LA Noire

[Eusis]

i've decided to not play the game. thanks for your input guys!

Pay more attention to whether the writers are racist/sexist than if the world is; the former is a problem while the latter is simply flavor and being true to reality. Of course, given your general leaning for games I'm thinking you'd just be bored by this anyway, so better to stay away.

[Alisha]

i decided to give it a rent.

[OkamiGeisha]

I didn't really notice that Cole was racist.  Othere cops in the game OTOH..  There's certainly stereotyping of African-Americans and Hispanics but they're mostly pawns and victims in the game.  I found the plot twists really interesting, and overall it's not predictable. 

[Britton]

There is racism in the game where non-whites are generally looked down upon and treated like shit.  It gives the game a feeling of authenticity since the goal was to create the look, feel, and sound of 1940s Los Angeles in an era where racism was still very prominent.

This. Racism was more blunt, out in the open and generally accepted in most social circles in public. I also thought it lent to the realism.

[Britton]

It dawned on me today while playing LA Noire that this game is a perfect marriage between the point and click/gather clues/go search and hand to hand fight people gameplay of Shenmue (Dreamcast) mixed with the gunfights of Uncharted. This is truly one of the best games I've played in a  few years.

[Prime Mover]

Just finished LA: Noire. Quite an extraordinary game in many ways. Unfortunately some of the gameplay is a bit repetitive, but the story and characters are some of the best I've EVER SEEN. Cole was such an intricate character. It's very rare to have a game in which the more the game progresses, the less you like a character, but this game did it extraordinarily. At first, he's the perfect Knight in Shining Armor, maybe a bit naive, maybe slightly broken, but pretty much perfect. But then the more you progress, the more his faults become apparent.

Code:

I think it was especially telling that they shifted the main character to Jack Kelso, because at a certain point, it's impossible to really understand/sympathize with Cole. He's still the "good guy", but he's become so distant and unable to understand that they basically had to make the main character someone else. He dies a hero, but a fallen one. I really hope they make another one, because I'd love to play as Jack Kelso, PI. Private dicks make for far more interesting leads than police officers, because they work outside the system. I have a feeling that they're setting up for a Jack Kelso series. Cole's fall from grace made for one great game, but it's obvious from the start that he'd never make a good serial hero. Kelso, on the other hand, is the kind of lead that would have made Raymond Chandler proud.

I was so worried early on that Cole was going to be just a goody goody. That would have completely gone against the Noir tradition, and would have been really boring. It was so shocking when the big revelation came around. Funny thing is, Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe used to have affairs with married women all the time, but you hardly would care, because it just seemed natural. When Cole did it, it was just so unlike anything we'd seen, it really was shocking. Worked very well.

Finally, I noticed that GameSpot had a terrible article the other day trying to prove that Phelps was a psychopath. It was one of the most flawed and silly articles I'd ever seen out of them. I got the feeling that the author hadn't played the game, but was going off a synopsis. He and a psychiatrist put Phelps' character through a "test" and determined that he was a bonafide psychopath. Yet their reasoning behind every criteria was so completely wrong that all it did was prove how little they paid attention during the game!

[Annubis]

Go check extra credits if you want something sensical about LA noire.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/3633-Race-in-Games

[Yoda]

I've got no motivation to finish this game. As good as the voice acting is, there's times when Cole's responses are really out of proportion to the question. He seems to get all loud or aggressive out of the blue in certain instances. I'm not talking about heated interrogation, just starter questions.

Also, the structure is a bit repetitive. And I HATE how you really aren't given a clear direction as to what location to hunt for people/clues "next." If you make what seems to be the logical move more often than not it wasn't and you lose out on a clue or line of questioning.

[Ashtrot]

"I don't believe you, sir. I THINK YOU LILLED YOUR WIFE AND THREW HER INTO THE BURNING BUOLDING BECAUSE YOU WERE ANGRY AT HER FOR COOKING YOUR EGGS WRONG."

"No I didn't!"

"Sorry, sometimes you have to shake the tree to see what comes loose."