Chapter 5 : going deep ....
Prologue
In last weeks episode or chapter 4, we left our intrepid do gooder thegameveda placing the life of a beloved PS3 phat , updated to the 3.65 OS and at least 5 years old...in the hands of the alleged console killing game L.A. Noire , after weeks of interrogation investigation and vacillating , thegameveda has now concluded investigations into the case of the console killing game ... how good the good stuff is , how bad the bad stuff is and whether it kills your console...or mine at least..
Verdict :
good stuff :
1. Rockstar and Sony are innocent : L A Noire has been whirring in thegamevedas PS3 60gb console for 5 days now , and there is absolutely no sign of the console heating up any more than normal , or the dreaded sudden yellow death...
2. Rockstar`s Team Bondi have created a sublime game world , anyone who wants to tour a post WW2 L A , will have a great time ,and there is a unique game that comes along with the sandbox too.
3. L A Noire nails the chase sequence: All great Cops and Robbers films are about the chase , Keystone Cops to Rigs and Murtaugh , Starsky and Hutch ...and errh that very long chase sequence in Violent Cop
... you get to do all that stuff in L A Noire.4. The way the game changes pace from fast on foot and car chases , shoot outs to slow investigative antics is excellent . It gives you more time to live in the games beautiful world
bad stuff
1. L A Noire is no Heavy Rain
. Quantic Dream changed gaming with their detective/murder mystery .. L A Noire is great but not quite a gaming milestone the way Heavy Rain is.....2. There is nothing noire about the colourful world that you inhabit : For starters it is not black and white , if ever a game could have pulled off using a black and white filter it was this ,and so Edward G Robinson would not be seen being shot dead in this games bright and colourful world. Nor would Mr Cagney be shouting you duuhhty rats ..as ....
3.The game paints an almost pristine picture of LA ,even the dirt has specular highlights ...There is no hallmark shadow /halo/mist/lighting... except for the brilliant menu screen ... the only "noire" looking part of the game.L.A. Noire should have been full of black and white shadowy alley ways like that , instead it`s most atmospheric part is a menu screen...Think how important lighting is to the Noire genre ,from the way the lack of light or a sillohouette is used to introduce a character ,like a curvacious moll or the the vilest of sharp suited villains ,vital to setting the ambience and fear of a scene , the flash of gunfire from a tommy gun or a smoking pistol..or cigarette... there is none of that captured in this game.
4. There is no grit or grime , steam rising from vents in the sidewalk or street ... people smoke but the smoke does not add ambience it is just sfx.
5. The accents are all authentic but the dialogue does not take you back to the era of noire films , great to hear real accents ,but the racial stereotypes are back : most non American ears ( tainted by 60 years of Hollywood Noire) place Polish, and Scotts Irish accents to.....the East Coast NY and Boston .. not LA .. and were there really that many Hispanic front line cops in the LAPD 20 years before the American Civil Rights movement took hold ? This may be the version of LA in 47 the developers want to project but how realistic is it?
6. You play a detective working for the police , but all the greatest fictional Noire characters are typically Private Investigators like Marlowe , or outsiders like Sam Spade with molls like Ms Bacall hanging off their arms.. in L A Noire we get a partner or Tomtom , in a suit who gives you directions .. how about a backstabbing femme fatale assistant or partner ..played by Yvonne Strahovski?Or a digitally remastered Lauren Bacall , Betty Davies , Bogart , Cagney or my favourite Edward G Robinson?
7. The CGI women in L A Noire are fugly....again these do not compare to great femme fatales that made the Noire genre so memorable. Just a silhouette or two and the atmosphere of the whole game would be different... and it would take a hell of lot less GPU power than trying to stretch polygonal facial muscles across the face of a virtual would be actress supposedly in her 20s but which ends up making her look like she is a constipated septuagenarian...
8. WW2 flash backs are too Godfather .... I am on at least my 5th flashback and it really does not add anything to the main game ... and my head keeps playing Godfather music when the flashbacks happen.. and I start craving cannelloni which does not help matters...
9. There is nothing Bogart about your character .. he is young and fresh faced... when he needed to be grizzled , stubbled , smoking , with a drink and women problems , with a bookie chasing him for debts ... the kind of role Bogart and a young Sinatra made their own.
10.The detective part of the game is nowhere near as cool as last years Heavy Rain , there is no urgency in response time , the clues are gathered point and click style , and the interrogations bare more resemblance to Who Want`s to Be a Millionaire than the gritty life changing split second choices we were forced to make in Quantic Dream's classic.
11.The world that Team Bondi have created IS very beautiful , but that defeats the point of the Noire genre altogether ... it points to a younger group of coders , who may have access to criminal records of the time , but probably have to google Chandler , Bogart , Bacall , Cagney and Edward G Robinson to find out they do not have face book pages or are not currently active on twitter.
12. A co op mode would have made this game amazing imagine linking up with friends and frenemies to solve crime ... and think of all those awesome arguments you could have in the car about which route to take , or how to interrogate the suspects with your very own good cop bad cop routine...
Epilogue
This is of course the usual cynicism , thegameveda is delighted by LA Noire , most of all because over the course of a month , waiting to see if it did kill consoles , I found out it does not! We are spoilt nowadays with our games , entire cities sprawl out before us to game in , what LA Noire brings to the sandbox genre , is a tighter linear story but also it slows the frantic pace that these games are noted for , GTA , Read Dead , Prototype, Saints Row , and Red Faction Armageddon ,Mafia , are all about ACTION , from the get go .. LA Noire slows the pace down , you can take your time around this city , and the missions/investigations.. it really does give you more time to sync to the gaming world .
L A Noire is one of the games of the year ,with enough detail and care crafted into it`s design to keep you playing .The combat and action game play is close to the excellent original Mafia on PC , the clue finding flawed and the famed interrogation based on facial expression basically a hap hazard multiple choice ... but it all comes together with great production values , I just hope there is a black and white and noire lighting filter unlock , at least for the distant PC version.Or a mission editor .. think of all the great Noire films you could recreate with this engine .. now there is an idea for Team Bondi`s future DLC ...
thegameveda celebrated this act of gaming Russian Roulette by purchasing the Rockstar Pass , so now there is even more L A Noire on my PS3 hdd , and still no sign of overheating , and the case of the console killing game has been concluded ...for now.....
get L A Noire in the UK from Game and Zavvi and L A Noire in the USA from Amazon
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