L.A. Noir

9 days left before it's out, hopefully I will be able to buy it before the official release as stores seem to put those titles on shelves sooner than they're supposed to as no one keeps an eye on that (unless it's a Sony title, in which case they won't sell it a minute earlier than scheduled). Seeing as I don't have school the following weekend and I will likely have very little work to do, I will probably finish it before I head over to the UK the following week. It looks very promising, hopefully the city won't be too small (like in Mafia 2 where it was basically the size of the smallest district from GTA4).
 
People with both the 360 and PS3 decided which version they're going to get yet?

Seems all the footage is from the PS3 copy and I'm fairly sure that it was once a exclusive to PS3 so all the ground work would have been done on that system.

Still, prefer the Xbox controller nowadays.

Decisions, decisions.
 
Well I only have a PS3, but if I did have both I think the fact that it needs 3 discs on the 360 would push me towards getting the single disc PS3 option.

The trailers for this look amazing, but the review at the top of the last page has me a little worried that they might have made it too easy with the excessive hints. Think I'll wait and see the general reaction to it once people start playing it for real.
 
Looks good, will certainly be buying it when it comes out.
 
marchi-91 said:
I wouldn't be too concerned Sarni. Its meant to be a slightly scaled replica of LA circa 1940's. I reckon it'll be as big as GTA IV was.
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Appatently the map is much smaller than GTA, hopefully not too small.
 
I'm sceptical about this after reading that write up on the last page.

In theory a GTA style detective game sounds the balls but not if it holds your hand through all the 'detectivey' bits. That seems kind of self defeating.
 
If I get it it'll be the PS3 version. I am waiting on reviews, though. Not convinced yet.
 
I swear to god if the music jingles when I'm near a clue I will stab a penguin.
 
The next big Rockstar Games release may be hopping on the "online pass" bandwagon, with word of the "L.A. Noire Rockstar Pass" coming from Microsoft today. The 800 Microsoft Point purchase gets you... well, we're not quite sure just yet.

The latest Xbox LIVE Newsbeat e-mail newsletter pegs the release of the "L.A. Noire Rockstar Pass" for May 17, the same day L.A. Noire hits the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. That ten dollar add-on will "take your 'L.A. Noire' experience to the next level" according to Microsoft. Not very descriptive.

If I was guessing though, it might provide access to some or all of those retailer specific pre-order goodies—detective cases, outfits, weapons—or a stream of post-launch downloadable episodes. Rockstar promised just recently that we wouldn't have to wait for much of that content to be made available to L.A. Noire buyers who aren't fans of retailer pre-order exclusives.

One thing's for sure, Rockstar Games wants you to buy Team Bondi's L.A. Noire new or pay an extra fee to get that digitally delivered content. EA's doing it. THQ's doing it. Warner Bros. is doing it. Soon, every publisher will do it.

Kotaku has reached out to Rockstar for comment on the "L.A. Noire Rockstar Pass." We'll let you know what they have to say.
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L.A. Noire Has Its Own 'Rockstar Pass,' We're Just Not Sure What That Is Yet

This is the way games are heading, not suprising really. I pre-ordered this at GAME because they have the best pre-order bonuses of the lot in my opinion, cost £40 but then you get the extra content and points off my next purchase.
 
if i preorder from game will i get it a day early?
 
Solius said:
I swear to god if the music jingles when I'm near a clue I will stab a penguin.
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It does. It also has a rumble when near too. I have read these can be turned off through the option menu so you should be fine.
 
iSparky said:
if i preorder from game will i get it a day early?
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Depends where you buy it from, somewhere like ShopTo tend to get them out a day early and I would have went with them but their pre-order bonus is a large t-shirt, really?
 
Was excited when I first heard of it. But after reading that wall of text, it seems a little too linear. But I hope I'm wrong
 
i have next weekend off, nice :D usually i am stuck in work the weekend after a big game release, cant wait for this :D
 
I wonder if we will see any reviews for this before it is released.
 
Well it has a 10 from OXM (not the most credible of judges I know) and apparently the Guardian had given it a 5/5 stating it was
ambitious, daring and utterly compelling, LA Noire blurs the line between gaming and cinematic entertainment
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before the review mysteriously disappeared (for presumably breaking the embargo).
 
I knew some geek would copy it before it disappeared. So here it is then -

Guardian Review:

Ever since it first worked out how to assemble pixels so that they resembled something more recognisable than aliens, the games industry has dreamed of creating one thing above all else – a game that is indistinguishable from a film, except that you can control the lead character. With LA Noire, it just might, finally, have found the embodiment of that particular holy grail.

From start to finish, LA Noire feels like a film – LA Confidential, in fact, along with any similarly hard-boiled example of film noir adapted from stories by the likes of Chandler and Hammett. Set in a gloriously convincing depiction of Los Angeles in 1947 (which is much more attractive than today's LA), it casts you as Cole Phelps, returning war hero turned cop.

Instantly, you plunge deeply and satisfyingly into his working life, solving a vast number of cases as he becomes the LAPD's poster-boy, first in Homicide, then in Vice. And your immersion in Phelps' affairs ratchets up even further when he is hung out to dry by his dubious superiors.

There have been plenty of games with cinematic pretensions in the past, so what is it that enables LA Noire to make a transcendental leap? Inevitably, technology is involved: the new MotionScan system used to capture actors' performances simply produces more convincing facial animation than we have ever seen in a game.


Couple that with the obsessive attention to detail for which Rockstar's existing games such as Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption are famed, and the end result rings true to a greater extent than anything that has gone before. The familiar need to suspend disbelief has been all but eliminated.

Real-life gameplay

LA Noire's gameplay capitalises cleverly on this breakthrough technology. Essentially, it sees you playing through Phelps's working life, doing what you imagine a real-life LAPD detective would have done in 1947. Thus, you have to drive to crime scenes, root around for clues and examine bodies, then follow the resulting leads.

It's when you question suspects and witnesses that things get interesting. You have to analyse facial responses and bodily tics like a poker-player seeking tells, then choose one of three tones to adopt for each question. These are marked Truth, Doubt and Lying, but Sympathetic, Dubious and Accusatory would perhaps be more rigorous.

If you accuse a suspect of lying, you must back that up by producing evidence (all accessed, along with along with your records of each case and details of suspects from your standard cop's notebook). If you don't adopt the correct tone, the character you're quizzing will, at the very least, take longer to give you the crucial information you seek.


As you rise through the ranks, you earn Intuition points, which can be cashed in to eliminate one wrong question-tone (or reveal the location of all the clues at a location). Luckily, LA Noire is pretty forgiving, so if your body language-assessment skills aren't up to CSI standards, you should still get the right result in the end, although you risk a chewing-out from your boss for shoddy police work, which is genuinely mortifying.

The game's pacing and narrative arc impress as much as its believability. The bog-standard detective work, fun though it is, is punctuated judiciously by action sequences including car chases, pursuing suspects on foot, climbing around inaccessible areas, puzzle-solving and, of course, shoot-outs.

Between cases, you either get a flashback to Phelps' war experiences in Japan or a glimpse into his off-duty life; both those elements end up feeding back into the overarching storyline. The oeuvres of Shelley and even anarchist author Piotr Kropotkin are fed into the mix. Newspapers that you find when hunting for clues trigger yet another backstory (this time involving ongoing LA skullduggery), which yet again intersects with the main storyline in the game's later stages.

A fascinating snapshot of an America struggling to readjust to everyday life in the aftermath of the second world war emerges, reinforced by the attitudes of your fellow cops (many of whom would be ejected from the Sweeney for political incorrectness, although Phelps's keen sense of morality keeps them sufficiently in check to appease modern moral arbiters seeking outrage).


Since you're at the centre of proceedings, participating in and dictating the action, the overall effect is powerfully immersive. Cleverly, Rockstar has ensured that LA Noire is a thoroughly inclusive game, too. The control system is sufficiently simplified that even the most determined non-gamers shouldn't find it intimidating.

Indeed, the more hardcore gamers may carp that it isn't sufficiently action-packed or precise. The one criticism that could be levelled at the game is that the shooting system has been over-simplified so that it feels clunky compared to thelikes of Grand Theft Auto.

LA Noire largely does away with the free-roaming that enhanced the appeal of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption. As you drive around, you do occasionally hear of street crimes to which you can respond, and there are hidden vehicles and LA landmarks that completists can collect and visit, but the overwhelming focus is on the main story.

So it's a good job that, bucking the modern trend for short single-player games, LA Noire is satisfyingly meaty. Rockstar reckons it's roughly equivalent in length to two seasons of a TV series, a claim that feels roughly accurate.

Perhaps, then, it would be more accurate to argue that LA Noire more closely approximates a television show than a film – it beats any film hands down in terms of the sheer amount of entertainment on offer, which of course is an advantage games have always had over films.


It has all the period charm of Boardwalk Empire or Mad Men – indeed, the role of Phelps is played by Mad Men's Aaron Staton and other digitised Mad Men actors crop up sporadically – and it seasons the gameplay with a healthy dash of CSI.

In the past, games with such overwhelming ambitions have floundered on odd, usually peripheral, aspects that jarred – such as unrealistic animation (and especially facial animation), clunky dialogue, poor virtual camerawork or facile characterisation. LA Noire is the first game to lack any such element which naggingly reminds you that you're playing a video game, rather than strolling through a film or TV series.

That's why it marks a breakthrough for games as a whole – and we can't wait to see what Rockstar does with LA Noire's technology in its other blockbuster franchises.

5 Stars

• Game reviewed on PlayStation 3
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CassiusClaymore said:
Well it has a 10 from OXM (not the most credible of judges I know) and apparently the Guardian had given it a 5/5 stating it was before the review mysteriously disappeared (for presumably breaking the embargo).
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Just seen that the OXM review is a fake.

Following the fleeting appearance of a 5/5 L.A Noire review on The Guardian site this morning, some excited types are claiming that an online review from the Official Xbox Magazine UK also reared its head overnight.

Apparently, the praiseworthy 10/10 L.A Noire review reported that the game "bridges cinema and the gaming universe".

The write-up, news of which is doing the rounds on GameFAQs and others, apparently concluded: "Never in my 20 year history of gaming have I encountered a game with as much finesse, intelligence, and attention to detail as L.A Noire, and for that I applaud L.A Noire."

Sounds brilliant, right? Only problem... it's not real. Over to OXM editor Jon Hicks:

"It's a rather silly hoax. We haven't released an LA Noire review in any format, and we definitely wouldn't release one that mixed first and third person voices, drew extensive comparisons to games that aren't available on Xbox 360 or displayed a bizarre compulsion to repeat the name of the title as often as possible. That's just how we roll.

"Our review will be going live on OXM.co.uk early next week, and printed in our E3 special edition on-sale 10th June.

"Unfortunately Rockstar wasn't able to provide code in time for us to review it in our Mass Effect 3 issue - on sale this week - but we did receive it in plenty of time to do our review, and experience everything the game has to offer. It's a genuinely remarkable title, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing how it's received by players."
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CVG
 
I pre-ordered it, got caught up in the hype. People that has played the leaked 360 release has so far given a mixed reaction though but that might be because they expect a new GTA.
 
Undecided whether to buy this or rent it first. It sounds like a good game and has a lot of hype and the reviews seem positive but it seems it might get a bit repetitive.
 
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