How many hours into are you? I ask only because gamspot review says, "In the early cases, the game holds your hand through these processes, and as a result, they can feel narrow and artificial. For instance, at one point, you need to get a confession from a suspect. If you botch the interrogation, the suspect will dismiss you, at which point your commanding officer will tell you to get back in there and get a confession out of the suspect, starting the whole thing over. It's also typically very obvious early on when a suspect or witness is not being entirely honest, as he or she makes an exaggerated show of looking nervous or shifty eyed. But once the training wheels come off, the process gets a lot more interesting. It becomes entirely possible to miss vital clues at crime scenes or fail to get important information from a witness and to progress through a case, and suspects behave more naturally, which makes them tougher to read."
I am 5 and a half hours in. I am I think I just passed the early part of the game and moving onto the meat.
I suck at interrogations already, its going to be brutal later on. Its not so much telling if they are lying, its trying to figure out what the computer has as the right answer. Rather than truth, doubt and lie they should show what kind of response your character would say, more like an RPG system. That way you can judge what the result will be much easier.
Funny, I first dismissed this as following the same Rockstar formula with a new setting. That doesn't seem to be the case at all.
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Tell me to get back to rewriting this site so it's not horrible on mobile
I gotta attest to something. I've spent a long time not being totally hyped for the game, and could never really muster interest in watching a trailer. Then I saw Giant Bomb's Quick Look...
I bought a copy based on just how fucking insane the facial animation is.
I just finished homicide, what a fantastic ending to that section! The game is addicting as hell.
Bought it today and started playing it. Just completed the tutorial (which I still managed to fuck up) and started the first Traffic case.
This game has an atmosphere that to me is unsurpassed by any other. The music, the city, the way people talk, the off-screen narrator. It definitely puts you in the right mood. And you have to see the facial animation to understand all the hype around it. It's beyond impressive.
Interrogation is great as well, especially if you are not anal and just go with the flow accepting your correct guesses as well as your fuckups, instead of trying to get all answers right at all times.
Very promisory start.
I like this game a lot. I for one have been waiting for a mystery/adventure game on a console for a long time. It's LA Confidential the game, and that's a very good thing. Like Steel said, the mood and era have been nailed.
Gameplaywise I'm not entirely wowed by it though. Graphics aside I think its getting a little more credit than it deserves. There's not as many new things brought to the table here as a lot of the reviews have been saying. Just the first time these elements have been on a console game. Reminds me of when Zack and Wiki was being praised for doing stuff that PC games had been doing for over a decade.
The more I play the game, the less it becomes about moving bottles and the more it becomes about driving really really long distances behind slow drivers.
robio said:The more I play the game, the less it becomes about moving bottles and the more it becomes about driving really really long distances behind slow drivers.
Game has a warp feature, just let your partner drive.
Well then, that's a good tip.
Thought I'd come in and give some updated impressions now that I've put in a good chunk of time into the game (currently on my 4th homicide mission) and have very much developed a love/hate relationship with the game. As far as the atmosphere goes this game is pretty much second to none. You feel like this is a classic noir movie come to life, or at the very least a good episode of Dragnet. And some of the ways it handles investigations, even the little thiings, are done in ways I've never seen. For instance in one chapter when you discover a lead your partner says "we better get there as fast as we can." There's no official clock on the screen, but if you make it there in a short enough length of time, the incident that you uncover changes. You'll see the crime in progress, rather than just investigate the scene afterwards.
With attention to little details like that it's all the more mind boggling when they botch some of the biggest details. It's too rigid when it comes to presenting evidence, and doesn't take into account slight variations on a player's train of logic. During one interregation you accuse a suspect and have to show him a piece of evidence - the murder weapon. In your list of clues you have the same piece of evidence listed twice, but each time it's listed a different detail is emphasized. Pick the wrong one and the interrogation is ruined. Once upon a time that wasn't a big deal, but Phoenix Wright has nailed that over the years and it's something that Rockstar could have learned from. Also there's times when an interrogation goes wrong, but the characters still manage to draw the right conclusion for the next step even though as the player you're still clueless. That can leave you a little confused on exactly what you're doing.
At times some of that just has me cursing and wishing they spent more time figuring out trains of thought rather than the facial expressions of the characters because that's the core game and probably the most important part. But it get quickly forgiven a few minutes later as soon as you get back on the streets and get pulled back into the world.
Does anything bring a fun game to a screeching halt quicker than a fucking fetch quest? I'm almost a little appauled that this game has one. It's funny because at first I was excited that finally things would be switching up. One of the criticisms I have of this game is that it can feel very repetitive. Each case starts out with go to the murder scene, investigate the body, investigate the scene, question the witness, go to the next place to question a new witness. . . and without spoiling anything all the cases are very similar which doesn't help matters. So when an instance arrived when you have to search for a body that may or may not exist things suddenly got interesting.... but not for long. Right now it's find a clue, go to the secret location... repeat. Gahhhhh.....
Just finished the homicide cases. The fetch quest ended well enough I think. I dunno, could have been a lot better. For such a climactic moment it felt incomplete. So now it's on to Vice. As soon as someone finishes this game let me know. We need to chat. It's really hard to discuss this game without putting out a bunch of spoilers.
robio said:Just finished the homicide cases. The fetch quest ended well enough I think. I dunno, could have been a lot better. For such a climactic moment it felt incomplete. So now it's on to Vice. As soon as someone finishes this game let me know. We need to chat. It's really hard to discuss this game without putting out a bunch of spoilers.
I loved that whole part cause it did change things up and it was an actual puzzle or riddle. As a story though it definetly feels incomplete, a lot of the storylines in this game do. The game has a lot of issues that needs to be addressed in the sequel.
Finished the game. Toward the end something interesting happens and the story really picks up. The problem is there is a direct correlation between the story getting exciting and the gameplay disappearing. By the final mission the game doesn't even resemble LA Noire. I liked the story, it could still be told better as there are plot holes and sudden jumps that don't allow a moment to sink in. Overall this game needs a ton of work but its a good first attempt. I was captivated the entire way through and I am finding replaying missions to still be interesting as they can take some different turns.
It's strange that after a long period of develoment it coudl still feel like an unfinished game. I heard they only had the tech for the face capture ready-to-go about 2 years ago, so that could explain why it was a little rushed, despite the long development time.
It sounds like Team Bondi will be making these kinds of games for as long as they want -- they could take it in so many directions.
I should have the game finished up later today. I'm on the arson cases now. Right now I would describe the game as a very average story told by an excellent story teller who can almost make you ignore the faults and holes of the story. I'll probably right up a review for it later. As I've said before I don't quite get why the game is getting as many high scores as its getting. I don't know if the reviewers are just completely ignorant of the adventure/mystery genre and think this was a landmark achievement or if they gave the game a bit of a pass because Rockstar's name was on it. It's still a very good game, but I can't honestly give it more than an 8. Maybe 8.5 if it ends strong.
Here is the official thread. I just finished traffic and I loved the last few cases. The last one in particular is really exciting as you get cool chases and gunfights. Its amazing how important stories and immersion has become cause it makes crappy shooting mean nothing. It wasn't so much about how good the shooting was it was the fact of what it meant. It breaks up the interrogations and stuff, adds some nice variety but it is really basic.
I love seeing cases unfold and become more and more complex. The interrogations are always fun but they have been driving me a bit crazy. Doubt and lie are basically the same thing, when you choose lie you have to pick a piece of evidence to disprove the person. The problem is the way people say an answer leaves it very open to what they are trying to lie about. Many times i think I have evidence so I choose lie only to see Cole go off on a tangent that I dont have evidence for. Or many times I have evidence that seems perfect and yet it didn't work. Its kind of an iffy system at least its fun to mess with on multiple playthroughs.
To be totally honest though, Phoenix Wright does the whole gathering evidence and making a case thing so much better than this game. What PW doesn't have is the recreation of the real world LA, that TV/movie feel this game is filled with. It's truly something to experience, better than Heavy Rain I would say.