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

navanman said:
I agree 100% with you. I'm nearly finished the game now, half way through Arson desk. The story is utter garbage and gets worse as the game progresses.
If everyone wasn't so caught up on the face mapping features and 40s LA style, this game would be panned by the majority of review sites.

The HUGE plot hole with the serial killer is unforgivable. At least 2 of the suspects confessed to killing the women and then we are supposed the believe the temp barman committed all the murders and framed all the suspects. And then its all swept under the carpet never to be talked about or so you(the player) never needs to think about what just happened.
Glad you agree :) I must admit I expected some blacklash after making such a big, negative post.
 

Atruvius

Member
I agree with ending feeling a bit out of place.
I thought the best parts in the game were when playing as Jack. He felt much better character than Phelps and Jack's case was more interesting.

Car chase was way out of place. It was almost like playing Burnout but without the speed and glorious crashes. Sewer wasn't too bad, maybe a bit boring and the water looked laughable in the flooded section. I don't get why Bondi didn't end the game with its worst game mechanic. Luckily shooting wasn't horrible when I put the aim assist to the max.

Phelps' death wasn't as impactful as Bondi had wanted. The goodbye lines delivery was poor. It didn't have any emotion in it. And I would have liked to have a meatier ending. Did the DA make a deal with police chief, is Jack still DA's investigator, will Jack and Elsa get together and did John Noble die.

All in all it was an amazing game, one of the best of the year. And I would gladly buy a sequel.
 

rpgb46

Member
Fuck me this game is mega boring/repetitive. Yes I know it's not an action game (though it was definitely marketed as one).
 

anddo0

Member
rpgb46 said:
Fuck me this game is mega boring/repetitive. Yes I know it's not an action game (though it was definitely marketed as one).

It really is. I caught myself dozing off a few times.

I'm up to the second case in Vice. I think from here on in, I'll do one case a day, anymore and I'll pass out. It's become a chore to play this game. I'll finish it eventually.
 

Jhoan

Member
I'm kind of stuck. Can anyone help me out? It's late in the game so this is for anyone who's beaten the game.
So I am at the River cave at the end with Kelso in a shootout. A little bit after the part where you grab the optional flamethrower, cross the flooded floor, climb a ladder, kill the guys in the corridor and on the catwalk. Every time I slide down the ladder and move a couple of inches, I always die. What am I supposed in this part? I've died over six times trying to traverse the area and every time I do, I always drown.

Also, did anyone who collected all the newspapers not the get the achievement/trophy for it? The reason I ask is because I got all the newspapers and I didn't get the achievement for it so I'm guessing the game has a glitch or a bug and I believe the same thing's happened with the kill an enemy with every gun achievement.

In slightly unrelated news, I experienced another frame rate drop during one of the last Arson missions.
It happened during the part where I was chasing down the arsonist dude who came out of jail and hijacked the trolley. So when the cars got knocked out of the way, the frame rate dropped.
 
Foliorum Viridum said:
arrest half a dozen innocent people for crimes they didn't commit. Why couldn't you investigate a case, exhaust all leads and finish it without a conviction, ultimately leading up to the arrest/murder of the real serial killer? How on Earth did half a dozen people seem so absolutely guilty and turn out to be innocent? It's a complete plot hole and one that could easily be avoided.

I didn't think any of them seemed absolutely guilty, even the ones who confessed were mad & it was fairly obvious from the moment the temp barman was mentioned that he was the killer
Then it got worse on Vice as the game began to focus
more on Phelp's history in the war and tried to connect the narrative to that. Not only is the idea that all of his squad from the war will end up connected to this crime which he just happens to investigate is completely implausible, it's poorly written and not interesting in the slightest.
Why is it implausible?
For the Morphine to end up on the streets it had to be stolen by soldiers, why couldn't Phelps's squad have stolen it?
Moreso than that, I don't buy that in a police station that has dozens of officers who openly admit to beating suspects, getting a conviction by any means necessary, not caring if their suspect is innocent, etc etc that the revelation Cole cheated on his wife would lead to him being the biggest scumbag in their eyes. If you wanted an excuse to demote him then fair enough, but that made it completely unbelievable.

I assume that they weren't particularly impressed with Phelps cheating on a American woman with a German Jazz singer(especially so soon after the war)

Finally, things get even worse in arson when the game
yet again allows you to arrest the wrong people again, but worse tries to make those horrible newspaper stories into a big conspiracy. It barely felt like a detective game by this point and whoever made the choice to have you play as Kelso needs their head examined because it was far too late in the game to switch the perspective and have it seem anything other than completely forced. The love triangle aspect was horrendous, the massive shoot-outs ruined any verisimilitude that was left (which was very little) and it just wasn't well thought out in general. I didn't care who was setting the fires, who was profiting from it, why the real estate company were doing it, and had no desire to take down the powerful suits who were in charge. Everything they were trying to achieve with that story failed.

I think the problem you had was you expect the Police to be concerned with catching the correct criminal, which seems fairly naive to me. As for the conspiracy it made sense to me, & was also foreshadowed by the radio adverts for the real estate developer.

As for the mechanics of the game, most of your complaints seem fair except for the car handling, I would assume 40's cars would handle like barges so being easy to keep on the road was appreciated realistic handling would have been a bad idea (especially with the punishment for car damage when you are ranked)
 
I don't really buy the bad handling is because of realism. I think it's more to do with the fact they just didn't ever figure out how to make it feel right, just like the fighting and shooting.

It was implausible because for
half of Cole's squad to end up as key suspects in his story as a detective just felt lazy and too much of a coincidence. Have some of the army guys steal it and get it on the street, at which point the real criminals take over or something. To have pretty much half the most important criminals in the game be your ex squadmates just seems too far-fetched to me. Especially when a man you drove crazy by ordering him to burn innocent civilians just so happens to encounter the woman you love and kidnap her? I mean, really? REALLY?

In the homicide act I felt that
a lot of them seemed very guilty (how many of them ran? and one guy was even burning his bloody shoes..) and the temp barman never appeared "obvious" to me. Maybe you're just a lot smarter than me, but either way it annoyed me the game never let a case go unresolved and purposely made those men look guilty just so they could go back on it later.

Cole having
an affair with someone of German nationality was definitely a big taboo back then, as the game points out, but I still never believed that men with such low morals would react that strongly to it. It's like the army guys all showing up in your story, just seemed forced.

I don't see how
I believed the police would always want the correct criminals? I even said that in the game there are several characters who clearly don't give a shit. I just didn't want people who weren't criminals to be portrayed so blatantly as criminals, only for the game and the characters within it to act like Cole did something wrong when it turned out that wasn't the case. It seemed like "cheating". And yeah, the conspiracy made "sense", but the way it was built up and told didn't seem like good storytelling at all. Nothing in the last chapter, the newspaper articles or the flashbacks made me care about the characters and events that happened as a result. I know it was built up throughout the game, but that doesn't mean it was good. The game was best when you were just going from case to case, investigating people and their lives, with no real connection to you. As soon as they brought all of those personal elements into the game it become some weird D movie plot.

If you like those things then I don't mind or anything, but none of it worked for me. The storytelling was borderline as bad as in something like Heavy Rain I thought. A real shame too because in the individual cases they told quite interesting stories.
 

fernoca

Member
Damn, still loving this. Disc #2, third Homicide case. :)

I think I kinda spoiled myself, when I decided to play The Naked City just some moments ago. Though, it wasn't that much of a spoiler, but since is the next rank..I already know who's the new partner and some smaller things. But no biggie.

Love driving around and checking out cars I haven't seen before....to drive them and add them to the car-collection. XD

Don't know, maybe it's because I was raised by my dad talking about the early 40s/50s...and the Black Dahlia case, so seeing mentions and constant references to Elizabeth Short, the music, the cars, the costumes...it's really nice.
 

Mifune

Mehmber
I'm about to start the Homicide desk and I'm still loving it. The last Traffic case was all kinds of spectacular, with that
shootout on the set of Intolerancce
.

The shooting mechanics are beyond clunky (between this and the original Mass Effect and Obsidian's more recent games, I think I have a soft spot for clunky shooting) but the incredible music, locales, and facial animation/acting are so far doing it for me in a big way.
 

Marleyman

Banned
The farther I play(second Vice case) the more I despise this game. I have literally fallen asleep with the controller in hand during the mission where you have to follow that
blonde girl.
I am going to eventually finish this game but I really am in no hurry at all. Forcing myself through more than one case at a time seems like torture.
 
This game is kind of tiresome, it's hard to work up the motivation to start playing again. Nothing in it feels right. Right from the first cases I was getting annoyed as not knowing what I could interact with in the environment and having to walk around tapping X like some old Playstation survival horror until homeboy picks up some useless trinket I didn't know he'd reach for.

And all the interaction in the action scenes feel perfunctory. I like the atmosphere, and that's usually enough to make me enjoy a game, so I'm sticking with it.
 
Foliorum Viridum said:
I don't really buy the bad handling is because of realism. I think it's more to do with the fact they just didn't ever figure out how to make it feel right, just like the fighting and shooting.

I think you misunderstand me, I don't think the handling was realistic, just I'm glad it wasn't.
It was implausible because for
half of Cole's squad to end up as key suspects in his story as a detective just felt lazy and too much of a coincidence. Have some of the army guys steal and it have it on the street, at which point the real criminals take over or something. To have pretty much half the most important criminals in the game be your ex squadmates just seems too far-fetched to me.

Without the soldiers being involved in a crime the flashbacks would have been fairly pointless so I was happy they turned up, & to be honest I felt it was more contrived that Kelso happened to be working at the very same insurance company that one of the conspirators owned/worked for. Also I never saw the soldiers as important criminals, more patsys being exploited by "real" criminals

In the homicide act I felt that
a lot of them seemed very guilty (how many of them ran? and one guy was even burning his bloody shoes..) and the temp barman never appeared "obvious" to me. Maybe you're just a lot smarter than me, but either way it annoyed me the game never let a case go unresolved and purposely made those men look guilty just so they could go back on it later.

People running from the police is no sign of guilt(happens in a fair few films set in that era, I believe) & it seemed obvious that the real murderer was framing people( the box found in one of the early Homicide cases net to the suspects bed) & the captain complaining when you don't charge someone straight after an interview explains why you can't leave cases unresolved so I had no real problem with that.

Cole having
an affair with someone of German nationality was definitely a big taboo back then, as the game points out, but I still never believed that men with such low morals would react that strongly to it. It's like the army guys all showing up in your story, just seemed forced.

I think you are judging them by todays standards, I don't think people would have looked down on police hitting suspects in those days (or even men hitting women who had done them "wrong") , also you seem to forget that Elsa wasn't just a German, she was a Jazz singer(possible Commie), consorted with black people & was known to the police as a heroin addict ( & it was implied that she put out to the Vice dept)

If you like those things then I don't mind or anything, but none of it worked for me. The storytelling was borderline as bad as in something like Heavy Rain I thought. A real shame too because in the individual cases they told quite interesting stories.

That's fair enough, I haven't played Heavy Rain so I can't comment on that but I do enjoy Police Procedurals ( a guilty pleasure of mine) & they don't have the greatest standard of storytelling so I was comfortable with it in LA Noire. I do agree that Team Bondi added to many "gamey" elements to it
would have been nice to end a game without a shootout for a change, & the whole collect the vehicle aspect of the game felt completely out of place(although the film reels intrigue me, the fact that I went through the whole game without finding one makes me want to track them all down)
 
I won't bother typing out a long response, because ultimately I think we just had different responses to the game :) I like police procedurals quite a lot too (I watch CSI/CSI NY every week despite the horrendous stories/writing) but I suppose I just had higher hopes for this game. It started off so well that when it began to slip into something more contrived and silly it annoyed me and that annoyance only intensified the more I played.

In an ideal world, LA Noire 2 will be able to have a compelling narrative arc over the course of the game that doesn't rely too heavily on the personal life of the detective you play as. I really think that will always feel forced. As cliche as the serial killer story is, perhaps having a reoccurring killer throughout the game could be a good idea to toy with, having him strike once every few weeks between cases etc.

With the foundations there, hopefully we won't have to wait too long. Despite the fact I walk away from the game with not an overly positive opinion, I'm still very open to the series evolving and finding that perfect formula.
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
I'm thinking about buying this game but I have one big question.

Is it all about style and not substance? Would the story be relevant if it was moved into present days?
 

Peff

Member
Jipan said:
I'm kind of stuck. Can anyone help me out? It's late in the game so this is for anyone who's beaten the game.
So I am at the River cave at the end with Kelso in a shootout. A little bit after the part where you grab the optional flamethrower, cross the flooded floor, climb a ladder, kill the guys in the corridor and on the catwalk. Every time I slide down the ladder and move a couple of inches, I always die. What am I supposed in this part? I've died over six times trying to traverse the area and every time I do, I always drown.

Also, did anyone who collected all the newspapers not the get the achievement/trophy for it? The reason I ask is because I got all the newspapers and I didn't get the achievement for it so I'm guessing the game has a glitch or a bug and I believe the same thing's happened with the kill an enemy with every gun achievement.

In slightly unrelated news, I experienced another frame rate drop during one of the last Arson missions.
It happened during the part where I was chasing down the arsonist dude who came out of jail and hijacked the trolley. So when the cars got knocked out of the way, the frame rate dropped.

There is no trophy/achievement for getting all of the papers as far as I remember. They are clues, so they count as part of the "Find 95% of the clues" one.

Also
as you go down the ladder you have to move diagonally towards the other side so you can go up again. Maybe the guy in front of you is shooting you down... That's very, very close to the end, so maybe try restarting
.
 
Foliorum Viridum said:
I won't bother typing out a long response, because ultimately I think we just had different responses to the game :) I like police procedurals quite a lot too (I watch CSI/CSI NY every week despite the horrendous stories/writing) but I suppose I just had higher hopes for this game. It started off so well that when it began to slip into something more contrived and silly it annoyed me and that annoyance only intensified the more I played.
.

That's a fair complaint, perhaps if the desks they cut out of the game surface as DLC some of your issues with the plot will be addressed.
Also how can younot watch best CSI(insert Horatioglasses.gif here)
 

The Lamp

Member
I shouldn't have stopped playing after the 2nd Vice case....now I'm too uninspired to turn the PS3 on and continue playing this game...lol.


subversus said:
I'm thinking about buying this game but I have one big question.

Is it all about style and not substance? Would the story be relevant if it was moved into present days?


What do you mean by "relevant"? The story itself isn't exactly carved from the heavens.
 
Another shout out for the soundtrack. One of the best I've heard in a game in quite a while.

227839420.gif


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiGKxCAg_0o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoNenPST-Z4&
 

zlatko

Banned
Still selling the Consul's Car traffic case over in the b/s/t thread. Lowered the price to $8.00 PayPal. PS3 version.

PM me if you want to buy it.
 

pakkit

Banned
I feel like unless you've played through all the desks, you shouldn't judge the story. It's bone thin till the last turn.

A design flaw, definitely. Rockstar should work harder at getting players involved in their narrative design earlier on.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
how many times are they going to
run to the roof and then ambush me (with the weirdest sound effect ever)
 
pakkit said:
I feel like unless you've played through all the desks, you shouldn't judge the story. It's bone thin till the last turn.

A design flaw, definitely. Rockstar should work harder at getting players involved in their narrative design earlier on.
Bondi, not Rockstar, but I actually think for LA Noire 2 they need to do the opposite - focus less on an overall story and more about giving the player great cases to work on.

The moment the game ramps up the story is where the game goes from "disappointing" to "bad" in my opinion.
 

Atruvius

Member
Y2Kev said:
how many times are they going to
run to the roof and then ambush me (with the weirdest sound effect ever)
You can hear the same sound effect if you get hit by a car or fall from somewhere high. One of the most horrible and hilarious sound effect I've heard.
 
Lesath said:
I've had that happen to me exactly two times.
The trouble is in this game that things feel exciting and dynamic the first time. When you're chasing a guy for the dozenth time, knowing exactly how they're going to try and escape, and then they attack you in that exact same way a second time, the illusion is utterly shattered.

I had the same issue with the "random" moments in RDR. I loved saving a woman who had her horse stolen the first time, and then over the course of the game it happened another 50 times and it felt like a boring gameplay mechanic. That magic of the first time was pretty much ruined by the fact the devs felt the need to re-use it and not just have it happen one time.

I wish games would focus more on unique events without recycling anything. Challenging and tine consuming, but so worth it.
 
zlatko said:
Still selling the Consul's Car traffic case over in the b/s/t thread. Lowered the price to $8.00 PayPal. PS3 version.

PM me if you want to buy it.

um, what's the point? It's only available to PS3 users and anyone that bought a PS3 copy already has the consul's car case in the box.
 
anddo0 said:
It really is. I caught myself dozing off a few times.

I'm up to the second case in Vice. I think from here on in, I'll do one case a day, anymore and I'll pass out. It's become a chore to play this game. I'll finish it eventually.

I have to agree with you guys. I'm on the fourth Vice case and am ruing the fact that I had to go through the DLC case. Everything in the game outside of facial mapping is either dull or atrocious, after the first interrogation I thought getting the suspects to break would be the high point
but that's the only criminal in the entire game that I can remember making confess, the others have all gone down in shitty shoot outs, automatic confessions when you get to a point, or the genius of the homicide cases where you're blatantly wrongly convicting perps.

I don't know if I've ever been more disappointed with a full price game purchase and I can't believe it's been receiving the reviews it has.
 
Just beat it. Really good game.

(End spoilers)
At first I didn't like the ending, but then the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.
Although
Cole dying was tremendously sad although I understood his motives, etc.

It may be a Bondi game but after that and Red Dead, Rockstar has knocked out two amazing stories.

Can't wait to finish the side quests.
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
The Lamp said:
What do you mean by "relevant"? The story itself isn't exactly carved from the heavens.

you can read War and Peace and it's still very relevant.

I mean is it pure noire detective or is there some strong character development, drama and all that stuff?
 

Jinjo

Member
NYR said:
Wow, they left out a lot of relevent known actors, hope they complete this....

Yeah, I hope they do too. It's pretty cool to see the resemblances, but the most obvious ones they missed are Bekowski and the Captain.
 

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
Square Triangle said:
I'm having a very hard time wanting to turn on my PS3 to play this. I just finished the first Vice case and I'm just extremely bored with it.
Unfortunately I'm getting apathetic too, still in the Homicide cases.

Bah. I just don't know what it is about the game that is making me play less and less of it. I'm sure I'll beat it eventually. I just...man...I dunno.
 
chubigans said:
Unfortunately I'm getting apathetic too, still in the Homicide cases.

Bah. I just don't know what it is about the game that is making me play less and less of it. I'm sure I'll beat it eventually. I just...man...I dunno.

The pacing is fucking terrible. I realize what the game is centered on and I get that but please, you couldn't throw in different tasks or something to break up the cases? It's a really bad design choice to just move straight into the next case when you haven't even had time to go piss after finishing the last one.
 

Gen X

Trust no one. Eat steaks.
I've had this game for a week to review and although I'm only 3 cases from the end of the game (I struggled to find motivation to play this towards the end of Homicide) I settled on a 7/10 for my overall score.

I am positive that some review sites got caught up in the tech of this game. The first day I played it I thought it was awesome and would've given it a 9/10 but as days went on all these annoyances popped their heads out and the score went lower and lower. Hell if the game didn't have the tech and looked a lot rougher I am sure this game wouldn't be getting scores over 60%.
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
Gen X said:
I've had this game for a week to review and although I'm only 3 cases from the end of the game (I struggled to find motivation to play this towards the end of Homicide) I settled on a 7/10 for my overall score.

I am positive that some review sites got caught up in the tech of this game. The first day I played it I thought it was awesome and would've given it a 9/10 but as days went on all these annoyances popped their heads out and the score went lower and lower. Hell if the game didn't have the tech and looked a lot rougher I am sure this game wouldn't be getting scores over 60%.

I honestly don't see how it is, even with the tech. I found all the actual gameplay to be bad, the detective segments don't amount to much, and none of the cases are satisfying. Mix this with repetition to the core, a mess of a plot, and you get a game I don't think is good at all. A 7 sounds like a good.
 

Fjordson

Member
Buckethead said:
Just beat it. Really good game.

(End spoilers)
At first I didn't like the ending, but then the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.
Although
Cole dying was tremendously sad although I understood his motives, etc.

It may be a Bondi game but after that and Red Dead, Rockstar has knocked out two amazing stories.

Can't wait to finish the side quests.
Totally agreed. Glad to see I'm not the only one around here :p
 
Yup, this one's a snooze fest. No way around it.

I agree with those who are saying to not do any more than one case a day. If you do any more, you might never wake up.

Also, were people saying earlier in this thread that it could get too "gamey" at times? If so, are you people serious? This game could not possibly be any less of a game than it already is. Everything is either heavily automated (like the chases), or completely arbitrary (like the interrogations). The only time I ever felt like I had any control was when I was driving, and after spending about 4 hours driving back and forth between locations, I'm bored to death of it and am just telling my partner to do it.

Thank fuck they decided to let me shoot a few guys every couple hours. Without the "gamey" sections, LA Noire seriously could not have been passed off as an interactive experience.

It's not the worst game ever, but I find that this is one of those games that, while I'm playing it, I wish I was playing something else like Mario or some other kind of actual game. Hopefully this is not the direction that the industry is headed in.
 

DarkKyo

Member
TheAtomicPile said:
Yup, this one's a snooze fest. No way around it.

I agree with those who are saying to not do any more than one case a day. If you do any more, you might never wake up.

Also, were people saying earlier in this thread that it could get too "gamey" at times? If so, are you people serious? This game could not possibly be any less of a game than it already is. Everything is either heavily automated (like the chases), or completely arbitrary (like the interrogations). The only time I ever felt like I had any control was when I was driving, and after spending about 4 hours driving back and forth between locations, I'm bored to death of it and am just telling my partner to do it.

Thank fuck they decided to let me shoot a few guys every couple hours. Without the "gamey" sections, LA Noire seriously could not have been passed off as an interactive experience.

It's not the worst game ever, but I find that this is one of those games that, while I'm playing it, I wish I was playing something else like Mario or some other kind of actual game. Hopefully this is not the direction that the industry is headed in.

Then this game is simply not your thing, simple as that. I find the cases, context, and procedure riveting, personally. Calling it a "snooze fest" is just your way of saying you need a dudebro game.
 
Dechaios said:
Then this game is simply not your thing, simple as that. I find the cases, context, and procedure riveting, personally. Calling it a "snooze fest" is just your way of saying you need a dudebro game.

The adventure genre is one of my favorite "genres", and I appreciate deep, stimulating experiences but I agree, this game falls short on many levels. So the Homicide cases were riveting to you? There's some things this game does well, but just because someone doesn't share your excitement over it doesn't mean they only appreciate "dudebro" games.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Dechaios said:
Then this game is simply not your thing, simple as that. I find the cases, context, and procedure riveting, personally. Calling it a "snooze fest" is just your way of saying you need a dudebro game.
Knock it off.
 
Dechaios said:
Then this game is simply not your thing, simple as that. I find the cases, context, and procedure riveting, personally. Calling it a "snooze fest" is just your way of saying you need a dudebro game.

Mario is a dudebro game now? Got it.
 

Valion

Member
subversus said:
you can read War and Peace and it's still very relevant.

I mean is it pure noire detective or is there some strong character development, drama and all that stuff?

No. The characters are awfully written, and show essentially no development throughout the game. The story is awful. Most of the major plot points are unintentional comedy. If it weren't for the title, no one would connect the game to noir at all.

At no point do you feel like a hard-boiled detective, or anything like that. Cole is essentially the anti-Phoenix Wright in terms of competence, getting results, or mental stability. He would be a horrible detective, except that he's apparently the only person in the police department that seems to attempt to do any work at all.

There are no great moments of revelation based on piecing together evidence. There is lots of collecting random crap by walking around and mashing a button (in true awful adventure game fashion), then yelling at people, ultimately leading nowhere. There are a few terrible 'twists' that you will likely guess 5 hours ahead of time, as you slog forward wondering when the damn thing will finally wrap up.
 
Valion said:
No. The characters are awfully written, and show essentially no development throughout the game. The story is awful. Most of the major plot points are unintentional comedy. If it weren't for the title, no one would connect the game to noir at all.

At no point do you feel like a hard-boiled detective, or anything like that. Cole is essentially the anti-Phoenix Wright in terms of competence, getting results, or mental stability. He would be a horrible detective, except that he's apparently the only person in the police department that seems to attempt to do any work at all.

There are no great moments of revelation based on piecing together evidence. There is lots of collecting random crap by walking around and mashing a button (in true awful adventure game fashion), then yelling at people, ultimately leading nowhere. There are a few terrible 'twists' that you will likely guess 5 hours ahead of time, as you slog forward wondering when the damn thing will finally wrap up.

Exactly, this game is far from noir, meaning it doesn't carry any of the established themes of "Noir" fiction/film. I agree on every other front, poor character/story development and confusing as well. Case by case, this game is bringing me down hard. I can't find the motivation to go on simply because there is nothing keeping me engrossed.
 

Joel Was Right

Gold Member
I have to admit, reading one post that talks about how amazing the game is followed by another who is being slowly tortured by it has triggered bursts of laughter whilst reading this thread. it's either a pure hatred or pure fondness - there is no middle ground. You're either FOR or AGAINST. Has there been any other game as this divisive?
 
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