EmP's L.A. Noire review

Really great analysis of the game and its faults. This review really moves along at a great pace and succinctly articulates the game's failings with great clarity. I really liked where you went with your case analysis and the inability to fail - the "Press X to Win" aspect of LA Noire. You really nailed on the point and it's not one that I've really seen a whole lot of other writers, myself included, run with. I thought you did a nice job with that and your thoughts on the idiocy of your partners worked well with a discussion of clue analysis. But I offer this: considering how inept your partners are, is it really much of a surprise that the city praises Phelps? Even on a bad day he's certainly more effective than random asshole homicide partner or random douche bag arson partner, who can't connect a bloody knife to a stabbing.

It's really too bad that LA Noire wasn't a better experience and the more and more I talk to people, it's apparent that the bigger sites dropped the ball when the threw constant 8s, 9s, and 10s at it. It's also very interesting to me that Team Bondi seems to have earned an industry black-list. You'd think with the sales totals and critical response that companies would be lining up to scoop them up, but even Rockstar is done with them. It's very sad because there is something undeniably special in LA Noire, and even The Getaway. It just doesn't seem like the studio is managed particularly well. I recently read a review of the game by Tom Bissell, a writer I really admire, on the game, that changed my stance - or perhaps, thought process as far as how I consider the game - slightly, and I think about the game slightly more positively than I when I playing it. It's a long read at four pages and there are probably four articles pushed together into one here, but it's worth a look.

Anyway, long post short - great review, Gary.

They’ll threaten to rip the badge from your chest while your allotted partner shakes his head in undisguised shame and disgust. Then you start a new case, and all is forgotten in a second.

You have no idea how bummed I was when I "failed" a case and this happened. I was being chewed out for being incompetent, then the same person that was screaming down my throat was giving me a shit-eating grin when the next case started.

I love how you mock the clue-finding parts of the game, too. It really is hilarious how the game makes it appear Cole is a godsend when he's just kinda staring at stuff at random. I'm still amazed so many of the big sites gave the game high ratings. I know, I know... but still.

Entertaining read, Emp.

I am interested in playing this, since despite the flaws I can see how it could be worth playing. I doubt I'll have to wait long for this to end up in the bargain bins.

"Although the game continuously tells you that he’s the best damn detective the city has ever seen, he seems to solve crimes by glancing briefly at objects around a crime scene and then yelling at people."

:D heheee awesome.

..um.. there's a "patrolmen" on top there that probably is supposed to be singular. And maybe there's a way to avoid repeating the point in the quote..? It's such a good line - if you used the previous paragraph to prepare for it instead of giving it away, it would be extremely good :)

Love the review, by the way. It's technically a bit long, I guess, and some of it repeats - but it's easy to read through it.

Wonderful review, Gary.

It wins based on this line alone:

Now, I’m not a member of the Hardy Boys or anything, but I’d find that a tad suspicious.

Just because the Hardy Boys rule.

You've got "gleam" for "glean" in the penultimate paragraph, btw.

Anyhow: kudos.

Thanks, Ash. I’d been hearing thing about how awful Bondi apparently was to work for, but am still surprised Rockstar would cut ties with such a proven cash cow.

The whole partner thing was annoying because it could have been explained with a bit of clever writing. The homicide partner was clearly just after the easiest result, and vice was corrupt. The other two, partners I vastly preferred, seemed to have their intelligence turned on and off as the plot required, and that was a big shame. It was just one of so many things that seemed to conspire against any real sense of immersion Noire clearly wanted to advance.

Thanks for the kind words from everyone else. I’ve made a few alterations based on your appreciated feedback.

Good review. The one thing I liked about the game's storytelling was the military flashbacks showing Cole pre-policeman, and how his unit's always riding his case for being that stereotypical martinet type. His interactions with his old buddy (that accountant, Jack, I think) were always fun to watch. I understand the tutorial-like procedural stuff in the beginning, but the game could've been a lot better if they'd put the spotlight on his past exploits/trials instead of keeping it so episodic. [As a fan of cop shows, I can tolerate it to a degree; I'd definitely understand if someone was put off completely because of it, though.]

Other things I enjoyed doing:

- Driving to a scene and ignoring the dispatch's calls for assistance
- Blowing up that bratty cop's new car in a head-on collision (XD)
- Shooting as many fleeing suspects as possible

I never figured out how to get the partner to drive to crime scenes, either, so that affected my enjoyment. But yeah, the part about the game shepherding the player through 10% of the world was spot-on -- it'd take a seven-nation army to make me replay that crap. Heh...in the end, small-scale LA and facial muscles didn't mean squat.

[EDIT] - Despite all that^, I'd agree that there's something special about Noire, and it kinda sucks that Bondi's appears to have hit a rough patch with Rockstar. With the right amount of time sunk into a script, a sequel could be amazing.

Stop liking games I don't. Last warning.

You could make your partner driver by holding on to the enter car button, and it saves hours upon hours. I wish I was exagerating.

Nice to see you're not vanished anyway, Shotty.

Hahaha... Wow. A very thorough takedown of a game that was universally overrated.

Y'know, I fell under this game's spell too. In fact, I probably would have given it a high rating if I had written a review for it, but I admit that this is entirely because I'm a sucker for a good story. L.A. Noire has a good story (which you fully acknowledge). However, it obviously would have fared far better as an HBO series or something rather than a video game.

It's interesting that you praised the facial animations. Ironically, I thought this was one of the game's letdowns. They were technically impressive, obviously, but my gripe with this simply relates to direction. At a certain point, after flubbing the difference between "Lie" and "Doubt", or at certain times even with "Truth", I realized that I was having trouble spotting the liars not because I was an imperceptive idiot, but because some of the motion capture actors simply happened to be better at pretending to lie than others. When I was questioning a good actor I could generally figure it out, whereas unimportant side characters tended to just read their lines blankly and I more or less had to guess.

Thankfully, I grabbed this title about a year after it was released when its price had dropped considerably and it was on sale on top of that. I think I nabbed it for $5. I have to say I got my money's worth for that price!

Anyway, sorry to resurrect this thread. I just saw that EmP trashed L.A. Noire in the random review box on the front page and had to comment. Nice read!

In hindsight, perhaps I gave the facial animations too much credit. I ran on the belief that some people were purposefully harder to read than others - for example, a career criminal was harder to read than some unlucky Joe you'd just dragged off the street for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I figured the next game would prove or disprove this, but, of course, Bondi folded and no one's really made a game like L.A Noire ever again. Which I don't think the industry has missed a great deal.

Thanks for bringing this one up. I remember really liking this review back in the day and it kicking up a bit of Internet hate, which is always fun.