L.A. Noire

L.A. Noire is a unique trip to 1940s Hollywood. Mildly flawed, but worth being played by just about anyone.

User Rating: 8.5 | L.A. Noire PS3

By FreakshowGamer | Review Date: June 15, 2011

L.A. Noire is an interesting game in which you take the role of an LAPD Detective named Cole Phelps. You solve various sorts of crimes all over the town of LA in 1947. The city is extremely detailed, and you get to experience various real life locations and landmarks in the city of LA. It was designed extremely accurate and the visuals all around are breathtaking, more so in black and white, in my opinion as some of the colour schemes look just a bit tacky and out of place. The storyline is good for the most part. It's very dark and features some unpredictable twists and turns. It fall short a little too often because of brief cutscenes, and unexplained plot points that can cause confusion, and just seems unfinished sometimes. The ending was also a bit short. The gameplay can feel cliched at times and pretty generic, the shoot out system was pretty basic, and the ridiculous 'one opponent at a time formal boxing matches' with enemies felt really unrealistic. The game is good, though and probably shouldn't be missed if you're interested in the facial motion capture. It looks great.

The good:
-Gorgeous, detailed city of 1940s L.A. is the star of the show.
-Facial scanning is almost flawless and the actor's performances are great.
-Fairly decent length and some extra content to keep you playing after you finish it once.
-Wonderful soundtrack, but some particular scores are overused throughout the game while other more superior tracks could be played.
-Simply driving around is enjoyable if you like to admire the detailed scenery and find cool hidden vehicles.
-The storyline is fairly original, and occasionally thrilling, most of the time. The characters are also pretty good.

The bad:
-Storyline feels brief and undeveloped at many occasions, leaving you asking questions and very confused.
-Cole's character could have had some extra story moments so we could learn a little more about him, especially more about his family.
-All female hairstyles are either up-dos, or tied back hair. It's really unrealistic and it's obvious hair wasn't like that for girls in the 40s. It probably had something to do with the facial scanning, but it did bother me just a bit.
-Odd behavior from civilian and vehicle AI. Such as: Running away from a fast moving car that is more than 10 feet away, cars beeping at people crossing at crosswalks at red lights, random insults coming from passing-by civilians.
-Fistfighting criminals instead of directly apprehending them is ridiculous. Having a formal fist fight with someone you could just as easily tackle and slap handcuffs on is just weird.

Anyway, this is what I thought of this game. I'd give it an 8.3/10. It's worth picking up.

Other Helpful Reviews for L.A. Noire

• Rating:9.5

  Technical achievements aside, L.A. Noire manages to do something that few games can: force players to think, not shoot.

  By TalSet_11 | Review Date: May 18, 2011 | PS3

  At the outset, I'm going to warn you that this isn't GTA. It was never supposed to be GTA, and I'm tired of hearing people say, "This is lame, GTA was so much better." This is a game about upholding the law and being a... Read Full Review

  16 of 17 users found the following review helpful
• Rating:9

  He's a professional.

  By Iridescent406 | Review Date: Sep 04, 2011 | PS3

  It's been 7 years since the beginning of what we know as 'L.A. Noire'. It's been a pretty rough development cycle for both Take-Two and Team Bondi, as financial issues and constant changes were made to a game that we wer... Read Full Review

  10 of 10 users found the following review helpful