L.A. Noire User Review
Promising opening, perfect gameplay pacing, authentic atmosphere and presentation, huge variety, but a lacking story.
- Posted Jun 15, 2011 11:19 am GMT
- Recommended by 1 of 7 users.
- Difficulty:
- Just Right
- Time Spent:
- 10 to 20 Hours
- The Bottom Line:
- "Almost, but not quite"
L.A. Noire has a very familiar layout, it's an open world game with set missions and a large map to explore. There are 21 assigned cases across five desks, patrol, traffic, homicide, vice and arson, and 40 street crimes, small action oriented tasks.
You play as Cole Phelps, a cop rising through the ranks of the 1940s LAPD. Throughout the story you will find lies and deception; which is a core element of this game, being able to tell if a suspect giving you information is lying, telling the truth, or if you're not sure if they're lying but don't have any evidence to back up an accusation.
The story includes some quite memorable characters, all with stellar voice acting and facial animations. The story as a whole is homage to cIassic noir films, I won't spoil it for you if you haven't played it, but to some people the ending might seem unsatisfying and even disappointing.
L.A. Noire is a very well paced game, offering shootouts, chases, on both car and foot, interrogations, and investigations. It is an extremely immersive game, from the cars to the music to the clothes and housing designs; the atmosphere and presentation is stellar.
The game can feel slow at times, which is by no means a complain, but this is definitely not a game for everyone. I didn't really have many complaints with the game aside from the poorly-written story, while the characters can make it feel like it can be an emotional ride, it never achieves that because of the poor story pacing. The pacing of the gameplay was perfect to me, but the story definitely needed more work, and that does become really apparent in the later stages of the game when it tries to be emotional and dramatic. Without spoiling anything, it was hard to feel involved when we weren't attached to it in the first place.
With that being said, there is a lot of character development for our main character Phelps, so it's not all bad. Finding clues and interrogating might sound unattractive at first, but there is no possibility of getting lost as there are multiple music chimes that sound when you're near a clue, if you've found all the clues, and if you are heading the right way in solving the case. There are even intuition points that you gain from levelling up that you can use if you are feeling lost and don't know what to do.
Aside from the main story and the street crimes, there are outfits to unlock, hidden cars to find, and you even get a rating out of five at the end of each case. To do most of the objectives in L.A. Noire would take around 20 hours. Some people say they would have liked it better if you could have pulled out your gun and shot random civilians, but I believe that would've ruined the immersion and even so it's not Grand Theft Auto, even though it feels similar.
Overall I really enjoyed this game, it's not perfect but no game is. It started off very promising, but towards the end the story felt a little dragged out and uninspiring, though the authenticity and atmosphere of the world is beautiful for a city game. It was long with a lot of variety in the missions and there are a lot of crafty elements we hardly see in games.
I don't see myself really going back to it, as much as I would a multiplayer game, but it's definitely worth a purchase if you're wanting something new.
-
Story: 3/5
Presentation: 5/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Multiplayer: N/A
-
Overall: 8.0/10 (Not an average)
You play as Cole Phelps, a cop rising through the ranks of the 1940s LAPD. Throughout the story you will find lies and deception; which is a core element of this game, being able to tell if a suspect giving you information is lying, telling the truth, or if you're not sure if they're lying but don't have any evidence to back up an accusation.
The story includes some quite memorable characters, all with stellar voice acting and facial animations. The story as a whole is homage to cIassic noir films, I won't spoil it for you if you haven't played it, but to some people the ending might seem unsatisfying and even disappointing.
L.A. Noire is a very well paced game, offering shootouts, chases, on both car and foot, interrogations, and investigations. It is an extremely immersive game, from the cars to the music to the clothes and housing designs; the atmosphere and presentation is stellar.
The game can feel slow at times, which is by no means a complain, but this is definitely not a game for everyone. I didn't really have many complaints with the game aside from the poorly-written story, while the characters can make it feel like it can be an emotional ride, it never achieves that because of the poor story pacing. The pacing of the gameplay was perfect to me, but the story definitely needed more work, and that does become really apparent in the later stages of the game when it tries to be emotional and dramatic. Without spoiling anything, it was hard to feel involved when we weren't attached to it in the first place.
With that being said, there is a lot of character development for our main character Phelps, so it's not all bad. Finding clues and interrogating might sound unattractive at first, but there is no possibility of getting lost as there are multiple music chimes that sound when you're near a clue, if you've found all the clues, and if you are heading the right way in solving the case. There are even intuition points that you gain from levelling up that you can use if you are feeling lost and don't know what to do.
Aside from the main story and the street crimes, there are outfits to unlock, hidden cars to find, and you even get a rating out of five at the end of each case. To do most of the objectives in L.A. Noire would take around 20 hours. Some people say they would have liked it better if you could have pulled out your gun and shot random civilians, but I believe that would've ruined the immersion and even so it's not Grand Theft Auto, even though it feels similar.
Overall I really enjoyed this game, it's not perfect but no game is. It started off very promising, but towards the end the story felt a little dragged out and uninspiring, though the authenticity and atmosphere of the world is beautiful for a city game. It was long with a lot of variety in the missions and there are a lot of crafty elements we hardly see in games.
I don't see myself really going back to it, as much as I would a multiplayer game, but it's definitely worth a purchase if you're wanting something new.
-
Story: 3/5
Presentation: 5/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Multiplayer: N/A
-
Overall: 8.0/10 (Not an average)
More User Reviews
L.A. Noire will draw you in with its unique style and gameplay antics
Review Stats:- 0 out of 1 users agree with this review
- Posted Feb 25, 2013 6:42 pm GMT
You play a detective!
Review Stats:- 1 user agrees with this review
- Posted Jan 16, 2013 9:00 pm GMT
a good game ..... but something is missing ...i suppose " The Rockstar Charm "
Review Stats:- Posted Dec 1, 2012 7:56 pm GMT
Dont expect a grand theft auto, or Red dead redemption this game is more linear but still is great at his own genre
Review Stats:- Posted Nov 21, 2012 5:19 pm GMT
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L.A. Noire
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- Publisher(s): Rockstar Games
- Developer(s): Team Bondi
- Genre: Adventure
- Release:
- PEGI: 18+
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