My more detailed thoughts on LA Noire:
In terms of presentation and visuals this game is probably the best thing I've ever played. The voice acting in it is on a par with the standard you'd get in a decent TV show, in terms of games it blows all the competition out of the water. There is no repetition of dialogue that I've come across and I'm on my 8th case. The facial animation, as I said before, is truly astounding- you really do get good visual clues in your interrogations from watching the characters expressions and body language. The story is developed well and the progression of depth and difficulty in the different cases is good. There seems like quite a lot of 'extra' stuff to do outside the story cases, as you'd expect from Rockstar. So you've 40 'street cases', called into you by dispatch as you're driving your car (more of which in a minute), you have 30 (I think, it may be more) LA landmarks to finds as you're driving around, 100 cars to find and drive and 13 newspapers which give details of the story that overarches all of the different cases. So there's plenty to do, and most of it is bloody great!
The investigation work is great, searching for clues at the crime scene, following up leads, interviewing 'persons of interest' etc. This leads to my first minor moan- so far, and I realise that I'm only a few cases in to the game, each investigation has followed a similar pattern, though they branch out in different ways. It's nowhere near as repetitive as Assassin's Creed (the first one), but a little more variety in how you start your investigation would have been good (though I guess the way it is lends authenticity!) Searching around for every single clue can be time consuming but the fact that the music stops playing when you've found them all helps prevent unnecessary time wasting!
So it's great? Well, yes, but as well as the repetition issue, my biiggest complaint is the driving. You are told that you have to drive carefully and avoid collisions etc in order to get the highest rating you can for each case. The problem I find is that the CPU drivers are friggin morons! I'm driving carefully, following the rules of the road, stopping at red lights etc, but when the lights turn green and I move I expect the car in front to move as well! Instead some idiot driver (and pedestrians apparently aren't immune to terminal stupidity either!) sits there and lets me run into the back of them! Then I try to drive straight across at a junction (when the lights are on green mind!) and some imbecile coming from the opposite direction decides to turn right across in front of me! Now I know American drivers are pretty bad, but bloody hell, it's annoying!
That aside, I'd say it's a great game and a thoroughly immersive experience and one I'd recommend to anyone who likes their gaming a little more thought provoking and taxing on the old grey matter, rather than just running around shooting shit...
