LA Noire Review

Here is another Article wrote by our friend “Hamda” and she wish to share it here

First I’d like to apologize for my lack of activity here .__. this is a lazy summer for me ^__^; I’ve been finishing games here and there, and I’m going to review one I fell in love with! and spent hours playing.

More after the jump!

Story:
You play the game as the protagonist Cole Phelps, a “war hero” who was working as a cop then got promoted gradually as he solved cases. By War hero I mean that he was famous for his participation in World War II, and how he defeated the Japanese enemies. As you go through the game you discover that things are more than meets the eye, but that happens during the last part of the game.

Presentation:
The graphics of the game is amazing, especially with this face motion capture technology team bondi is using for the first time, to those who don’t know that already; this face motion technology is used to capture facial expressions and emotions of real actors and applies them to real characters, so when a character talks to you he moves his mouth and jaws and eyes clearly.
The soundtracks are so 1940’s-ish and include beautiful jazz music. In addition, the music tracks helps you knowing when you’re in the right investigation area, as sometimes you go beyond the range of the investigation area then the investigation music stops, and here’s where you know you should go back a little.
The backgrounds/environments is detailed and well-made, Rockstar and team bondi spend a long time developing this game because they took the areas of LA and converted them as how they’d look like in 1940’s. It’s so beautiful that it takes you to that era, the cars, the clothes people wearing, and the buildings.

Gameplay:
The game consists of cases one after another, between these cases there are cut scenes. During the case, you go to the area of the crime, investigate, look around and find clues, which is easier that it sounds because whenever you cross by an interactive object, the controller vibrates. From these clues you find new places, drive to them, and then ask people. When asking and investigating, the benefit of the motion capture feature kicks in, as you’ll see the facial expressions of the people you’re interrogating with, and from that you’ll guess whether they’re telling the truth or lying. That’s not all, there will be cases where you’ll be running after the suspect, car chasing, and shooting. Now the shooting and car chasing will remind you of GTA, be careful though you don’t want to crash into cars and hurt innocent people! I forgot to mention that whenever you find a clue it will be automatically recorded inside Cole’s notebook, so that when you accuse a person of lying, they’ll ask you for evidence, then you’ll chose the evidence from the list of clues you’ve found. Of course, whatever questions you get right or wrong won’t affect your gameplay, you’ll finish the case either way but with a lower rank, nothing else will change, this is NOT Heavy Rain, it’s totally different.

Replay Value:
As a Rockstar game it is expected to have reply value, and so is the case with LA Noire, it has collectibles, landmarks to discover, cars to unlock, not to mention the time you might spend playing the cases again to get a 5-stars rank (achievements *wink wink*)
All in all, I recommend this game :D it may not have a really deep story, but it’s so fun! And I’m not saying that because I’m in love with Cole Phelps! The game just sucks you in with the variety of cases :D 10/10 for me, despite some forgetting glitches.

To those who played the game, what did you like most about it? If I missed something worth pointing out please feel free to mention it in your comment :D hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing!