20 replies to this topic

[newuxtreme]

Tad bit of background, on how many games I've played and what are my favorites.
Number of games played :- LOTS! Own gaming laptop, 2 360's and a PS3
Favorites :- GTA4, Mafia 1, AC2, GOW collection, GeOW collection, UC2 etc etc hundreds

Review

Wow... So I was waiting and really REALLY looking forward to an awesome game from R*, and who could possibly be let down by a game with the R* stamp on it?

Boy was I sadly mistaken....



Bullet point review-

• A game that lets you in the shoes of a cop turning detective and rising in the ranks. Different? Yes. But not really such a big deal imo.
• Only half decent story missions, which could be copied from the millions of thriller novels everywhere. No ingenuity.
• Absolutely ZILCH re-playability.
• Which bright a*s developer thought it would be a good idea to NOT be able to skip through cut scenes? Every single damn f**king thing, you have to sit through in case you die, or your PS3 got reset or you want to replay only the last bit of the mission. No checkpoint save system. A whole case is one chapter, and if you finish it well and good, but if you don't get mind f**ked having to sit through cheesy a*s comments and dialogue all over again.
• Side missions? What a joke. If you sit in a cop car, you'll hear a radio call, answer it and bear witness to another horrible HORRIBLE mini story game.
• There is NO competitive/challenging shooting whatsoever in this game. NONE. Games made in the 1990's, that could run on a 'resource-hungry' 64mb ram have a better gunplay component to it.
• All side missions are just an elongated cutscene. That's it. Run after a criminal. Tap X to grab unto the one's you're allowed to. The ones you're not, you shoot. No shooting guns out of anyone's hands or even rendering them handicapped by popping their knees or legs out. Seriously? So you end up just chasing the criminal till he gets a hostage, and then pump a bullet into his head. ALWAYS the same cutscene of a person being stretchered into an ambulance/van to the morgue. Great crime handling.
• The one thing they were harping on about in this entire game was about facial expressions. What perhaps people stopped to think about in all their excitement was how facial expressions work relating to psychology. I have read through psychology and the science of human body language, and the movements of the face(actually body language comprises whole body, not only the face geniuses, funnily enough it's almost never the face that gives away the true meaning) besides the time they're telling the truth are pretty much way WAY off.
• It feels like the developers at Team Bondi got smashed one Friday night and decided to come up with a game over the weekend. Oh and they invited along a bunch of 5 year olds to play the role of a think tank on 'action scenes', because we all know how cool an experienced heavy duty gamer likes to climb over the pipes of each and every f**king building in the city. Oh sorry, did I forget mentioning they asked their parents and their local librarians to give them a list of best selling thriller stories and lame Jack the Ripper rip-offs, compiled their storyline in about 6-8 hours and proceeded to let the poor techno geeks at R* come up with the rest of the playability part of the game.
• Fillers, fillers and MOAR fillers. Drive your cop car from the HQ to crime scene and back (Oh and in the middle will be the to-die-for 'side missions') walk around tapping X. Listen to abuses and berating from your latest partner as you keep getting up the ranks and how he goes from teaching a rookie like you to being inspired and recommending you for the next promotion.
• You cannot boast of the simple graphics of this game, it's 2011 as is. Either come out with Crysis/Uncharted type game-industry revolutionizing graphics or leave them be ignored.
• The only thing worthy in the entire BluRay is the audio/soundtracks which barely take 1/1000th of the size.

I didn't like the game, I was sure about that. But the amount of dislike for this game is pretty much pouring out now that I've sat down to write a review on it.
My verdict. I wouldn't play this game if I got it for free. Unfortunately I have paid for it and currently other games I want to be playing haven't arrived yet, so I'm stuck with this, it honestly feels like a pain, thinking about sitting down and trying to get some unheard/overlooked joy that his game could give me. No doubt in my mind once I get Dead Space 2/Uncharted 3 beta this is getting sold off for half the cost price, as minty as new, since it was never worthy of being used.

I haven't been so let down by a game since Mafia 2.



Take a good look at these two pictures, that's pretty much going to give you all you need to know and all you're going to look at in this game. Seriously.

3.5/10

Edited by newuxtreme, 24 June 2011 - 03:41 PM.

[Aftrunner]

Which bright a*s developer thought it would be a good idea to NOT be able to skip through cut scenes?

Holy sh*t. You gotta hand it to developers with a god complex.

"Why would you want to skip out on our masterpiece Oscar worthy cut scenes? Infact you should be watching them over and over again."

This horseshit is inexcusable in this day and age. Nicely done review/rant. I enjoyed reading it.

Wow... So I was waiting and really REALLY looking forward to an awesome game from R*, and who could possibly be let down by a game with the R* stamp on it?

Also in before whiny crybabies going "But but its really not Rockstar you guys. Its team blandi.". Like anyone gives a sh*t.

Edited by Aftrunner, 24 June 2011 - 05:19 PM.

[Dylanjosh]

[Buzz]

[*]A game that lets you in the shoes of a cop turning detective and rising in the ranks. Different? Yes. But not really such a big deal imo. Agreed

[*]Only half decent story missions, which could be copied from the millions of thriller novels everywhere. No ingenuity. Agreed

[*]Absolutely ZILCH re-playability. Not really, missions can be replayed to earn better rank. Ask Arch-on

[*]Which bright a*s developer thought it would be a good idea to NOT be able to skip through cut scenes? Every single damn f**king thing, you have to sit through in case you die, or your PS3 got reset or you want to replay only the last bit of the mission. No checkpoint save system. A whole case is one chapter, and if you finish it well and good, but if you don't get mind f**ked having to sit through cheesy a*s comments and dialogue all over again. Not true, there are checkpoints saving there, if you notice the game saves it self at important sections and you can quit the game midway if you think you have screwed up and the game will restart from that checkpoint. And cut-scenes can be skipped too

[*]Side missions? What a joke. If you sit in a cop car, you'll hear a radio call, answer it and bear witness to another horrible HORRIBLE mini story game. Completely agree

[*]There is NO competitive/challenging shooting whatsoever in this game. NONE. Games made in the 1990's, that could run on a 'resource-hungry' 64mb ram have a better gunplay component to it. It was made quite evident from the ouset when the game was announced that the game will not feature traditional gunplay. Heck even they can be skipped if you don't want to engage in gunplay. If you were looking for a game like GTA then you choose the wrong game and should have read some more about the game before buying it

[*]All side missions are just an elongated cutscene. That's it. Run after a criminal. Tap X to grab unto the one's you're allowed to. The ones you're not, you shoot. No shooting guns out of anyone's hands or even rendering them handicapped by popping their knees or legs out. Seriously? So you end up just chasing the criminal till he gets a hostage, and then pump a bullet into his head. ALWAYS the same cutscene of a person being stretchered into an ambulance/van to the morgue. Great crime handling. Agreed, they are totally unimaginative

[*]The one thing they were harping on about in this entire game was about facial expressions. What perhaps people stopped to think about in all their excitement was how facial expressions work relating to psychology. I have read through psychology and the science of human body language, and the movements of the face(actually body language comprises whole body, not only the face geniuses, funnily enough it's almost never the face that gives away the true meaning) besides the time they're telling the truth are pretty much way WAY off. You are correct somewhat, but the game asks you to make your judgement about the answer not only based on facial expressions but the clues you have gathered so far. So if you fail to gather enough clues you will not do well in interrogation.

[*]It feels like the developers at Team Bondi got smashed one Friday night and decided to come up with a game over the weekend. Oh and they invited along a bunch of 5 year olds to play the role of a think tank on 'action scenes', because we all know how cool an experienced heavy duty gamer likes to climb over the pipes of each and every f**king building in the city. Oh sorry, did I forget mentioning they asked their parents and their local librarians to give them a list of best selling thriller stories and lame Jack the Ripper rip-offs, compiled their storyline in about 6-8 hours and proceeded to let the poor techno geeks at R* come up with the rest of the playability part of the game. I think you haven't finished the game yet, the story gets quite engaging at the end. But yeah it needed more work. What do you mean by heavy duty gamer?

[*]Fillers, fillers and MOAR fillers. Drive your cop car from the HQ to crime scene and back (Oh and in the middle will be the to-die-for 'side missions') walk around tapping X. Listen to abuses and berating from your latest partner as you keep getting up the ranks and how he goes from teaching a rookie like you to being inspired and recommending you for the next promotion. Again all driving parts can be skipped and in all the desks it's not the current partner who recommends him for next promotion.

[*]You cannot boast of the simple graphics of this game, it's 2011 as is. Either come out with Crysis/Uncharted type game-industry revolutionizing graphics or leave them be ignored. Graphics are quite detailed imho with very few noticible bugs. Being an open world game you can't compare it with linear games like uncharted(not a multiplatform game) and games which are PC exclusives like Crysis.
[*]The only thing worthy in the entire BluRay is the audio/soundtracks which barely take 1/1000th of the size. Agreed

[newuxtreme]

[*]Absolutely ZILCH re-playability. Not really, missions can be replayed to earn better rank. Ask Arch-on

This is the second time I have heard the same response and I don't understand why. WHY would you want all 5 stars in this game? It's not like the game get's any challenging. It's a simple story, once you've read the book/solved the case nothing changes. It's not like the case gets MORE interesting or MORE challenging.
A game is replayable when there is some added challenge to it. Or some new improvements/additions. And if neither of those, then simply and plainly because its FUN. In a GTA-esque game, you get into a fist fight, while protecting your brother, then the opponent takes flight, he sets obstables in your way during the chase scene, he gets into a car and you do the same, again obstacles and a mini race component, then he finally ditches the car to try to escape but you now catch up to him... And now choice is upto YOU, which decision to take, and the storyline changes either way depending on which decision you make. And this was only one, very VERY small mission amongst 100's.
Not only is this challenging at a higher difficulty, it's also giving you a different storyline possibility the second time you play it, and quite simply with so much action its just plain fun.
When all you have to do is walk around the same house, while knowing the same clues, and interrogatin the same suspects, asking the same questions, getting the same answers, already knowing the result..... Please explain to me where the replayability is in all of this.

[*]Which bright a*s developer thought it would be a good idea to NOT be able to skip through cut scenes? Every single damn f**king thing, you have to sit through in case you die, or your PS3 got reset or you want to replay only the last bit of the mission. No checkpoint save system. A whole case is one chapter, and if you finish it well and good, but if you don't get mind f**ked having to sit through cheesy a*s comments and dialogue all over again. Not true, there are checkpoints saving there, if you notice the game saves it self at important sections and you can quit the game midway if you think you have screwed up and the game will restart from that checkpoint. And cut-scenes can be skipped too

Bro, when a game makes you sit through not only every intro cut scene, but also each and every dialogue again, and each and every question you ask, and the answer given by the suspect again and again, while nothing changes, and NONE of these can be skipped..... it makes for unskippable cutscenes. I would also like to point out the useless addition of making phone calls to R&I in this game. For any and all who don't know, it's not even a spoiler, just read on how this thing works. You do all of your investigation, gather clues, interrogate suspects etc. Now you walk over to a telephone and press X. And you can look forward to.... Lo-and-behold! ANOTHER CUTSCENE! Only in this cutscene there isn't even anything worth watching! You can see the detectives arse facing you and hear a 90 second to 120 second long stupid call, where you tell them what you found out and ask for information, and R&I get back to you with the owner of the car, or location of the new hotel you want to be dining in. And of course, it's not skippable.
Nothing and I mean NOTHING in GTA4 and RDR was NOT skippable, you could skip every cutscene and every single in game dialogue too if you wanted and get directly into gameplay. And you know what? The dialogues and cutscenes in RDR/GTA4 were actually worth watching!

[*]You cannot boast of the simple graphics of this game, it's 2011 as is. Either come out with Crysis/Uncharted type game-industry revolutionizing graphics or leave them be ignored. Graphics are quite detailed imho with very few noticible bugs. Being an open world game you can't compare it with linear games like uncharted(not a multiplatform game) and games which are PC exclusives like Crysis.

Here's where you're mistaken my friend. Uncharted is linear no doubt. But so is LA Noire! LA Noire just has an open world! That's all, you can't do sh*t in it, besides ogle at the apparently mind blowing graphics which everyone else besides myself can see, and I readily give others benefit of doubt. So leave the HQ's and walk around the city, roam around in cars, and admire all the window panes and building gates and street lights you want, because in 15 minutes, you'll have had enough of the city and will be bored out of your mind... but what do you do? Nothing, since you don't have an option of playing anything besides the main storyline cases.

Open world and sandbox games are GTA4, San Andreas, RDR etc. Where not only can you free roam, but find stuff to do! Play poker, go hunting, find people, pursue bandits, ransack and loot the people, play die, play five finger fillet, clear hideouts, go treasure hunting, find medicinal herbs, break horses and a lot LOT more. And this was all only RDR.

This game is as linear as Mafia 1, however Mafia had a solid storyline mission based gameplay and it was an orgasmic experience sitting through what experience the developers created for you. LA Noire can't hold a candle to Mafia 1 in my opinion and Mafia 1 came out way back in 2002.

[Sunny Coffee]

You cannot boast of the simple graphics of this game, it's 2011 as is. Either come out with Crysis/Uncharted type game-industry revolutionizing graphics or leave them be ignored.

That's just sad

[aRch-0n]

Wow a review getting reviewed o_O thats a first,

[KrackChap]

Great review. Much better than the PR disguised as reviews we get today. Score is a point or 2 high though.

[achilles]

I haven't been so let down by a game since Mafia 2.

I did think L.A Noire wasn't a game I would enjoy but after reading this, Goddamn mother flippin' High 5!

On the flip side

TBH though, I haven't been as disappointed by a game more than Mafia II ever.

Edited by achilles, 25 June 2011 - 04:01 AM.

[spindoctor]

sounds like someone completely missed the point of the game.

[Sunny Coffee]

^5 star comment


1 star guy reading this topic

[newuxtreme]

Here's perhaps the only thing related to LA Noire worth bothering watching. And it's f**king brilliant!

[Rock Lee]

So, you dont care about getting 5 stars in a case in game that solely is based on solving cases?
I am guessing you got Mass Murderer in every Hitman game you played because you didn't care about Silent Assassin rank.


But very nicely done review. I love rant reviews. I also didn't find the game very interesting.

Edited by ambar_hitman, 08 July 2011 - 07:12 PM.

[Tukulu]

i love this game, but dont have xbox...

[a-list]

I actually love the game. It's not just a game, it's like an interactive novel. If you can immerse yourself in the detection, you really feel like you are solving the cases as you unravel the details. It's not an action game and it does have flaws but this was one of my top purchases of 2011.

[kushalrocks]

i love this game, but dont have xbox...

it is available on pc too .

[Spacescreamer]

3.5/10 ?

I thought 3.5/5 should be more like it


Loved the game. Ofc skipped the side missions.
Now let the sequels flow.

[BUGSIE91]

the game is awesome...good story line...shooting is same as red dead redemption....i dono y u guys hate this so much :|

[kushalrocks]

you will find game interesting for first 7 to 10 mission , rest is repetitive sh*t

Edited by kushalrocks, 24 June 2012 - 12:37 PM.

[i_rock098]

Actually i felt the opposite, i felt the earlier missions were boring and the game really picked up from the Homicide missions

[Heaven Angel]

Loved the facial expressions.. the way he solves the cases ... every mission is unique and interested .. if you're looking for dishum dishum .. this ain't a game for you..
but if you like slow but practical .. then u'll like this game.. as it's from R* so u won't be disappointed..