LA Noire's story: Absolutely phenomenal.

I just finished LA Noire a few minutes ago, and it was an absolutely mind-blowing experience. Yes, the gameplay was somewhat repetitive. The story and most of the investigations were also very linear. The game's presentation as a piece of hard-boiled detective fiction betrayed its very namesake.

The story isn't presented until well over the half-way point in the game. And yet, it is one of LA Noire's greatest redeeming features. The greatest thing about the plot is how it keeps nearly everything hidden from the player up until the very end. When the plot is initially presented, you think that it probably deals with stolen drugs. But, no! Even though drugs are mentioned, they aren't even part of the real conspiracy which is presented when playing the arson desk - a plot of corruption that involves the highest ranking municipal officials of LA itself.

I daresay it's better than even The Witcher 2's comparatively more mundane conspiracy concerning the assassinations kings.

The case stories are better than the overall plot which is average at best.xxmatt125xx

Yeah, it was an average story concerning municipal corruption.

But the plot twists and turns were just so good - the story itself doesn't matter. What matters is that it was brilliantly presented and brilliantly told.

The story was actually mediocre, there wasn't really any twists. You could guess the ending from the start actually. Olimar_the_Min

[QUOTE="Olimar_the_Min"]The story was actually mediocre, there wasn't really any twists. You could guess the ending from the start actually. xxmatt125xx

The twist came during the first case during the arson desk. I didn't quite see it coming - I thought it was all about the drugs at first.

And yes, I did collect all of the newspapers.

It is quite good, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I believe it suffered in quite a few ways plot wise though. It talked about his wife and kids but did not even show them or show him interacting with them until after some major events with them. It made his family life seem insignificant. As a whole I would have liked to see more personal moments instead of case after case. Like the reviews said, the transitions are a bit jarring. 110million

It did suffer from a lack of pacing, that's right. I wished we saw Cole outside of work more. Like drinking with his police buddies, etc. And the story could have been presented much earlier (outside of the newspaper cutscenes, at least).