L.A. Noire review

The years after World War II, many lives were damaged. The economy, in most places, was nothing, but devastation. In this time of crisis, many looked to Los Angeles and saw Hollywood as a place for relief. An “American Dream” filled with fame and glamour, having everything you ever desired. Unfortunately, this was only in the minds of citizens. The fact was, most of the streets lied; filming industries focusing their sexual jollies toward unexpected naive women, large amounts of troops trying to readjust their lives leaving what was horrendous in the war all behind. When you come to Los Angeles, you will find out quite quickly of the corrupted of police and government. L.A. is only an illusion of happiness. To some, it’s their fantasy.

The first thing you’re going to notice in the game is the works of MotionScan. I’m quite amazed how the detailed facial capturing looks in this game. Recognizing some of the actors in the game made me over thrilled. It was amazingly easy to recognize Greg Grunberg during a case. Not only was MotionScan awesome with facial capturing, the physical movements of each actor/actresses are they’re actual movements being captured with a mocap suit They even have a Black/White filter, which makes the game look astonishing. This was by far one of the greatest features of the game. Without this, I don’t know how this game could be ever created. Now, enough of me drooling over this creation, let’s talk more about the game shall we.

In L.A. Noire you’re mainly playing the role of Cole Phelps. Cole Phelps is a World War II veteran. Serving two years of the war in the navy as a lieutenant, Lt. Phelps was awarded one of Navy’s highest honors, the Silver Star. Honoring and serving his country, Cole decided to become part of the Los Angeles Police Department, thus allowing Cole to serve his country furthermore. Famous for his Silver Star, he became quite a character towards the L.A.P.D. No matter where you look, someone will always mention his Silver Star.

Starting out as a puny police officer, you’ll be working your way up to Ad Vice. After doing so many cases, you’ll get promoted. Sometimes, you get demoted, but that’s just part of the storyline. Each time you get promoted to a higher authority, you get much more difficult cases.

Each case starts out as if you’re watching a classic detective movie. Most of these cases are based on actual events. The Black Dahlia case, famously, is one few known cases you get to investigate. To solve the cases, you have to go to the crime scene and look around for clues. Clues can be anything from a cigarette butt, to a water valve. Finding the clues is one of the fun parts, holding an object doesn’t give you a clue right away. You have to manipulate and object until you get in the right position. If you found something irrelevant to the crime scene, your character will say something. I’m not saying you’re going to end up like the Hardy Boys, but by golly is it fun searching for the clues. Some clues are hard to find, some of them aren't

During the game, you will also see a bundle of flashbacks of Cole’s time in the Navy. These flashbacks are in the story, because they will somehow relate to other events in the game. The flashbacks are confusing at first, but if you keep your own notes and memory, you’ll find it will be a great way to comprehend the storyline.

While working your way up ladder of justice, you’ll also be able to gain an experience level. Each level of rank, you’re rewarded with most of a time, an unlockable suit that will have a perk or two. Sometimes you’ll receive a new weapon. To rank up your experience level, you’ll have to learn how to read faces during interviews. Even though the MotionScan they used for the game is incredible, reading faces are one of the most difficult parts of the game. You’ll have three different options when you’re interviewing a person of interest. First, is “Truth.” Truth simply means the person is telling the truth. Then there’s the infamous “Doubt.” Doubting a suspect means you know the person is lying, but you don’t have any evidence to back it up with. If you do have evidence, and can prove the person did something of values, then you could use the “Lie” option. You’ll notice Cole Phelps loves to start off calm then gets louder and LOUDER!

Not only does ranking up help you get unlockables, it also helps you your cases. If you have online, each level you rank, you’ll be rewarded intuition points. Intuition points help you out by “finding all clues” in a crime scene, removes an answer in an interrogation. You can even ask Rockstar’s Social Club to see what percentage of each choice are.

Now, let’s talk about the controls in the game. The controls are quite simple. Driving around feels like GTA IV. Shooting in the game feels like you’re playing Red Dead Redemption. Rockstar is doing something new, they’re clearly pointing out this game isn’t supposed to be anywhere near what GTA IV or RDR was. I applaud Rockstar for their new approach. Even though they did a great job, there are still some flaws to the game.

One the flaws I found in the game, was searching for clues. The clues are a little difficult to find. Most of the time, you’re walking around the crime scene waiting for your controller to vibrate. There were also occasional glitches. Someone pointed out the glitch with Cole Phelps’s hat glitch, running up walls and sometimes falling down for no reason were a few glitches I found. Free roaming and side cases I count as a flaw, because they aren’t necessary in my opinion. I was quite happy playing over 20 hours of the game’s main storyline. Some may find that too short, I find it quite right. Don’t want to overkill a game with a long ass story now would you?

Even with the occasional flaws of the game, this is by far one best games I’ve ever seen from Rockstar. Rockstar’s new approach maybe a little bold, but man you got to love it. Again, their MotionScan is incredibly well done. Being able to actually interrogate people was so realistic. Luckily, Rockstar gave L.A. Noire an amazing cast. This game deserve its A-

+Motionscan is awesome
+Classical mystery theme game
+Interrogation is fun
+/- Finding clues
+/-Freeroam/Sidemissions
-Occasional glitches

*grading scale is based on GameRevolution.com's classic grading scale.

Epic Games: Desperate Wars

Wow, it has been a while since I last wrote a blog entry. Perhaps rehabilitating from my less than 24 hour job at GR is most likely the reason I haven’t been writing much. Now, time to make amends. In this article I’m going to criticize Epic Games about their Gears of War 3 Multi-player beta and their desperate attempt at people buying Gears of War 3.

On April 25^th, Epic Games released their Gears 3 Beta for anyone who pre-ordered their game (April 18^th for Bulletstorm: Epic Edition owners). Allowing this beta is hopefully giving Epic Games enough time to polish the new abilities and making the weaponry balanced and joyful for gamers. Gaining access to the beta is great and gives you that special feeling knowing you were part of something “revolutionary.” Unfortunately, Epic Games have been promoting their beta too much.

Their promotion to gain “special” access in their beta gained attention when announcing it to be released with Bulletstorm: Epic Edition. The true fans of Gears of War titles (like me) quickly went and pre-ordered Bulletstorm. Epic announced they would “only” give players the special access if they would buy Bulletstorm. Ok Epic, you’re doing what Bungie decided to with Halo: Reach. Announcing people will get the beta, but you have to purchase a game full of crap. I apologize; it wasn’t that bad of a game. It’s a game people would rent before purchasing. So, this doesn’t really convince me. Do people with the access to the beta get anything else special? Yes, they also announced exclusive content that will be carried over to the full game. Sweet! I get to show off my flamed weapons and Thrashball Cole! Suck on that you peasants! And incomes an announcement that soon upset many gamers.

Few months later, Epic announced people who pre-ordered Gears of War 3 will also be able to have special access to the beta. Whoa, wait a second. You mentioned a few months back the “only” way into the beta was to purchase Bulletstorm, the true and only way. How could you do this Epic? You just lied and became such a dishonest pile of ****. All from not getting enough players to access the beta, you go a step further, lie to fans and promote the access to beta with pre-ordering the full game. This is a douche move you’re doing, Epic. From what I’ve been witnessing, you’ve seem desperately to put more sales on this game.

In April, I was watching my favorite programs on TV, when I saw a commercial that made me laugh upsettingly (yes, laughing upsettingly). It was a one of the GameStop commercials that are used to basically to say, “Hey...pre-order *insert product here* and get whatever.” I don’t believe it, how desperate are you, Epic? Do you seriously need to make so many promotions already? Look at all what you did and it’s only for the beta! So, now the question was, “What do people get if they access the beta from pre-ordering Gears of War 3?” They get everything Bulletstorm owners got, except for one lousy flamed Hammerburst since Bulletstorm owners gained one week early access.

So, now we wait until the full game releases. Epic Game, in my opinion, is desperate for this game to sell and is low for being dishonest to its consumers. Believe me; Bulletstorm purchasers received the full definition of the phrase “caveat emptor.” In conclusion, I’m going to mention my three predictions of what Epic is going to do with the release of Gears of War 3.

First, they’re going promote the release like they did with the beta. They will be doing so because of their Limited Edition and Epic Edition product details have yet to be announced. All we know is their cost by looking at websites such as GameStop. Will they promote it like they did with the beta? I wouldn’t believe it to be that desperate. Secondly, they’re going to screw the beta users over. More and likely the “exclusive” content that will carry over to the full game, makes me feel everyone has a chance to earn it. Lastly, Epic is going to be bummed out. Of all their hard work in their marketing strategy, they won’t win GOTY.