Re: L.A Noire Thread [Xbox 360/PS3]
Aight so here's my take on this title and take everything with a pinch of NaCl.
This game is vastly based on crime scene investigations. And is set in the 1940s' LA. So we get that Mafia/The Saboteur feel to it with the classic elements drawn from film noir, those old Lincolns, Fords and Chevrolets on the streets, the jazz OSTs, those attires etc. Gameplay is from a 3rd person's perspective and our protagonist is Cole Phelps, who was a veteran of the WW II who later resigns to join the LAPD as a patrol man. A series of flashbacks during regular intervals reveals how Cole grew up as a marine officer during his tenure in the regiment. Folks who have played Heavy Rain will recall the FBI officer Norman Jayden who uses his ARI glasses to investigate crime scenes and reveal clues. Cole does it the same way except that there are no hi-fi glasses but has a human companion as a partner who can aid him in investigations, chases and driving.
Unlike the GTA titles, wherein the player can go about creating havoc across the city killing civilians and evading cops, this game is quite different. For one, we are on the cops' side so we ought to behave like one! Drive around the city recklessly and your partner would yell at you. Oh and no matter how hard we try, it is IMPOSSIBLE to hit the civilians. They WILL evade your car if you try hitting them. There is no penalty involved though.
The game has a sandbox style gameplay, partly I would add - open world but the majority of the gameplay is largely linear. But other than solving the main cases, there are smaller street cases that can be investigated and solved. There is plenty of chasing involved either way - by foot and by the car. The suspects can then be interrogated or put behind the bars depending on the case's resolution at that point.
The mission structure is divided into 4 sections - traffic (hit and run, car thefts etc), homicide (murders), vice (drugs, prostitution, gambling, pornography), arson (setting properties to fire). This is visible from Cole's notebook where he jots down all the important details relating to the investigation of the case. The later sections are not available at the start of the game and I am assuming this is unlocked as the game progresses. His notebook also details clues, locations, evidences from the crime scenes and is an important element in the game which helps Cole during interrogations and interviews of the suspects and eye-witnesses alike. The notebook can be referred during these sequences which helps Cole to find out if the suspects are lying or they are hiding a fact.
The game revolves around plenty of interrogation sequences. Each case will have several eye-witnesses and possible suspect whom Cole may interrogate. During interrogation it is possible to identify if the person being questioned is lying or saying the truth with their facial expressions. They may tend to sweat, shift their face or eyes here and there and so forth. However, during the later stages this becomes increasingly harder to identify. And thus there are intuition points to aid Cole to narrow down the suspect. These intuition points can be gained in several ways - discovering landmarks in the city, Cole leveling up in his rank etc. These intuition points can then be used to cancel a notion (truth, lie or doubt) when the suspect/eye-witness is interrogated. This helps Cole to quickly narrow down to the correct judgement. Cole's ranking however are largely based on the way he interrogates and finds clues at a crime scene. The more clues he finds and the more questions he answers correctly, he climbs the hierarchy quicker!
There are several collectibles to be found in the game - film canisters strewn around in the LA city, newspapers which reveal a small cutscene on the backstory of the headline and landmarks. Discovering a landmark grants an intuition point.
But what really makes the title stands apart from the rest of the crop (and has already been mentioned from the start of the thread) is the insane lip-sync. One can visibly distinguish the distinctive lip movement of each character when a word is spoken and this has been achieved with the mo-cap technology and Team Bondi's in-house engine.
Visually, the game looks stunning. Unlike R* which did a bad port to the PS3 with the sub-par graphics on Red Dead Redemption. There are those occasional frame drops visible during broad daylight but other than that the game looks fantastic. Why wouldn't it be when it was slated to release as a PS3 exclusive.
