L.A. Noire

[Keef Monkey]

Reckon killing them is the only way, which I found strange too. I spent the first gunfight only going for leg shots because I assumed that would be the cop way! The fact the objective text reads 'subdue' and not 'shoot to pieces' is perhaps misleading.

[mogzilla]

my console is fixed and on its way home so finally i'll be able to get this!

[Steve Green]

Just finished it - it was OK - not as groundbreaking as I thought it would be. And it felt excruciatingly slow at times, like getting info via the Gamewell.

The whole Truth/Doubt/Lie seemed a bit unpredictable, where sometimes 'doubt' = flying off the handle at the suspect, and there wasn't much scope for re-interviewing the suspects.

For a sandbox game, it felt a lot more linear than GTA, and I missed a lot of the touches from that franchise, such as public transport, being able to interact more generally with the world, picking fights with random strangers, even the ability to jump.

It just felt a bit of a step backwards, when you're playing something that initially feels like GTA.

The atmosphere was great though, and I thought it was a lot more interesting after [spoiler]the serial killer plot was resolved - this almost felt like a tacked-on DLC type level[/spoiler]

The ending [spoiler]was a bit final, I thought it might have been a bit more open, I couldn't see if there was a way to complete the street crimes for example[/spoiler]

[radiator]

The whole Truth/Doubt/Lie seemed a bit unpredictable, where sometimes 'doubt' = flying off the handle at the suspect, and there wasn't much scope for re-interviewing the suspects.

I did the first couple of interviews/interrogations last night, and totally found this to be the case - the Truth/Doubt/Lie thing isn't intuitive at all - I bit a witnesses' head off and blew the interview when I was merely trying to hedge my bets, and it took about seven, intensely frustrating attempts to get the 'right' answer from the Jewelery store owner, when all I wanted to do was ask him why he ran from the police (which curiously wasn't an option).

The random street crimes seem a bit arbitrary, too, and actually serve to detract from the atmosphere of the game somewhat. It seems faintly ridiculous that the detectives routinely stop on the way to a crime scene to shoot a fleeing man in the back, then carry on as if nothing has happened.

Looks like this might be a 'finish as quickly as possible, then bung on eBay' type of game...

[mogzilla]

xbox "in transit to preston" reckon i'll be finally getting a go tomorrow-ish

[Keef Monkey]

I've seen posts elsewhere about the interrogations being random and frustrating too, but I'm really confused why people are having trouble with them. If they're lying and you have evidence to prove that you choose lie, if they're lying and you don't have evidence you choose doubt. If they're telling the truth you choose truth. These are always the right responses. As to whether or not they're lying, the post-dialog animations they slip into always make it pretty easy to tell(if they're being truthful they'll hold your gaze, otherwise they fidget and glance around) so the game is really more about collecting enough evidence and matching it correctly to different answers.

I admit though it took a couple of cases before I nailed that so it maybe could have been communicated better to the player. Also, a lot of folk seem to be getting frustrated and constantly replaying interrogations until they get the right answers, absolutely the wrong way to go about it. Regardless of how you conduct them the case will play out (maybe slightly differently) and your case notes at the end will usually show you where you slipped up. Makes a second playthrough surprisingly satisfying.

[radiator]

I think you've just undone your own point with this comment, Keef:

I admit though it took a couple of cases before I nailed that so it maybe could have been communicated better to the player.

I may well get the hang of it eventually, but it is indeed very poorly communicated to the player - it could have been introduced gradually to thoroughly explain what each choice means - say the first interview you could only choose 'Truth', the second 'Lie' etc.

if they're lying and you don't have evidence you choose doubt

It sounds simple when you put it like that, but with no context 'Doubt' sounds very ambiguous - I interpreted it as "I don't know if the suspect is lying or not", but picking it resulted in Phelps losing his temper and blowing the interview before I could get any info from the suspect, with no option to retry the interview.

Allowing the player to completely blow the first interview simply because they are trying to be cautious is a very shoddy bit of design imo, and the sort of thing that should surely be ironed out in testing. Making that 'mistake' made me avoid the 'Doubt' option in the next interview which resulted in about seven very frustrating trial and error attempts until I figured out that it was in fact the 'right' answer. Very sloppy and counter-intuitive imo.

Strangely confusing too was the fact that I wasn't able to ask the suspect why he ran from the police, but the issue of his faith and some sort of racial motive came up in the questioning - seemingly at random.

As first impressions go, that's not good is it?

[Keef Monkey]

Yeah, Doubt essentially means 'You are lying but I can't prove it so I'm going to bully you a bit so you cave'. I still think that once you get the hang of it it's a really satisfying mechanic, I find the satisfaction of actually 5-starring a case brilliant. I'm guessing the thoughts were that letting you re-do the first main interrogation until you got it right would be enough to cement the system, but it does take a couple more before it sinks in, because you do just end up retrying until you pass and don't really learn anything.

Basically I'll concede that the system isn't well communicated (your approach of easing the player into the different responses would be great) as you're expected to pick it up purely through a couple of offhand pieces of dialog from your partner and a whole lot of trial and error. What I'm defending is the actual system itself, which I don't find to be flawed.

[radiator]

Fair enough. To be honest even a blank screen at the start of the interview with this in bold letters:

If they're lying and you have evidence to prove that you choose lie, if they're lying and you don't have evidence you choose doubt. If they're telling the truth you choose truth. These are always the right responses.

...would be a vast improvement because it gives the commands some sort of context. As it is you are kind of thrown in at the deep end.

Games have come a hell of a long way in the last decade in terms of user-friendliness and accessibility, but they still have a long way to go. I frequently see examples of horrible design and storytelling in games, where if you miss one little hint or line of dialogue, you end up very confused later on.

[Hegel]

This game is technically great, smooth as butter (on ps3 at least) and obviously gorgeous. I just wish it wasn't so damn boring. I've played about 4 full cases (after the tutorials and once you get a 'desk' job) so it may get more interesting after that but I'm really disappointed. I saw this game in development about 18 months ago (I used to work for rockstar, albeit never on this title) and it held a lot of potential back then and I've been very interested to see how it all eventually came together.

Glad I didn't pay for it!

It isn't terrible by any stretch of the imagination but it just feels like such a chore to play, a beautifully detailed and (for a game) well written chore - and its not the relative lack of action that bothers me, its the simplicity of the sleuthing and the pace of the clue gathering.


Take all this with a pinch of salt, I think I'm going off games altogether (until Disgaea 4 comes out that is).

[Steve Green]

Leaving aside the interview system I found it lacking in a few areas.

The main character isn't that engaging, I much preferred [spoiler]When it switched to Kelso, although that made the interviews with Elsa a bit weird, since it was your former character who told her to go to Kelso, and the reason for doing so. I think it would have been more interesting to have had the freedom to lean on witnesses, at the risk of jeopardising the case[/spoiler]

The city is not as involving as GTA - there's little interaction with the population or the city itself beyond driving around.

For example, I think it would have been more interesting to pick up clues from people around the crime scenes by listening in on conversations, rather than just official interviews.

It felt far too linear, even though I hit a fair amount of people driving around, there didn't seem to be any problem with that, same with unlimited ammo.

I'm not asking for it to get bogged down with managing resources, but no matter how I played it didn't really seem to be that much of a challenge as a game, and I'd expected something a bit more from the buzz it had been getting.

Maybe I'm being harsh, but it did feel like a bit of a let-down.

[Keef Monkey]

If anyone's into it enough to want more the DLC has gone up. There's a bunch of gubbins like outfits and extra weapons (which are no interest to me to be honest) and the 2 bonus cases that were pre-order incentives (one of the cases comes with an easter egg hunt too). It's about 300 points a case, but 800 points for a rockstar pass that gets you all of that plus another 2 cases when they're released in the next month or so. Think the pass goes up to 1000 points next week though. I bought one, had some points anyway and was intrigued at the prospect of more cases.

[Steve Green]

Maybe if they had a vigilante mode where you could go round and beat the crap out of the scumbags who got away first time round

[Pete Wells]

Ooooooh sounds interesting, I certainly liked the game enough to get the DLC.

As for the criticisms, I can see many of the faults in hindsight, but have to say I was totally immersed in the game when I was playing it. The cases were great and the story kept me hooked right until the end.

So, for me at least, the game was a success.

[mogzilla]

lovin' it! played the first case about three times cos i rushed and pissed of the witness...