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Team Bondi's L.A. NOIRE |OT| Watchin' Faces, Solvin' Cases

Grisby

Member
Someone posted a couple pics in another LA Noire thread and it seemed like cops didn't handle evidence with gloves in the 40's.
 

Angry Fork

Member
The main things so far that I dislike is how Cole's backstory is told, I just don't really care at all right now and am sometimes not sure what's going on. And also there's no overarching story it seems (like someone else mentioned) in the current timeline. It's just case after case, however I do notice
the psychiatrist guy always being in a lot of these cases so maybe he'll become important to Cole later on.
But yea that's about it for me.

I'm loving the gameplay so far the most, I hope the game sells well so there can be a sequel that adds more features/options like some more complex dialogue options or a complex morality system which can give you the option to either uphold the law or let some people get away with their crimes etc. stuff like that. And then the story branches off/changes based on these decisions. That would essentially be the perfect detective game for me. This one doesn't have that stuff though but it's a great start.
 

Grisby

Member
cackhyena said:
I thought they'd been finger printing since the early 1900's, though. Confused.

I dunno. I'm just going off the photos and what was in that thread.

I accept the fact I could be completely and utterly wrong though.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
I haven't played this but have been keeping up with the thread and talking to several people about this. Funny thing is 2 are on the verge of selling it saying it's not as good as they expected. CORRECTION, 1 has sold it and the other is ready to sell. One even went out and say out in front of a Gamestop like a ticker booster and asked folks if they wanted to buy it, 1 did lol GS would only give him 23 in credit he said. He sold it for 30.

The other is a guy who I really trust and he says at this point he'd give it like a 7.6. He doesn't fall into the hype and such in the moment and tends to critique very accurately.

I can be the kind of guy who is loving the hell out of a game like this and is ready to crown it but after you settle down your verdict will be more precise instead of a "that's it, 10/10" kind of judgement.

I got The Witcher 2 over this, I can't say I made a bad choice after some very key opinions. I still want to play this but I will gladly wait until it's around 30 to buy it.

Team Bondi made this right? I'm sure Rockstar had some influence but as a friend said, it's not cut from the same cloth.
 

samdavis

Neo Member
MrCompletely said:
Ack, it pains me to read that! I hate saying this, but you are doing it wrong. Do not restart interrogations, you're destroying the experience for yourself.

Appreciate the human element to this game, Cole isn't perfect and cases will be botched. It's part of what makes this game so interesting.

There's good, well though out content for every scenario, even if you ace every case and interrogation, you'll be missing out on some content and dialog.

Well I got 2 stars on two consecutive cases and I caught the right guy. Had the Captain chew me out both times like I'd screwed up mightily.
 
semiconscious said:
yeah, it could've been (& hopefully, any sequel/spinoff will be). like, for example, it could've actually been 'noire' :) ...

if nothing else, it would seem team bondi has redefined what the concept of 'noire' is for a new generation: '40's l.a. + crime + ability to turn off color. & the fact that you play a guy with a badge, a partner, & a nice house in the burbs, who spends his days policing the underworld, rather than a disreputable loner / private eye living in the middle of that underworld, makes no difference. no getting sapped from behind, muscled by big men, taken for a ride, slipped a mickey, or seduced by a siren? makes no difference...

this game may be a number of things, including a very good episodic crime drama (which i think it is). but 'noire' it ain't...
If by "noire" you're referring to film noir then I think you're going by a much narrower definition of noir than is generally accepted. Look at "He Walked By Night" or "The Naked City" as good examples of film noir that feature a very similar premise to L.A. Noire.
 

cackhyena

Member
Grisby said:
I dunno. I'm just going off the photos and what was in that thread.

I accept the fact I could be completely and utterly wrong though.
I'm too lazy to look up the facts. I'm definitely not saying I'm right.
 
Buckethead said:
Every game has problems especially innovators like this game - people on GAF just have ludicrous expectations.

I don't think its ludicrous to expect

MAJOR SPOILERS

that you wouldn't spend the majority of the game charging obviously innocent suspects with crimes someone else is committing. Then when you actually find the real perpetrator the resolution is terrible.

Captain: Congrats Cole you've found the guy who brutally murdered at least 6 women, but he's the half-brother of someone important! Let him go. And you start vice tomorrow!

Cole: Cool.
 

Ridley327

Member
Count of Monte Sawed-Off said:
I don't think its ludicrous to expect

MAJOR SPOILERS

that you wouldn't spend the majority of the game charging obviously innocent suspects with crimes someone else is committing. Then when you actually find the real perpetrator the resolution is terrible.

Captain: Congrats Cole you've found the guy who brutally murdered at least 6 women, but he's the half-brother of someone important! Let him go. And you start vice tomorrow!

Cole: Cool.

I didn't have a problem with this as far as a means to an end (the Black Dahlia murder is one of the great unsolved crimes of the 20th century), but I was not a fan of William Gull conceit they ended up using to explain it away; it's too familiar and obvious to be satisfying for players.
 
I've just started at homicide. Thoughts so far:

+ Looks really good for a console game. Framerate and pop-up can be dodgy, but overall it's pleasant to look at.
+ The facial animations are really amazing, but everything else is incredibly fluid as well. I love watching my character run up steps or vault over something.
+ Investigating with none of the hints on feels so good. I've missed one or two things, but I'm starting to get more thorough and it's really rewarding.
+ I like that if you fail an interrogation it doesn't fail the mission, adds an element to realism.
+ I really like the notepad and everything being controlled through that. Very clever system.
+ The city is really well designed. I haven't done any exploring, per se, because I'm not sure there's any reason to, but it's great to take in the surroundings as I drive about.

- Shooting and driving feels really shit. I know it's a Team Bondi game, not Rockstar, but both are infinitely better in GTA4/RDR so it's a bit of a letdown to have such dodgy controls again. Also, the lack of a line on the map for directions feels very dated.
- Small things break the verisimilitude of the game. For example, I just did the mission with the
rape of the young actress and those guys who chased and shot at us in the car just disappeared once I wrecked their car. No arresting them or anything.
I know it's not that major, but I feel the realism they're going for is broken in moments like that. Ditto with the way you can drive.
- As far as I can tell, you can't really shoot guys in the legs in side missions, which again ruins some of the realism. I don't want to shoot to kill everyone.
- I feel like I've done too much shooting already. There have been three or four occasions where I've been shooting a group of guys and it feels too "gamey" for want of a better word.

I know that's an equal number of negative points, but I am really enjoying it and the positives overshadow them, however I do feel like the game ruins a lot of the realism it strives for at times which is a shame. Nonetheless, I really want to keep playing and it's only the driving/shooting mechanics that really stand out as bad.
 

Empty

Member
Finished the Fallen Idol case and left confused by the story. Maybe it's because i messed up some interrogation stuff.
Who were the people that jumped me after i left the prop place and then attacked me at the set?

Enjoying the investigations and case progression. Going round a room pressing A at things that look like you can interact with isn't the most interesting mechanic at all (even with hints turned off), but i find piecing together the details of the clues i find in my head to try and work out what's happening quite satisfying. The investigation system is hit and miss, i like the concept and when it works it's cool, but i don't feel like i have enough control over what Cole is going to say and that can lead to irritating character moments and failures. A more RPG like dialogue system would be preferable, ala Mass Effect. The large open world is rather dull and i don't even get that much mood from it but i do like the sense of scale, i feel like contextualizing the many dramatic events of the game within a place where so many people are just going on and living their lives normally helps the verisimilitude.

I actually have significant issues with pretty much all the systems in the game, gunplay isn't that interesting and chases need spicing up too, but what i like about it is the feeling of following an interesting criminal case through from start to finish entirely through your gameplay, there's something cool to me of going to an area, finding a clue, then using it to extract information on a location from a person, driving there and going down the rabbit hole etc. As pretty much everything is about feel in this game to me i need the case stories to be interesting, so far they've mostly been simple, straightforward and short yet enjoyable, i'm just hoping they get longer and more interesting to keep me hooked.
 
Empty said:
Finished the Fallen Idol case and left confused by the story. Maybe it's because i messed up some interrogation stuff.
Who were the people that jumped me after i left the prop place and then attacked me at the set?

If I remember correctly the guys that jumped you out of the prop place were Mickey Cohen's guys. He was a real person who was involved with the mob and ran the drug trade in LA. The guys who attack you at the set were sent by the actress's husband, I think.
 

bitoriginal

Member
Fuck whoever decided that the PAL version would come as stackable discs. Havent played it yet btw, still waiting for the 3 discs to install.
 

Nemesis_

Member
bitoriginal said:
Fuck whoever decided that the PAL version would come as stackable discs. Havent played it yet btw, still waiting for the 3 discs to install.

AU version isn't stacked at all. =/
 

v0mitg0d

Member
I'm probably in the minority here, but I've had a little trouble when interrogating people. So I've decided to share an (embarrassing) protip with the other fine folks having issues too:

When you're interrogating someone try to analyze their facial expressions and movements very closely and then try to mimic them exactly.

No seriously!

Do exactly what they're doing and see how it makes you feel. Does it make you feel like you're being devious? Does it make you feel like you're trying to hiding something? Perhaps it makes you feel like you're just frightened of the police and/or the suspect.

I know it sounds crazy (I'm going to catch so much crap for this but screw it), but it improved my percentage.
 

tiff

Banned
Foliorum Viridum said:
Also, the lack of a line on the map for directions feels very dated.
I like that. It's supposed to be dated; no one had GPS in 1947. It feels much more natural to just ask your partner for directions than to just follow a line on a map, and it accomplishes the exact same thing.
 

bitoriginal

Member
Nemesis556 said:
AU version isn't stacked at all. =/

Yeah I know neither is the American version by the looks of it. I think Europe got shafted on this particular issue, not that it's a massive issue or anything, but I seriously think it's rediculous to place three discs on top of each other. It's the sort of thing I've been conditioning myself not to do for the last 10 years.
 

Nemesis_

Member
My biggest issue is the length of the cases.

Thus far it's almost always been the person I speak to or meet last. There's never an introduction to a whole bunch of characters at once, and then I would have to investigate and eventually decide who does it.

Otherwise everything else is fine, but when I find out the perpetrator is the guy I just met I get understandably apathetic.
 

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
tiff said:
I like that. It's supposed to be dated; no one had GPS in 1947. It feels much more natural to just ask your partner for directions than to just follow a line on a map, and it accomplishes the exact same thing.
Absolutely. The GPS style navigation kind of ruined my enjoyment of GTAIV...you end up looking at the minimap the entire time rather than the environment.
 

Oppo

Member
Dammit! Ok GAF answer me this. (I think I know the answer.)

Been waiting all week for my airmiles gift cards to come in so I could go get a replacement for my dead PS3. I wanted to play LA Noire on that.

Cards didn't arrive, it's now a 3-day weekend. I could buy it for 360 instead.

Any reason I shouldn't? The disc changing isn't a huge hassle is it? any big differences?
 
tiff said:
I like that. It's supposed to be dated; no one had GPS in 1947. It feels much more natural to just ask your partner for directions than to just follow a line on a map, and it accomplishes the exact same thing.
I suppose that's true, to an extent. There are lots of things that break the verisimilitude for me, as I stated, but that wouldn't be one of them. I see the map as part of the game UI, not something that has to conform with the historical accuracy of the 40s, so it's okay for it to be "modern".

Thankfully, so far most places have been close to the crime scenes so I haven't got lost too much.
 
Just curious, is anybody with the PS3 version noticing frame drops? It's only once in a while, but I'll notice it sometimes when I'm running. Maybe I'm crazy.
 
bitoriginal said:
Fuck whoever decided that the PAL version would come as stackable discs. Havent played it yet btw, still waiting for the 3 discs to install.

How do you install disc 2 & 3? I managed to install disc one but when I go to game details with disc 2 in , there is no option to install.
 
FuttBuck said:
Just curious, is anybody with the PS3 version noticing frame drops? It's only once in a while, but I'll notice it sometimes when I'm running. Maybe I'm crazy.
Yeah chasing someone is the only noticable time the framerate struggles.

I mean, it dips elsewhere, but not nearly as bad.
 

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area
endlessflood said:
If by "noire" you're referring to film noir then I think you're going by a much narrower definition of noir than is generally accepted. Look at "He Walked By Night" or "The Naked City" as good examples of film noir that feature a very similar premise to L.A. Noire.
agreed 100%. huge film noir buff and this is definitely film noir by the general acceptance of it. I mean so far its story isn't absolutely amazing, but it's hard boiled, suspenseful, and shot with very particular angles and depths. I think a lot of casual folks hear noir and think "40s Bogey/Cagney detective movie".. when really those were only a certain type of film noir. I would say The Third Man for example shares very little in common with say Maltese Falcon (just to pick two incredibly known examples), yet both are most definitely film noir.
 

Doodis

Member
Wow, this thread is pretty huge. Just played the first hour or so of the game last night.

Facial animations are really great. Really nicely done.

I'm not so sure about the interrogation system, though. Early on in the game,
while trying to get the confession from Kalou, I kept getting the first question right but it took me nearly 15 minutes to get the second one. I went through each of the seven or so pieces of evidence, and each time I failed and had to start over. I finally realized that you have to choose "doubt" as the second response. This doesn't really make sense to me. You've already accused him correctly of lying, why wouldn't you continue to do so for the second question? Seems a bit counter-intuitive to me.
I have a feeling I'm going to suck at the rest of the interrogations.

Cerebral Assassin said:
How do you install disc 2 & 3? I managed to install disc one but when I go to game details with disc 2 in , there is no option to install.
You have to wait maybe five seconds or so for the "Install game" option to pop up on the game details screen. For some weird reason, it doesn't show up automatically.
 
Doodis said:
Wow, this thread is pretty huge. Just played the first hour or so of the game last night.

Facial animations are really great. Really nicely done.

I'm not so sure about the interrogation system, though. Early on in the game,
while trying to get the confession from Kalou, I kept getting the first question right but it took me nearly 15 minutes to get the second one. I went through each of the seven or so pieces of evidence, and each time I failed and had to start over. I finally realized that you have to choose "doubt" as the second response. This doesn't really make sense to me. You've already accused him correctly of lying, why wouldn't you continue to do so for the second question? Seems a bit counter-intuitive to me.
I have a feeling I'm going to suck at the rest of the interrogations.

Truth means you believe them
Doubt means you don't trust them but have no proof
Lie means you have proof they're lying

I got doubt and lie confused a bit at the start too
 
Doodis said:
Wow, this thread is pretty huge. Just played the first hour or so of the game last night.

Facial animations are really great. Really nicely done.

I'm not so sure about the interrogation system, though. Early on in the game,
while trying to get the confession from Kalou, I kept getting the first question right but it took me nearly 15 minutes to get the second one. I went through each of the seven or so pieces of evidence, and each time I failed and had to start over. I finally realized that you have to choose "doubt" as the second response. This doesn't really make sense to me. You've already accused him correctly of lying, why wouldn't you continue to do so for the second question? Seems a bit counter-intuitive to me.
I have a feeling I'm going to suck at the rest of the interrogations.
I'm kinda in the same boat. I'm about 4 hours in and I still have no idea if I should pick "doubt" or "lie" half the time.

I know that with lie you need to provide evidence, but sometimes I feel I have that evidence but it doesn't work. Othertimes I go with "doubt" and that's not right, either, so I must have missed a chance to use evidence.

It doesn't bum me out too much because I don't mind failing and it's dynamic with what happens, but it can be frustrating to think "a-ha! I have you now.." only for the evidence to do nothing.
 

Doodis

Member
Shorty11857 said:
Truth means you believe them
Doubt means you don't trust them but have no proof
Lie means you have proof they're lying

I got doubt and lie confused a bit at the start too
Okay, lightbulb on top of my head. This seems obvious now that you say it, but I didn't think of it beforehand.
 
One minor annoyance:

Cut scenes are not skippable when you restart a mission, right. No matter what button you push.

BUT

The all important, rare and essential cut scenes between cases (
military memories
.... have a friggin hair trigger for skipping. Like you blow on the controller, you skip 'em.

Design decisions I never get.

If you are a designer, all your valuable cut scenes NEED A PAUSE MENU. Skip, Continue. That's all. We like to see your scenes in their entirety at least ONCE, but not necessarily after that.

But overall lovin the game :)
 

bitoriginal

Member
There is an incredibly bad frame rate issue in the very first scene (like literally the very beginning of the game) on the 360. Hope thats not an indication of the quality of the rest of the game.
 
bitoriginal said:
There is an incredibly bad frame rate issue in the very first scene (like literally the very beginning of the game) on the 360. Hope thats not an indication of the quality of the rest of the game.

Nope. That stood out for me too but I haven't noticed anything nearly as bad since. In fact, the game has run great for me.
 
I got 5 stars on the first 2 traffic cases and the first homicide case with no problem and no hints on. You don't need to be perfect by any means. I missed a few questions and evidence and still got 5 stars. I think damage to property plays a part as well. Anyway fuck The Golden Butterfly. I thought I did it right and the Captain starts yelling at me. Still got 3 stars somehow.
 

The Lamp

Member
The graphics are really clean and vibrant. It has its own look and the faces blend in well with everything else. I laugh at everyone who wrote off the graphics based off blurry scans or bad screens.

It's particularly impressive for an open-world console game (performance-wise). Outside of a few framerate hicks when loading a new area or in-game cutscene, I really don't notice many hitches in performance.
 

The Lamp

Member
SuperSonic1305 said:
I got 5 stars on the first 2 traffic cases and the first homicide case with no problem and no hints on. You don't need to be perfect by any means. I missed a few questions and evidence and still got 5 stars. I think damage to property plays a part as well. Anyway fuck The Golden Butterfly. I thought I did it right and the Captain starts yelling at me. Still got 3 stars somehow.

Remember, it's always the person you least expect.
The pedo had way less of an alibi than the father.


K' Dash said:
Would you keep a game that turned out to be nothing like you expected and you're not enjoying one bit?

In my case I don't have time to play anymore and a game 20 hour long probably will take 2 months to beat, given that I wouldn't waste my time playing something that I don't like, I don't fucking care if the entire planet says it's the game of the generation.

I tend to be smart enough to make informed decisions about my purchases before making them. I was interested in this game, but was hesitant to buy it until I saw gameplay and saw the concepts work out like I was hoping they would. When I saw a short gameplay walkthrough, I knew it was what I wanted and I bought it.

In the age of the internet, with videos, reviews, impressions, and thousands of people talking about a game before and after it releases, if you buy a $60 game and it's absolutely nothing like you expected, it's pretty much usually your own fault.

Besides, trading in games HARDLY gives you the value you paid for it. Selling it online or to a friend that wants it gives you more bang for your buck, but I guess some people really don't care about throwing their money away for games on a whim.
 
I ended up changing my preorder and getting it on the PS3. It still only arrived yesterday (didn't order through Amazon), so I got to sit down with it for a couple of missions last night.

This game really screams out for a PC port so that I can play it at a higher rez and with more eye candy/AA. I remember when I played GTA4 for the first time, I had the same thoughts. I didn't, however, feel like RDR needed a PC port when I first booted that up.

I like the investigative parts of inspecting the crime scene. The interrogation bits are where I fail the most - took me a couple of botched interrogations to figure out the difference between doubt/lie.

I also only drove a couple of times, since then I've been asking my partner to drive each time. I don't know if it has anything to do with how the driving feels, I certainly do a LOT of driving in the other openworld games I play. I just wanted to get to the crime scene asap instead of having to deal with opening the map every 10-15 seconds to figure out where I'm going.
 

The Lamp

Member
yellow submarine said:
I ended up changing my preorder and getting it on the PS3. It still only arrived yesterday (didn't order through Amazon), so I got to sit down with it for a couple of missions last night.

This game really screams out for a PC port so that I can play it at a higher rez and with more eye candy/AA. I remember when I played GTA4 for the first time, I had the same thoughts. I didn't, however, feel like RDR needed a PC port when I first booted that up.

I like the investigative parts of inspecting the crime scene. The interrogation bits are where I fail the most - took me a couple of botched interrogations to figure out the difference between doubt/lie.

I also only drove a couple of times, since then I've been asking my partner to drive each time. I don't know if it has anything to do with how the driving feels, I certainly do a LOT of driving in the other openworld games I play. I just wanted to get to the crime scene asap instead of having to deal with opening the map every 10-15 seconds to figure out where I'm going.

Be careful since driving or not driving effects how some missions turn out.

Also, as far as interrogation goes, it takes some getting used to. But some tips include:
pay attention to what's being said AND the face. Some people will look kind of honest, though they're stuttering in their words and being very vague in detail, and that's a good sign to doubt them. Accusing someone of lying and then backing out has no penalty, so if you think you might have evidence against what someone is saying, accuse them of lying, see what kind of evidence you'd need from the dialogue, and if you were wrong, back off. Falsely accusing someone of lying can ruin the suspect from telling you anymore, in some cases. Also, subjects tend to have pretty obvious "truth" faces. If they're staring at you intently without much movement, they're telling the truth.
 
So are PS3 owners still having problems with redeeming the DLC codes via PSN? I'm in Canada, and still can't redeem anything. The download screen in the game even freezes when trying to access the store.
 
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