L.A Noire Ps3 Review

After finishing the game for quite some time here are my review for Rockstar's latest L.A Noire.

We will look at five categories to review which are the presentation, graphics, sound, gameplay and the lasting appeal of the game.

Presentation

The first thing you'll notice from playing the game will be: The characters. Well, the main characters to be exact. Since the developers spent a lot of time to scanned the actors' lines and motions you will feel like you are 'playing' a movie story with a noir feeling (hence the title). The background characters however, are generic. I saw one guy drunken outside a bar, then he's in an office and then in the prison (maybe something happened off the story, but I didn't notice). Too bad we couldn't really interact with the background characters like we did in GTA: SA last time. The look and feel of the characters are so natural unlike some cg made characters who have the stiffness in their motions and such. The main story consist of the progression of a young war hero rookie cop who's slowly becoming a hotshot in crime solving named Cole Phelps. Phelps is probably the only goody two shoes character in Rockstar's world (although not entirely an angel). The setting were created quite accurately they said to resemble the City of Angels in the 40's. The city is quite big, however it didn't entice me to explore all the parts of the city. Additionally, if you want you could even play the game in black and white so as to experience the proper 40's story.

Presentation: 8/10

Graphics
The graphics in L.A Noire are very good. The characters are well made (however some of the hairs looked stiff and not natural), the city, the cars, the evidences, the building are all good looking. Other than some of the hairs of the characters I have no complaints about the graphics of L.A Noire. I noticed some small bugs with the Ai but luckily it was just the background characters so it didn't matter much.

Graphics 8/10

Gameplay

Although Rockstars games are usually well known for its free-roaming, guns shooting, driving game, the usual formula took a little turn in this game. Although you are free to roam the cities (it even give you easter eggs to collect scattered around the city), the game is quite linear. It'll take you 20+ hours to finish the main story. Every case you finished will be marked according to your performance in the case, how many evidences you gathered, the statements you got right, the damages you did to the city (yes, it matters now! you'll be playing as a cop after all). You're still free to hijack any car you please (or commandeer in this case) and drive to the missions, but if you don't feel like it just ask your partner to drive it! You'll be assigned to your default car based on your rank in the police force. Yes you'll be assigned to a partner in every rank, and you'll be able to interact with them and even becoming your own GPS in case you get lost in the big city of Los Angeles (or again, ask them to drive the car for you!). In other words, quite useful your partner (not much when the shooting situation arises). You could even skip the shooting and fighting parts if you wish.

The main things you're going to do in the game is investigating by getting the right answers from suspects or witness. Call on them when they're lying, hiding something from you or telling the truth. You do this from looking at the witness/suspects face, their cues or the way they talk and getting the evidence to back up your actions. Fail to do this and the game moves on. It would just make it a bit harder for you to finish the case and probably earned you some bad ratings when the case does finish (you could re-play the finished case if you wish).

During evidence gathering you will be helped with some vibrations and music to tell you if you've got the right ones. However, these features could be turned off if you're confident in your sleuthing skills. You could also use intuition points to help you get something you want. If you're online, you could ask the community to help you as well. However, since the PSN was down in the time of my playing I didn't get to try this feature. So, give it a go and let me know how it goes. You will be assigned five intuition point. To recover them, you need to do some side mission which consists of gunning, chasing, and fighting suspects which will add your experience points.

There is one thing that bugs me in L.A Noire. It feels disjointed every time I drive to the allocated location with a car. When we reach our destination, it usually followed with a cut scene when we are suddenly out of the car. It wasn't as smooth as the latest Episodes of Liberty City GTA or Red Dead Redemption where we get off of our vehicles (or horses) and walk down to the destination and then we take control. Also the way we never bag the evidences we found. But these are minor problems and it didn't distract me much from enjoying the game.

Gameplay 8.5/10

Lasting Appeal
You could re-play the case where you didn't finish well, some film reels to collect, landmarks to views (they're quite essential actually), cars to drive and not mentioning the dlcs. There are no online multiplaying but it make sense.

Lasting Appeal 7.5/10

In short L.A Noire is a great experience. You get to play as detective solving crimes and murders. The setting was great and the story was referenced from some movies that I know like Chinatown or L.A Confidential. It's got interesting characters and cases. It looks and plays good. It's not perfect but it's one fine game. Play it.

Total 80/100