? I also have this problem on a DS Lite, it just seems like the console is just a bit too small for my hands. Well worth the pain though.Finally, just thought readers would appreciate this story. Went into GAME (Exeter) last week to purchase Ridge Racer 3D, saw their copies of L.A. Noire, I cheekily asked if they were breaking early (it was Wednesday), when the employee replied with, ‘No afraid not, the staff aren’t even allowed early copies, nothing, not even a sniff of the manual.’black rogue 13 (gamertag)PS: Some Left 4 Dead 2 player messaged me about needing ‘cheevs’. It made me despair about society as a whole.  I took delivery of L.A. Noire on Friday to much anticipation, however the playing experience has, so far, left me somewhat cold.Cases seen to continue regardless of the clues you uncover, and questioning suspects seems little more than pot luck. On more than one occasion I have doubted someone’s story, knowing it to be untrue, and yet been punished with them clamming up. Am I missing something? Am I doing something obviously wrong?Your Captain’s bipolar responses are jarring too, chewing you out one minute (despite gaining a conviction) before praising you to high heaven in the very next scene. Where is Rockstar’s customary immersion?!So I am thus far disappointed, but I will plough on in the hope it will yet reach the heights of Red Dead Redemption, my favourite game of last year.Paulous99 (gamertag)Inbox also-ransThe bruise monkey is like the tooth fairy – he visits you in the night and dishes out those unexplained bruises, the ones where you have no idea how they got there.BruisemonkeyI wish those ladies of L.A. Noire would stop saying Cole Phelps is handsome… he looks like Lembit Opik.big boy bent (gamertag)I’m loving the L.A. Noire experience and its wonderful jazz scoring. Along with Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 I paid £44 for both stellar games from my local Tesco.Ste CHas there ever been any World War I games?JoeGC:It’s featured in quite a few strategy games, but it’s not really suitable for action games – on a number of levels. It plays a key role in The Darkness though and there’s Xbox Live Arcade game Wings Of War.Just out of curiosity, which video game showcase event does have the most cosplay sex orgies?!Leethario (gamertag/PSN ID)GC:The Tokyo Game Show, easily.I assume that in the Pro Player mode in FIFA 12 you will occasionally have to consult with lawyers regarding taking out injunctions.black rogue 13 (gamertag)This week’s Hot TopicIn two week’s time, at E3, the Wii 2 (aka Project Café) will be unveiled – becoming the first eighth generation home console. But when do you hope and expect to see a new Xbox and PlayStation?Nobody is predicting an announcement of new home consoles from Microsoft or Sony this year, but there’ll probably be at least a hint of them in 2012. Is that too soon or too late? Do you feel the technology of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 has been fully exploited and if not how long would you be happy for them to continue?How much better would the graphics have to be on a new console for you to deem it to be worthwhile? Would you expect them to be photorealistic? What other features, including controllers and online, do you want from a next gen home console?

E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk

The small printNew Inbox updates appear twice daily, every weekday morning and afternoon. Letters are used on merit and may be edited for length.You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word 4Player viewer features at any time, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.If you wish to vote in the Readers’ Top of 2010 simply send us an e-mail with a list of your three favourite games of the year so far. Please vote only for games released in the UK during 2010.

LA Noire is effectively a crime thriller, boasting state-of-the-art motion capture technology and a realist 1940′s setting, so is immersing yourself in post-war Los Angeles worthy of your time and money?

Gameplay

The gameplay mechanics in LA Noire are largely similar to other current-gen Rockstar games like Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption, so for those who have played either of those you’ll largely know what to expect with the driving and on-foot controls for main protagonist Cole Phelps, a War Hero who decided to join the L.A.P.D once he’d served his country.  There is no jump button however which is actually a blessing, no longer will you be stuck behind a foot-high wall after mis-timing a jump during a chase or accidentally launch yourself off a six story building.

The interview process is enthralling

Throughout the game’s engrossing story you’ll be given the opportunity to interview potential witnesses and suspect on a variety of cases, and for a lot of things people say you’ll be able to decide if you think they’re telling the truth, if there’s an element of doubt in their story or if they’re flat out lying, the latter of which requires you to back up your claim with evidence.  This allows for exciting moments not only out on the streets, as interrogating people can make all the difference when it eventually comes to prosecuting a suspect.  You can use something called intuition points to either see what the LA Noire community chose or opt for a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire-style option which takes one of the three choices away.  This can prove to be very useful but sometimes it does seem to be down to pure luck as to whether you’ve chosen the right answer.

As a detective it’s all about unearthing the small details at a crime scene and at places that have anything to do with a victims last known whereabouts or the home of someone who might have had something to do with the crime.  It’s a compelling and satisfying process if you find the right piece of evidence to contradict someone’s story, which ties in with my earlier point of simple conversations often becoming incredibly exciting and interesting.

As mentioned driving and on-foot controls are responsive and easy to pick up, as are the occasional shoot-outs and brawls you’ll encounter throughout the storyline.  You can effortlessly hide behind cover and take aim at the bad guys, and for those who don’t have an accurate hand you can tinker with the auto aim settings to your liking.   The only problem here is that shooting people in the legs can be as fatal as a headshot, so here’s a tip – when chasing someone on foot you can fire a warning shot, but don’t think it’s a good idea to subdue them by taking out a leg.  It’ll often kill the person you’re pursuing and you’ll therefore fail the case.

Score – 9/10

Graphics

The advanced use of motion capture technology was one of LA Noire’s big selling points, and for the most part it works well.  Just watching people’s lips move while they talk is a visual treat and while certain emotions aren’t fully captured what they’ve accomplished is still a terrific achievement.

Los Angeles looks authentic

Elsewhere the city of Los Angeles looks fantastic, apparently around 90% of the in-game city is a replica of how the real thing looked in that era.  The city is bustling and gives a real sense of authenticity, and you’ll encounter typically suburban neighbourhoods, seedy jazz bars and beautiful mansions along with several landmark locations.

There are a couple of negative points to mention though, primarily with regards to realism.  I might be nitpicking but it bothers me when driving to a location and the screen fades to black briefly, and you’ll suddenly be approaching the building from the opposite direction – and sometimes not even in the car you were in just a moment beforehand.  There are also some pop-up issues, such as with small details like flagpoles and lampposts appearing right in front of you as you’re driving or long after everything else has loaded.  This is a very prominent if you don’t have the disk you are playing installed to your hard drive, so doing so is highly recommended.

Score – 9/10

Sound and Music

Phelps can quickly become overly-intense

As has become synonymous with Rockstar Games the voice acting in LA Noire is fantastic.  Each character is brought to life masterfully, and while our hero Cole Phelps can get a little intense at times for seemingly no reason and perhaps say things that the choice you chose wouldn’t necessarily reflect (although a possible reason for this becomes clear through the occasional flashback to the war) for the most part the voice acting comes across as realistic as possible.  However random conversations in the street aren’t as good as seen in GTA IV for example, you’ll encounter the same recycled lines with annoying regularity about how Phelps “seem like a nice guy” or informing you that you need to take a bath.

The music is typically 1940′s jazz compositions, they adequately add to the immersion but I personally haven’t noticed anything outstanding.  Most of the 95 vehicles you can drive in the game sound the same as well, but how much of that is down to the lack of variety under the hood in 1947 or not is something I’m not familiar with, but to hear every engine sound the same is nevertheless a minor flaw.

Score – 7/10

Value

I’ve put about 10 hours into LA Noire so far, and as a guess I’d say I’m not quite half way through the game.  I still have plenty of  the 40 street crimes to do as well as explore the city in full, so to get the bare minimum game completion would probably take somewhere between 20 and 25 hours.  You can also extend the experience by driving across Los Angeles yourself, you can ask whoever your partner is to drive for you a lot of the time which serves as a ‘quick jump’ to your destination.

As I write this the game is still brand new and thus retailing at full price, but it’s a worthwhile experience and in my opinion an essential purchase. Despite this there doesn’t seem to be much replay value, as no matter what the outcome of each individual case the storyline progresses in the same linear fashion.

Score – 8/10

Summary

+ Everything from car chases to simple interrogations is exciting

+ 1940′s Los Angeles looks about as authentic as it can be

+ The facial motion capture is incredible

+ The storyline is engaging

+ Should take most people at least 30 hours to complete fully

+ Great voice acting

- Some graphics glitches

- Music and sound effects are largely forgettable

- Phelps can often become intense for no reason and not reflect your choices

- While the game auto saves regularly, you can’t manually save your game

- There doesn’t seem to be any reason to replay the game once you’re done

- Early murder investigations are repetitive

Overall Score – 33/40 = 82%

Generally to review games people rate them on graphics, sound etc but I will give you the executive summary with the cool and fun aspects of the game, NO spoilers.

L.A Noire is a different genre of game, I would almost classify it as a entertainment/film and action game. My roomate and myself find it fun to play it in a team and figure out clues, decisions and the interview format of the game. A lot of the game seems like Rockstar’s previous with cut scene action and driving and shooting but it is much more linear in motion then Read Dead Redemption of GTA IV. One thing is clear, they made the game different for a reason. The cases themselves still have a very open element of choice though. Overall I would recommend renting L.A Noire first in order to see if this style of gameplay is for you, then purchase it.

Cool stuff:
-Solid achievement list
-Great crime scenes and challenging interviews
-Different crime types
-Perfect scenery and historical perspective

L.A. Noire is the latest work from Rockstar Games. Just as the founders intended upon settling Los Angeles in 1781, 1940′s L.A. is full of drugs, violence, and crime.  You take the role of aspiring young police officer Cole Phelps, as he works his way up the ranks by becoming the greatest detective since Law & Order was cancelled. You start slow working patrol duty and then traffic, but don’t let that fool you, because patrol and traffic is actually just code for, you guessed it, murder most foul. So while you think you might just end up doing procedural police work until you earn your bones, think again, L.A. Noire throws you right into the fire.

L.A. Noire has three pretty distinct gameplay mechanics. The first is the open world city, complete with cars, guns, and the occasional unusual bug we’ve come to expect from Rockstar and their ambitious populated cityscapes. L.A. looks great, the effort Rockstar put in to recreate 1940′s L.A. is immediately noticeable as soon as you take your first drive around the city. The gun play and driving is nothing we haven’t seen before from Rockstar, showing similarity to their other recent titles like Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto 4. The big difference about this is that unlike Rockstar’s previous games, the driving around and gun fights really play second fiddle to the actual police work, which is the main draw of L.A. Noire.

The crime scene investigation system brings us back to the wonderful era of adventure games, where the goal is to scour the area to find the relevant clues amid the piles of useless hair dryers and dirty dishes. While not particularly challenging to find all the useful clues because of the ‘vibrate when you’re near something useful’ system of investigation, it’s still a lot of fun to find and piece together all of the clues. With each clue you get a little close to solving the mystery, and if you miss enough clues, you might end up tanking your investigation completely.

Where the clues really begin to come in handy is the interview system, and this is probably the best part of L.A. Noire. The idea is that you ask a person of interest a question, they respond, and then you either choose to believe them, doubt them, or call them out on a lie by using evidence to prove that they are in fact a lying scumbag. By choosing correctly you get relevant information to help you get closer to solving your investigation. Push a witness too hard and they might clam up,  believe a lie and you might be given wrong information that screws you over. The system works amazingly well because of the tremendous effort Rockstar put in to make the characters look, feel, and act completely believable. Every character has their own unique personality, and you really notice a difference between all of your partners, colleagues, and major suspects. It would not be a stretch to say L.A. Noire has some of the best character acting and facial animations seen in a game, ever, and it’s that attention to detail that really begins to bring the world around you alive.

As you have probably come to expect from a Rockstar game, there is a lot of side stuff to do besides the main missions. There are ‘street crimes’, which are essentially mini-missions started by responding to dispatch calls. These have some solid variety to them, and they are usually a good bit of fun. If you’re the completionist type, there are film reels hidden all around the city waiting to be collected, and a solid variety of different cars to find and drive.

The game does have a few faults, at times it feels a bit formulaic. You can almost always expect major suspects to try to escape, either on foot or by car, and of course you must give chase. By the third time a criminal grabs a random citizen and puts a gun to his head, daring you to make a move, you might get a little tired of shooting said criminal in the face, maybe. There are some wacky bugs you’ll run into as you play; in one mission the cab driver I was looking for was standing on his cab in the middle of the street, when I approached him, the cut-scene showed him calmly getting out of his car. Overall, the positives of L.A. Noire way, way outshine the negatives, and it’s a game that anyone who likes good games should play.

L.A. Noire (XBox 360)

Playing L.A. Noire made by Team Bondi and published by Rockstar Games, this game fits into the mold of a niche game with its much slower pace and thinking involved.  It’s far brainier than Grand Theft Auto and a bit more cinematic than its cousin Mafia II.  Although admittedly there is shooting involved, but there is far more investigation involved which leads to some brainwork.  The game helps by lending a notebook involving major clues involved in cases.  In some ways, L.A. Noire is including the interactive parts inspired by the CSI video game series and Bully.  However, unlike the CSI video game series, this game has more direction in the clues involved.

The interrogation is particularly interesting as the facial features of each character are fantastic.  With each case, Detective Cole Phelps interrogates each suspect, using the evidence collected at particular scenes or identification of the weapon and its casings. The music is crucial to the game as it helps the player identify pieces of evidence.  Additionally, the music in the background,  is very period.  Cole Phelps interrogates the suspect by looking at the suspect and deciding if they’re lying or not.  He is given three choices based on the suspect’s  behavior: Lie, Doubt or Truth.  The player can request help from the Rockstar Community on cases using an Intuition point.  The interrogation portion reminds me of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? television show sometime ago. Despite all this, the animations for the characters are still reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto or Mafia.  Although a tad cleaner, their bodies are still very blocky, including their arms and hands, and some of the animations are glitchy.  In fact, during the second case, I suffered a glitch in the game as the suspect attempted to run away and was partially stuck in the wall of a store.

L.A. Noire is the elegant and brainy cousin of Grand Theft Auto and Mafia so far.  It’s inclusion of evidence-finding combined with interrogation of suspects makes full use of the “revolutionary new facial animation technology” (as declared on back of video game case).  It is bound to be quite lengthy with the cinematics, finding each piece of evidence, the interrogations and the fact that the game is contained on three game discs. I expect the game to last for at least 30 hours, if not 40.  Overall, I have gained a favorable first impression of the game. It is at least a 8.7 out of 10 so far, but this game is not without its flaws.

A ênfase no interrogatório prmete ser o diferencial de L.A. Noire

Com muita, muuuita expectativa de Deus e do mundo chega dia 17/05 L.A. Noire, novo jogo desenvolvido pela Team Bondi e produzido pela Rockstar (GTA, Red Dead Redemption). O jogo promete trazer todo o glamour e decadência dos film noir através de um mundo aberto riquíssimo e de uma história policial cheia de sutileza e investigação.

É interessante destacar a nova e impressionante tecnologia de captura de movimentos voltada especificamente para expressões faciais e criada para o jogo. Diversas câmeras simultâneas filmam a performance do ator e são “somadas” , formando uma imagem 3d que é tratada com computação gráfica. O resultado – que impressiona qualquer um pela absurda naturalidade das expressões- possibilita o trunfo do Team Bondi e o núcleo da jogabilidade, o sistema de interrogatório. A princípio parece ser apenas um sistema de diálogos complexo, mas prático como os vistos na serie “Mass Effect”, da Bioware, mas o Team Bondi nos garante que com o sistema gráfico, cada expressão dos personagens será única, marcante e natural o bastante para lermos suas intenções e reações. Deveremos prestar atenção: como cada pergunta e comentário nossos afetam os interrogados para conseguirmos o maior número de informações. Forçou de maneira errada e você corre o risco da testemunha se fechar de vez. O objetivo dos desenvolvedores era um jogo que mostrasse o trabalho de um detetive e não um filme de ação policial padrão. Perícia em cenas de crime, perseguir pistas e interrogar suspeitos são infinitamente mais importantes do que atirar no caminho que percorremos como Cole Phelps, desde o uniforme azul da patrulha nas ruas até a investigação em vários departamentos.

Confira este video sobre a nova tecnologia e arregale os olhos para os gráficos e as expressões faciais:

Com um roteiro de mais de 2 mil paginas – note que um roteiro de cinema normal tem aproximadamente 1pg por minuto, melhor juntar dinheiro agora que você vai ter que largar o emprego – baseado em dezenas de casos policiais reais L.A. Noire aparenta profundidade fora do comum na construção de seu mundo. A aparência da cidade foi cuidadosamente construída a partir de fotos de Los Angeles dos anos 1930 e 1940 – roupas, carros, armas; o Team Bondi quase nos desafia a encontrar incoerências e eu aposto que não vamos conseguir. Ainda sobre a adaptação, um dos primeiros casos investigados é baseado na série de crimes que já foi também transformada em filme de Brian de Palma,  Dália Negra.

Uma mistura de “Los Angeles: cidade proibida”, “Dália Negra” e film noire em geral, o jogo atesta sua qualidade de maneira marcante: teve sequências exibidas no festival de cinema Tribeca. Se até nossos primos metidos do cinema respeitaram o jogo, nós gamers vamos louvá-lo!

O nome Rockstar já é associado a games de qualidade há algum tempo, principalmente no subgênero do mundo aberto (ou sandbox), que busca reproduzir a experiência de um mundo em seus detalhes – quem assistiu os programas bizarros de TV em GTA 4 sabe do que eu estou falando. Os gráficos exibidos até agora são indubitavelmente lindos e mostram claramente o potencial da nova tecnologia de captura de rostos. Para completar, os desenvolvedores confiam tanto na jogabilidade de interrogatório e investigação que criaram que vão permitir aos jogadores que pulem sequências inteiras de ação depois de falharem muitas vezes. A idéia é que a importância maior fique com o interrogatório e a análise dos casos, que darão andamento à narrativa.

Esperemos pois o dia 17 para sanar todas nossas dúvidas e, com sorte, superar nossos sonhos mais fantásticos. Aguarde também o review dA Horda – por que se a gente não jogar essa parada vai rolar desespero. Confira o trailer de lançamento e babe até semana que vem:

Para saber mais:

http://www.teambondi.com/

http://www.tribecafilm.com/filmguide/118515234.html

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/04/26/la-noire-will-let-you-skip-those-pesky-action-sequences/