L.A. Noire Review

Rockstar Games has done it again! With the newest release L.A. Noire is the most anticipated game and it doesn’t disappoint at all!

 

Los Angeles 1947, Amid the post-war boom of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Cole Phelps is an LAPD detective thrown headfirst into a city drowning in its own success. Corruption is rampant, the drug trade is exploding, and murder rates are at an all-time high. In his fight to climb the ranks and do what’s right, Phelps must unravel the truth behind a string of arson attacks, racketeering conspiracies and brutal murders, battling the L.A. underworld and even members of his own department to uncover a secret that could shake the city to its rotten core.

 

Using groundbreaking new animation technology that captures every nuance of an actor’s facial performance in astonishing detail, L.A. Noire is a violent crime thriller that blends breathtaking action with true detective work to deliver an unprecedented interactive experience. Search for clues, chase down suspects and interrogate witnesses as you struggle to find the truth in a city where everyone has something to hide.

The game starts off with you as a patrol officer called to a crime scene and being the smart Cole Phelps you find a few clues that lead you to the killer. By solving more and more of these types you end up climbing the ranks fast and proving yourself a value to LAPD. The new improved driving and map system is a lot better as well. Instead of a line that leads you to your destination you can ask your partner for directions and he was speak out where to, this helps a great deal instead of looking at the map and then ramming your car into a wall. The A.I. in this game is top notch and feels better, other games I have noticed that other games other driver will “aim” for you even if you’re on the wrong side of the road. L.A. Noire doesn’t have that nor A.I. that walk out in front of your car ether.

The detail is amazing and the work put into the game is endless. Something we always wanted Rockstar to do with their games is make it a bit easier to follow the main story line, and with L.A, Noire it feels more structured and is easier to keep doing cases to keep the game going the path you want. With bonus and future cases to be able to get by downloadable content the replay ability is huge and with Rockstar you can almost guarantee that we will get more cases and mysteries to solve for L.A. Noire.

With the actors and actress’ having their faces scanned for everything and all the dialogue in the game makes the interviews And interrogations that much more interesting and eye pleasing. The facial expression also allow you to decide when someone is lying so you can get the truth and solve a case. By doing so this allows you to gain rank and points to help throughout your career. You also gain intuition points that if you need help on a interview or interagation and not sure if the person is lying you can spend those points that will make choices show what to pick to help. By getting the correct answers for what you ask you are rewarded with rank points.

 

 

Throughout the gameplay you get scene flashbacks of Phelps of his Military time and training. When playing this game it makes you feel as if you are in a movie! (Hint, Hint Rockstar make a movie of this). The story is in depth and is amazing to watch unfold and you get to learn more about Cole Phelps and characters in the game. All of these help Phelps with cases you take on and building Phelps’ character and involving.

When on a case you get to examine evidence to help with cases. By doing so it gets you more clues to the cases and helps you build you career and climb the ranks. When near evidence you feel a vibration in the controller, when this happens use the action button to examine it. You will than use the left stick to turn and move an item or body to gain more knowledge to solve the case. Always check evidence very thoroughly and wait to see or hear what Phelps says about the object you picked up. Every little thing helps and can make a case.

Something we applaud Rockstar for is never holding back. The language, the violence the graphic nature, it’s all there and not shied away from at all or in any way. As the time period of 1947 was and Rockstar portrays it very well.

The controls feel much improved and more responsive then those of a GTA or even Red Dead Redemption. There is no lag at all between response. The new aiming method is also easier to take down people rather than before in past releases as well. The running is something that is done quite often for chasing down suspects and bad guys. No instead of tapping a button to sprint you can just hold the right trigger. This makes controlling Phelps a lot more easier in our opinion. Also when chasing after someone random people on the street will yell and point you in the direction the suspect ran (minor detail but we love small details) controlling the character, driving a car or inspecting a clue, the responsiveness is truly amazing and lacks nothing.

 

As many hours as we played we cannot find anything that is wrong or that we would change. Rockstar made this and made it well!

 

Game 2 Gamer’s Final Score 5 / 5 (That is the first 5 for us!)