LA Noire (360 Review)
NO SPOLIERS
So you know my style of writing these reviews by now and you understand that instead of padding them out by embellishing story details and waxing lyrical about character back story and plots, my reviews are heavily game play focused and this Review of LA Noire is no different.
So I’m rank 11/20 on the 2nd disc with 255GS and 8/21 cases solved so feel I have played for long enough to give this title a fair review.
Before we go any further if you are thinking of getting this game then I recommend you sign up for the Rockstar social club, this proved valuable in RDR for tracking stats and also offers the incentive of a free suit to all members available on the games main menu (Suite gives better handling of the BAR, Thompson and Shotguns)
There was also supposed to be a Rockstar Pass available on XBL to coincide with the launch in NA but this has yet to materialise. Rumours are rife that it will contain all Pre order DLC but that’s just speculation and might I remind you that the Pre order DLC for RDR took over a year to be the topic of conversation with regards to dropping on the market place!
So LA Noire:
You play the role of Cole Phelps (Acted by Aaron Staton from Mad Men) who is a young war Hero from the Pacific Campaign who was awarded the Silver Star during his time as an Officer in the USMC. Cole was honourably discharged due to an injury suffered but he is very reluctant to discuss his service or anything to do with his time on operations in an active theatre of war. He is also very sober and straight laced to the point in which I’m finding it hard to warm to him. But this is still early days and who knows? He might go Renegade mode and become a hero to me.
You return to LA and decide to join the police force, whether it’s because you’re institutionalised or power hungry isn’t quite clear but flash backs start to help you form an opinion of your character.
For history buffs out there you will know that the USA was going through an economical depression and had not long decided to self govern the prohibition laws leading up to WWII and the cease of this conflict meant an exciting and new time for the people of America. They all had the opportunity to grab their piece of the American dream unfortunately not all people have the same ideas and Holly Wood is the perfect place for unsavoury characters to exploit others and turn their dreams into nightmares. This game capture the era perfectly and conveys that Holly Wood effect on niave people perfectly.
This game is best described as a 3rd person open world (but linear for main story) puzzle/action game. Now when you hear Rockstar you automatically think GTA or RDR, I know I did! Having played every game they have produced apart from their table tennis title (which I’m told is good if you like that kind of thing) this is a completely different beast so don’t come into this game expecting GTA4.5 because you will be disappointed!
Game play can be broken down into 3 aspects:
Free world exploring, driving and chasing people-
the best comparison I can think of for this is Maffia II, the reason I use this game is the fact it’s set in the same era so the cars are similar and the jaunty tunes that get played on the radio are similar. Unlike M2 though you only get one choice of radio station in LAN so if you don’t like what’s getting played you’re out of luck. Where it improves on M2 is the car handling the use of licensed vehicles, the game also excels in real life architecture and city layout with the designers claiming up to 90% accuracy for the cityscape and signage for that era. The game also manages to convey people’s perceptions and mentality when it comes to others; Racisms, Fascism, Bigotry, Sexism and Domestic violence are as normal as drinking at 10am to the people of this bygone time. If you’re unsure what I mean speak to your granddad who was in the war, you know the one that makes comments at Christmas that you have to laugh inside about (if only for it political incorrectness) the game also has your usual free world to explore but doesn’t quite have the interaction of other titles in the sand box genre.
Crime scene investigation-
There aren’t really any CSI games other then CSI! Those titles play out in a point and click so using them as a comparison is unfair. I would however say it’s very similar to the first FBI agent mission from Heavy Rain; in fact it smacks heavily of that mission (Minus the cool future glasses) Crime scene investigation can make or break a case! Whilst playing the game you can change the difficulty so you can have audio prompts and vibration to alert you to a point of interest and clues within the crime scene or you can go full Dexter and turn them all off for an ultra realistic experience. In LA Noire your best friend is your pocket book where all details regarding the case are kept, check this regularly to keep abreast of what’s going on and plan your strategy.
Interrogation-
This is where the game comes into its own! They have used real life face recognition on actors and transferred that across into the game, the outcome of this is scary at first for if you stare at it trying to notice it you will but then you can’t escape the sensation. It’s like when you do something without thinking about it but when you are conscious of it you have to make your self do it. Any way obviously as a cop trying to solve cases you have to gather intelligence and evidence both from your CSI and interrogation of suspects. This aspect of the game is both the most difficult and the most satisfying part of it! The way it works is you have 3 options after a conversation :
Press (A) if you think they’re telling the truth
Pres (X) if you think they’re at it but don’t have evidence to back up your theory
Press (Y) if they’re lying and you know it as you have evidence to support your claim! BOOM!In off the Red!
There’s nothing better than some slime ball coming the wide”O” only for you to turn round and shove the insurmountable evidence down his throat. This is also where the facial features come into play! Look for tells if you think someone is being economical with the truth, look for eye contact and fidgeting and change in voice tone but be aware, some of these people lie better then Stuart Beggs “the Brand” because much like him they believe their own BS.
Just coming back to the facial features, when I played it on my gaming TV it was fine but when I played it on my BIG TV it had a whole Command and Conquer FMV meets Who framed Roger Rabbit look to, You know like a real life aspect super imposed on an animated background :S (again I think it’s because I was staring at the freaky faces)
On the pause menu there is a log that track all conversation so check there if you missed something, I would however strongly recommend putting Subtitles on and there is an option of switching to a black and white option for a real old time feel.
All in all this is a must buy game in my opinion! Not only is it a break through game that will give you hours of enjoyment (25-35 has been stipulated) it’s a such a compelling and enthralling story that will suck you in and you won’t want to put it down till your finished. I would also recommend cancelling all plans you have made for this weekend because you won’t be going anywhere once you start this. As I said at the start of this I strongly recommend joining the social club not just for the free suite but for the fact in game if you get stuck you can use intuition points that allow you to ask the community for their help if your stumped during an interrogation and also for locating clues on a crime scene.
I would also recommend getting this Day 1 because the last thing you want is to hear spoilers with regards to the story which ultimately there will be by next Friday. You can also rest assured that there will be a steady flow of top quality DLC coming out for this game if other Rockstar games are anything to go by.
I could have go on for ages about this game but I don’t want to risk any spoilers and want to keep the review game play based. Thanks for reading this and feel free to leave a comment if you have an opinion or question on anything above.
Stevie Score 9/10
