**L.A. Noire Review Compendium**

[mrdelltoid]

L.A. Noire press reviews all in one neat little spot![/size]

Giant Bomb - 5/5 Stars
by Brad Shoemaker
"Having spent a lot of time with both versions of L.A. Noire, the PlayStation 3 game is the clear-cut winner. Both versions of the game look fantastic, but there were a few instances of painful frame rate drops and objects drawing in too slowly on the Xbox that didn't exist on the PS3."
www.giantbomb.com/la-noire/61-21500/reviews/

Game Trailers - 9.1
by GT Staff
"Featuring a revolutionary facial capture technology that provides incredibly realistic characters, is life as a gumshoe glamorous or just police blotter fodder?"
www.gametrailers.com/video/review-l-a-noire/713929

Gamespot - 9.0
by Carolyn Petit
"L.A. Noire is a unique game with a terrific sense of period atmosphere, absorbing investigation mechanics, and a haunting tale with plenty of moments that would be right at home in a classic film noir. "
www.gamespot.com/ps3/adventure/lanoire/review.html

Eurogamer - 8.0
by Oli Welsh
"L.A. Noire is slow but quietly engrossing; its mechanics are suspect, but you can't fault the ambition, attention to detail and commitment that went into its making."
www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-16-l-a-noire-review

Joystiq - 4.5/5 Stars
by Justin McElroy
"This is a little glimpse of an explored territory in interactive media, a hint at an incredibly exciting future that I can only hope we're hurtling towards."
www.joystiq.com/2011/05/16/la-noire-review/

IGN - 8.5
by Hilary Goldstein
"L.A. Noire may not reach the emotional heights of a game like Heavy Rain, but it’s something everyone must try out. It reaches high and almost succeeds as a brilliant new type of video game narrative."
ps3.ign.com/articles/116/1168417p1.html

Gamesradar - 9.0
by Mikel Reparaz
"L.A. Noire is a staggering technological achievement, offering up a fantastically detailed open world, a hugely engrossing story, varied gameplay and some of the best acting performances ever to appear in a game."
www.gamesradar.com/ps3/la-noire/review/la-noire-review/a-2011051693529489014/g-2006092512588826087

Destructoid - 9.0
by Jim Sterling
"L.A. Noire is a terrific bloody videogame, and you have what is guaranteed to be a classic for years to come. True maturity and narrative depth in mainstream gaming begins right here. "
www.destructoid.com/review-l-a-noire-201203.phtml

1up - A
by Jobert Atienza
his is vastly different from the countless first- and third-person shooters and all the "me too" open-world games sitting on store shelves.
www.1up.com/reviews/la-noire-review

Gamepro - 5/5 Stars
by Will Herring
"While L.A. Noire may not appeal to everyone, those that are charmed by its mean streets will likely love every second of it. It's a bold, cinematic step forward in a genre that’s dying for innovation, and its implementation of the MotionScan technology is truly a game-changer."
www.gamepro.com/article/reviews/219411/review-l-a-noire/

[mrdelltoid]

I'm sold. I can't wait to pick this up, hopefully it'll be on shelves tomorrow and I won't have to wait until Wednesday.

[journeyman2x]

Thanks for posting the reviews MrD. I've been watching this game... now if I only had any money...

[mrdelltoid]

May 16, 2011 20:23:35 GMT -5 journeyman2x said:

Thanks for posting the reviews MrD. I've been watching this game... now if I only had any money...

My pleasure

And I know the feeling on the money thing, the cash I'm using for Noire was to be my ESV: Skyrim cash. In this case though I think it'll be worth it and being that Skyrim doesn't hit until November it should work out.

[BobbyB]

Can't believe it. Another game I wanted gets rave reviews and I'm gonna miss it

[Moderator]

I'm scared I'll play this too much and beat it too fast. I'm not sure if the replay value will be high

[BobbyB]

I'll probably rent it

[Moderator]

May 17, 2011 2:21:07 GMT -5 BobbyB said:

I'll probably rent it

This is what I'm thinking of doing, I really want to support Team Bondi and Rockstar, but money is too tight

[teylix]

i never rent games (heavenly sword / heavy rain excluded) anymore so i'll most likely wait till this game is in the bargain bin for <$40. The benefits of having a backlog of games

[mrdelltoid]

May 17, 2011 0:58:20 GMT -5 BobbyB said:

Can't believe it. Another game I wanted gets rave reviews and I'm gonna miss it

Not to worry Bobby, it'll still be here and be just as good when you come home

[best3444]

Sounds interesting. I actually have it coming through gamefly so I will check it out.

[BobbyB]

May 17, 2011 8:26:55 GMT -5 @mrdelltoid said:

May 17, 2011 0:58:20 GMT -5 BobbyB said:

Can't believe it. Another game I wanted gets rave reviews and I'm gonna miss it

Not to worry Bobby, it'll still be here and be just as good when you come home

This is true, I'm going to have so much to catch up on...

[mrdelltoid]

Picked it up on my way to work, and it has been sitting on my desk all day teasing me. I kept it here as something to look forward to when I get home.

Only 2 hours left!

[Moderator]

May 17, 2011 17:50:17 GMT -5 @mrdelltoid said:

Picked it up on my way to work, and it has been sitting on my desk all day teasing me. I kept it here as something to look forward to when I get home.

Only 2 hours left!

If you can, could you post some impressions? I mostly want to know how the gun play feels and if the "sandbox" world is worth exploring. I heard you can't really run wild blowing everything up.

[mrdelltoid]

May 17, 2011 19:12:06 GMT -5 Moderator said:

May 17, 2011 17:50:17 GMT -5 @mrdelltoid said:

Picked it up on my way to work, and it has been sitting on my desk all day teasing me. I kept it here as something to look forward to when I get home.

Only 2 hours left!

If you can, could you post some impressions? I mostly want to know how the gun play feels and if the "sandbox" world is worth exploring. I heard you can't really run wild blowing everything up.

Will do!

You definitely can't run around blowing stuff up, being you're a police officer and all

[Moderator]

I think I'm gonna get it it with the K-mart deal.

www.joystiq.com/2011/05/17/grab-la-noire-at-kmart-this-week-get-20-credit-and-a-free-game/

[Freudinio]

Nice job on collecting the reviews there.

I am on my 7th mission atm.. to be honest the game feels a little easy.

So far I have managed to get every question right, except for one. I have also found every piece of evidence even though I have the attention span of a.... hey look a plastic castle!

Game is great though, but it's no GTA or Heavy Rain (which a lot of people expected, from what I hear).

[Setharion]

Freud, is it as good as RDR by chance?

[mrdelltoid]

May 17, 2011 20:51:59 GMT -5 Freudinio said:

Nice job on collecting the reviews there.

I am on my 7th mission atm.. to be honest the game feels a little easy.

So far I have managed to get every question right, except for one. I have also found every piece of evidence even though I have the attention span of a.... hey look a plastic castle!

Game is great though, but it's no GTA or Heavy Rain (which a lot of people expected, from what I hear).

Agreed. People walking in expecting this to be GTA Circa 1940 are going to be sorely disappointed.

Impressions:

The gameplay is more akin to an Adventure game than a third-person action game like GTA. It is deliberately slow paced as you spend the majority of your time combing over crime scenes, literally going over every inch to try and find clues that can lend insight to what went down and interviewing witnesses.

As you walk around the music lends audio cues when you are close to evidence, when you've cleared the area of clues the music will disappear entirely. Your controller will also vibrate when you come upon something that can be manipulated, though the object won't always be pertinent to the case.

The problem I found early on with the vibration is sometimes it gives away evidence that I would not have found on my own so soon. For instance, in one case I stumbled upon the murder weapon purely because of the vibration I hadn't even seen it with my own eyes. If there is an option to turn this off I'll definitely be doing it.

Once you find an object to manipulate you hit A which brings you into a first person view of your hand holding the object. You can then rotate the object around using the Thumbstick to find additional info such as a serial number on a gun. Other items like books can be opened up by pressing A again so that you can scour its contents.

The gun play is not a strong point of the game, but then again it is also not the point or focus of the title (at least so far). It reminds me of GTA IV's (if I remember correctly), where you pull the left trigger to go into aim mode and then use the right stick to move the reticle around.

The game defaults on low auto assist and I find myself struggling to hit the culprit where I intended. I've tried shooting them in the arm to disable the firearm but always seem to end up killing them instead. I think since the game isn't really focused on combat I'll turn up the aim assist to High, as I think it might help my enjoyment of those parts.

With that being said, as far as the main storyline goes I've only encountered one mission where I had to use my firearm. The "crimes in progress" missions however seem to be heavily focused on combat. Not much of a problem though since they're entirely optional and don't really effect the main storyline.

As far as collectibles go, there isn't a lot to entice you to explore. There are 14 Newspapers to find, and I've already found 2 just at crime scenes alone. The paper is interesting because it seems to follow a side storyline about a college prof./doctor. You pick up the paper and read the headline and then Press A to learn more of the story. Instead of having to read it though, it takes you to a cutscene that playes out a bit of the story involving this character.

The only other "collectible" is finding landmarks around L.A., I think there are either 30 or 40 to come across.

The storyline so far has been great, and the voice acting is absoloutely incredible. This is in turn helped by the Motionscan technology which is astounding, my jaw literally dropped the first time a character started talking, it looks so realistic it's crazy. It isn't perfect by any means, but nothing in any game I've ever played has come anywhere close to this.

I'll go into more details tomorrow about the interrogations, etc. But suffice to say, in conjunction with the motionscan technology this part of the game is by far my favourite.

So much to say about this game, I love it. If you are okay with it being more on the interactive movie side then game then you owe yourself to go get this game. This is the first game in quite some time that has truly WOWed me.

[mrdelltoid]

May 17, 2011 22:20:41 GMT -5 Setharion said:

Freud, is it as good as RDR by chance?

I may be biased since while I liked RDR, I didn't enjoy it as much as others, but I think narrative wise I already think it matches RDR and has a good chance to surpass it (speculatively of course)

[Obiwan316]

Great Impressions. I may have to go pick this up with my Best Buy giftcard.