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Product Description
Amazon.com Product Description
L.A. Noire is a gritty, single player detective game set on the infamous streets and in the smoke-filled back rooms of postwar Los Angeles. Designed and developed with a nod to the classic film noire movie genre, L.A. Noire blends crystal clear graphics that bring the iconic look and feel of the era to life, with a combination of innovative technology and unique gameplay that allow you to solve crimes through interrogations and investigation. Additional features include: five LAPD based crime desks to work, the ability to analyze the case as well as suspects for clues, an accurate block-by-block recreation of eight sq miles of 1947 Los Angeles, multiple difficulty settings and more.
Synopsis
Amid the postwar boom of Hollywood's Golden Age, newly minted detective Cole Phelps is thrown headfirst into a city drowning in violence and corruption. Utilizing groundbreaking new technology that captures an actor's facial performance in astonishing detail, L.A. Noire is a violent crime thriller that blends breathtaking action with true detective work to deliver an unprecedented interactive experience. Interrogate witnesses, search for clues and chase down suspects as you struggle to find the truth in a city where everyone has something to hide.
Cross the police line to solve the worst crimes of Los Angeles' infamous postwar era.
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Against an overarching plot of violence and betrayal, L.A. Noire challenges players to solve a series of self-contained cases as they work their way through the ranks of the LAPD. Each case features a distinct storyline with a beginning, middle and end, and each successfully solved case brings new challenges and leads Cole closer to the true story at the dark heart of the Los Angeles criminal underworld.
Key Game Features
- Solve a variety of cases across the crime desks of: Patrol, Traffic, Homicide, Vice and Arson
- Search crime scenes for clues, question witnesses and interrogate suspects as you search for the truth in each case
- Use your wits to analyze suspect's behavior and separate the truth from the lies
- Experience a stunningly accurate block-by-block recreation of 8 sq miles of 1947 Los Angeles
- Rise up through the ranks of the LAPD from a beat cop to other positions as LAPD detective Cole Phelps
- Solve brutal crimes, plots and conspiracies inspired by famous crimes from 1947 Los Angeles, one of the most corrupt and violent times in the City of Angels' history
- Multiple difficulty settings give players of all abilities the chance to step into the shoes of a detective in postwar L.A.
Additional Screenshots
 Crystal clear graphics. View larger. |  A historically correct 1947 L.A. View larger. |  Work 5 different crime desks. View larger. |  Investigate and interrogate. View larger. |
Product Description
Amid the post-war boom of Hollywood's Golden Age, newly minted detective Cole Phelps is thrown headfirst into a city drowning in violence and corruption. Utilizing groundbreaking new technology that captures an actor's facial performance in astonishing detail, L.A. Noire is a violent crime thriller that blends breathtaking action with true detective work to deliver an unprecedented interactive experience. Interrogate witnesses, search for clues and chase down suspects as you struggle to find the truth in a city where everyone has something to hide.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
143 of 172 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
Fun:
L.A. Noire is a very good game for the gamer that likes to be analytical, gather clues, and figure things out. It's slow paced, as police work usually is, but it's also very rewarding. The Motion Scan technology in this game is fantastic, and I see it being built upon for future releases of completely different games. The ability to read an actors expression is certainly pushing a new paradigm in games that just hasn't been executed before with any success. Team Bondi delivers here.
The story in this game isn't something new. Allowing the user to be the police officer, and a good one, is for the most part new. There is almost an RPG like feel to the game, with long dialog while you're interrogating people. This may come off as boring to some, but I assure you the scenes aren't just fillers. They're fun, interesting, integral parts of the whole story.
The game is still an open world concept, so you can move around and explore the beautiful old L.A. city that Team Bondi laid out. There are also a number of side missions that you can do.
I gave it a 4 out of 5 because the game can get a bit redundant at times. Don't worry, the story does get varied, but a few of the cases are too similar. The other reason I took a bit off the final score is that there just isn't much room for replay value here. Short of the inevitable game add-on's that you can purchase from the XBox Live Marketplace, there's not going to be much reason to come back once you beat it. I'd put the gameplay at about 15-25 hours. This doesn't take into account how much time you spend exploring away from the main story line and side missions.
L.A. Noire is definitely worthy of your collection. I hope we see more Team Bondi developments produced by Rockstar.
Thank you for reading!
The story in this game isn't something new. Allowing the user to be the police officer, and a good one, is for the most part new. There is almost an RPG like feel to the game, with long dialog while you're interrogating people. This may come off as boring to some, but I assure you the scenes aren't just fillers. They're fun, interesting, integral parts of the whole story.
The game is still an open world concept, so you can move around and explore the beautiful old L.A. city that Team Bondi laid out. There are also a number of side missions that you can do.
I gave it a 4 out of 5 because the game can get a bit redundant at times. Don't worry, the story does get varied, but a few of the cases are too similar. The other reason I took a bit off the final score is that there just isn't much room for replay value here. Short of the inevitable game add-on's that you can purchase from the XBox Live Marketplace, there's not going to be much reason to come back once you beat it. I'd put the gameplay at about 15-25 hours. This doesn't take into account how much time you spend exploring away from the main story line and side missions.
L.A. Noire is definitely worthy of your collection. I hope we see more Team Bondi developments produced by Rockstar.
Thank you for reading!
274 of 342 people found the following review helpful
Fun:
Before I begin, I just want to say I have a feeling people are going to vote down this review without reading it or taking in the arguments just because it doesn't fit the popular view of this game. However If I can convince just one person to not buy into the hype and consider both the deserved praise and, more importantly, the legitimate criticisms against this game, I'll be happy. This review isn't for the fans, its for potential players who want an honest review.
Something about LA Noire captured my imagination months before it was released. It featured a new technology called "motion scan" which allowed for it to have the most realistic facial animations I'd ever seen. When I saw the motion scan demonstration, I was floored. I saw it as a huge step forward for narratives in games and if it was done right could make games rival or even surpass movies in terms of emotional investment.
And what a seemingly great way to show it off! A game about a detective who has to read people's intentions through their facial cues? It has all the makings of an incredible game. It also takes place in my hometown and in one of my favorite time periods. And its Rockstar! There's no way they could screw this up!
I was (and still am) so tired of games with immature and underdeveloped stories. I was ready for a game with a mature story not just for its own sake, but one that integrated itself with gameplay in such a way that it couldn't have been done in any other medium. Finally a game that understands that interactivity is the key to making games into a unique art form.
And then the game pretty much ruined everything it had going for it. Motion scan ruined by having a boring and unlikeable protagonist. Integration of gameplay and narrative ruined by making the player's choices mean absolutely nothing. The prospect of at least having an interesting plot was ruined by having an unremarkable story with a bad ending.
After the initial sparkle of everything wore off, I realized nothing about the game is fun to play at all. Investigations are boring and repetitive. Interrogations look nice thanks to motion scan but I might as well have been watching a movie due to the limited gameplay involved. Chase scenes are too heavily scripted to be exciting, and gunplay is pretty unremarkable considering every other action game this generation has done it and done it better.
The idea of interrogations is that after each question you ask a suspect you are given three options to proceed: assume they are telling the truth, accuse them of lying, and the ambiguous "doubt". This seems intuitive in theory, but in practice each choice is fairly arbitrary and differs from case to case. Doubting could mean coax the suspect a little bit to if you know they are holding out, or it could mean wild accusations which make the suspect unwilling to respond. It is impossible to tell what the choices will result in. There is only one correct answer, meaning there is no freedom to approach the cases in any way but the arbitrary one the designer wanted. The choices would seem to indicate that there may be different outcomes to each case depending on the player's choices, but this is not the case. The plot will continue in the same way no matter how well or poorly the player does. So what, then, is the point of this gameplay mechanic which is purely based on choice if the player's choices don't matter and the game is going to continue on the same regardless? What makes games so unique as a story-telling medium is interactivity and gameplay, and this is where LA Noire could have really shined and instead dropped the ball big time.
The game tries to mask it's shortcomings with an expansive and admittedly beautiful recreation of 1940's Los Angeles. However there was literally nothing to do in this open world outside of the main story besides drive around, sight-see, and heavily-scripted side-missions which didn't require an open world, nor were very fun to begin with. Why tease us with such a large and beautiful world and then make the world so void of activities? Surely it would have made more sense to make the game more linear and save the no doubt immense amount of resources making the world so huge and instead use them to polish out the other aspects of the game to make them more, you know, FUN?
To say LA Noire was disappointing is an understatement. Maybe I was asking a little too much of it to begin with, but in my mind it didn't deliver on a single one of it's selling points and that is what made it such a disaster for me. The game is by no means unplayable, in fact many will probably buy it and be perfectly content with its great visuals, particularly the facial animations, detailed world, great characters, and overall uniqueness. But strip all the aesthetic stuff away and you're left with a mediocre story and a game that just isn't very fun to play.
Something about LA Noire captured my imagination months before it was released. It featured a new technology called "motion scan" which allowed for it to have the most realistic facial animations I'd ever seen. When I saw the motion scan demonstration, I was floored. I saw it as a huge step forward for narratives in games and if it was done right could make games rival or even surpass movies in terms of emotional investment.
And what a seemingly great way to show it off! A game about a detective who has to read people's intentions through their facial cues? It has all the makings of an incredible game. It also takes place in my hometown and in one of my favorite time periods. And its Rockstar! There's no way they could screw this up!
I was (and still am) so tired of games with immature and underdeveloped stories. I was ready for a game with a mature story not just for its own sake, but one that integrated itself with gameplay in such a way that it couldn't have been done in any other medium. Finally a game that understands that interactivity is the key to making games into a unique art form.
And then the game pretty much ruined everything it had going for it. Motion scan ruined by having a boring and unlikeable protagonist. Integration of gameplay and narrative ruined by making the player's choices mean absolutely nothing. The prospect of at least having an interesting plot was ruined by having an unremarkable story with a bad ending.
After the initial sparkle of everything wore off, I realized nothing about the game is fun to play at all. Investigations are boring and repetitive. Interrogations look nice thanks to motion scan but I might as well have been watching a movie due to the limited gameplay involved. Chase scenes are too heavily scripted to be exciting, and gunplay is pretty unremarkable considering every other action game this generation has done it and done it better.
The idea of interrogations is that after each question you ask a suspect you are given three options to proceed: assume they are telling the truth, accuse them of lying, and the ambiguous "doubt". This seems intuitive in theory, but in practice each choice is fairly arbitrary and differs from case to case. Doubting could mean coax the suspect a little bit to if you know they are holding out, or it could mean wild accusations which make the suspect unwilling to respond. It is impossible to tell what the choices will result in. There is only one correct answer, meaning there is no freedom to approach the cases in any way but the arbitrary one the designer wanted. The choices would seem to indicate that there may be different outcomes to each case depending on the player's choices, but this is not the case. The plot will continue in the same way no matter how well or poorly the player does. So what, then, is the point of this gameplay mechanic which is purely based on choice if the player's choices don't matter and the game is going to continue on the same regardless? What makes games so unique as a story-telling medium is interactivity and gameplay, and this is where LA Noire could have really shined and instead dropped the ball big time.
The game tries to mask it's shortcomings with an expansive and admittedly beautiful recreation of 1940's Los Angeles. However there was literally nothing to do in this open world outside of the main story besides drive around, sight-see, and heavily-scripted side-missions which didn't require an open world, nor were very fun to begin with. Why tease us with such a large and beautiful world and then make the world so void of activities? Surely it would have made more sense to make the game more linear and save the no doubt immense amount of resources making the world so huge and instead use them to polish out the other aspects of the game to make them more, you know, FUN?
To say LA Noire was disappointing is an understatement. Maybe I was asking a little too much of it to begin with, but in my mind it didn't deliver on a single one of it's selling points and that is what made it such a disaster for me. The game is by no means unplayable, in fact many will probably buy it and be perfectly content with its great visuals, particularly the facial animations, detailed world, great characters, and overall uniqueness. But strip all the aesthetic stuff away and you're left with a mediocre story and a game that just isn't very fun to play.
134 of 170 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
Fun:
I'm enjoying playing this game (I think), but I'm finding it a bit clunky and frustrating in all the places it shouldn't be. And in far too many places I'm thinking "Is that all there is?"
I have framerate issues in some outdoors areas. Also, I'm experiencing annoyance caused by the fact that in some areas I can't climb low walls. Sometimes I can scale fences, sometimes I can't. The developers only made some features climbable. The Assassin's Creed series gets this right. This game, not so much. If you're going to make certain things climbable, make them all climbable. Don't make a fence climbable in one spot, but 20 yards away the same height fence is not. Nothing breaks the sense of 'suspension of disbelief' more than having your game character running in place when faced with a hose line or a 2ft high wall that the game developers forgot to allow you to negotiate.
Then there's the actual gameplay. It often seems to me that this is more a walkthrough than a game, as each game decision is virtually handed to you on a platter. Then, if you get a decision wrong, it hands you the right answer anyway. So none of the decisions you make actually affect the outcome of the game. It's essentially a linear game that's pretending to have a branching storyline that your decisions affect.
Then there's clunky gameplay factors like the investigations. You seem to spend most of your time running around interior walls waiting for a tell-tale controller rumble that tells you that you're in the vicinity of a clue - but try to pick it up and you find yourself stumbling about trying to find the exact spot the game wants you to be in to collect it.
When you get a suspect in for interrogation, often the question doesn't match the answer you give, and rambles on about other issues so that you can forget what the question was about. Then if you choose that they're lying, it's that much harder to figure out what it was they were lying about. Also, sometimes they're telling the truth, but the 'correct' choice was to say they were lying. How does that make any sense? In short, the interrogation system is poorly implemented and confusing.
When you get your partner to drive, there's no option to watch the action as there is in Red Dead Redemption. Although your character says "I'd like to check my notes" there's no option to do that. It just fades to the destination.
I do like the option the game gives to skip a sequence that you're having a hard time with. I wish the GTA series had this. Unfortunately, this game is so easy that I've not needed it so far.
Another annoyance is that the game's revolvers can take out a criminal at 300 yards. Your character has the ability to aim and fire a police issue pistol with the accuracy and range of a sniper rifle. On the other hand, you can hit a guy in the head or shoot him in the chest with no effect (they won't ever go down on the first shot). It's things like this - silly nonsense - that makes the game so annoying.
Finally, although I didn't expect this game to be GTA or Red Dead Redemption, I did hope for some of the usual stuff you get in a sandbox game. What this game offers is a few samey side quests and a few cars to collect. The side quests are all variations on the same theme - shoot the cop killers/bank robbers, and collecting cars has no purpose - they don't go faster, they don't have extra radio stations - nothing. Going by landmarks 'unlocks' the landmark, but for what purpose (other than a few game points) I don't know.
In general, the game seems unfinished. It's fun for a while, but the game features all seem to be floundering in search of some kind of focus. Also, you find yourself in a vast area of Los Angeles, but there's very little to actually do there. You can't go to movies, you can't do any mini-games. It just seems like this game spent all its time on graphics and had no time left over to flesh out the gameplay.
I have framerate issues in some outdoors areas. Also, I'm experiencing annoyance caused by the fact that in some areas I can't climb low walls. Sometimes I can scale fences, sometimes I can't. The developers only made some features climbable. The Assassin's Creed series gets this right. This game, not so much. If you're going to make certain things climbable, make them all climbable. Don't make a fence climbable in one spot, but 20 yards away the same height fence is not. Nothing breaks the sense of 'suspension of disbelief' more than having your game character running in place when faced with a hose line or a 2ft high wall that the game developers forgot to allow you to negotiate.
Then there's the actual gameplay. It often seems to me that this is more a walkthrough than a game, as each game decision is virtually handed to you on a platter. Then, if you get a decision wrong, it hands you the right answer anyway. So none of the decisions you make actually affect the outcome of the game. It's essentially a linear game that's pretending to have a branching storyline that your decisions affect.
Then there's clunky gameplay factors like the investigations. You seem to spend most of your time running around interior walls waiting for a tell-tale controller rumble that tells you that you're in the vicinity of a clue - but try to pick it up and you find yourself stumbling about trying to find the exact spot the game wants you to be in to collect it.
When you get a suspect in for interrogation, often the question doesn't match the answer you give, and rambles on about other issues so that you can forget what the question was about. Then if you choose that they're lying, it's that much harder to figure out what it was they were lying about. Also, sometimes they're telling the truth, but the 'correct' choice was to say they were lying. How does that make any sense? In short, the interrogation system is poorly implemented and confusing.
When you get your partner to drive, there's no option to watch the action as there is in Red Dead Redemption. Although your character says "I'd like to check my notes" there's no option to do that. It just fades to the destination.
I do like the option the game gives to skip a sequence that you're having a hard time with. I wish the GTA series had this. Unfortunately, this game is so easy that I've not needed it so far.
Another annoyance is that the game's revolvers can take out a criminal at 300 yards. Your character has the ability to aim and fire a police issue pistol with the accuracy and range of a sniper rifle. On the other hand, you can hit a guy in the head or shoot him in the chest with no effect (they won't ever go down on the first shot). It's things like this - silly nonsense - that makes the game so annoying.
Finally, although I didn't expect this game to be GTA or Red Dead Redemption, I did hope for some of the usual stuff you get in a sandbox game. What this game offers is a few samey side quests and a few cars to collect. The side quests are all variations on the same theme - shoot the cop killers/bank robbers, and collecting cars has no purpose - they don't go faster, they don't have extra radio stations - nothing. Going by landmarks 'unlocks' the landmark, but for what purpose (other than a few game points) I don't know.
In general, the game seems unfinished. It's fun for a while, but the game features all seem to be floundering in search of some kind of focus. Also, you find yourself in a vast area of Los Angeles, but there's very little to actually do there. You can't go to movies, you can't do any mini-games. It just seems like this game spent all its time on graphics and had no time left over to flesh out the gameplay.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Exciting one moment, boring the next
This game bored me... I'm not sure what I was expecting when I purchased it, but it was not what I wanted. The game looks fantastic, but the plot is weak... Read more
Published 2 days ago by ShizumaTaka
Great but still Flawed
LA Noire puts you in the hard-scrabble world of a Los Angeles detective. There are stars to question, witnesses to badger, and the dark, grimy, gritty underworld to deal with. Read more
Published 15 days ago by Lisa Shea
Rockstar has done it again
Wow rockstar has done it again. Unlike previous releases like the much acclaimed Grand Theft Auto series, you are for once the good guy. Read more
Published 20 days ago by Erik
Wonderful!
L.A. Noire was everything I look for in a video game AND MORE!! The story was fantastic.
I only had one problem with the gameplay and that's about halfway through, your... Read more
I only had one problem with the gameplay and that's about halfway through, your... Read more
Published 23 days ago by Shelby L. Tolar
AMAZING! but some flaws
THIS GAME IS AMAZING PUZZLES, VIOLENCE,AND A GOOD STORY I STOPPED PLAYING FOR A WHILE TO PLAY OTHER GAMES BUT I'M VERY CLOSE TO BEATING IT ITS AWESOME, AND LOTS OF EXPLORATION LA... Read more
Published 25 days ago by Justin Babb
Best friggen game out there.
Out of all the games i have ever played this has to be the best. its story line sucks you in from the start and will stay that way throughout. Is addictive, fun, and innovative.
Published 28 days ago by cpo,96
A Great Game, At A Better Price
If you are looking for a fantastic video game with amazing graphics and enticing game play, look no further. L.A. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Davilmar
La Noire Review
Product was shipped quickly and was exactly as described. Great product, the case was a little broken when arriving but didn't alter the video game. Thanks
Published 1 month ago by delhibronco70
Another masterpiece by Rockstar
The Good: Revolutionary motion capture technology, using this to interrogate suspects is unique, great story and characters, variety of cases, historically and accurately renders... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Richard Baker
PURE GENEIS
This game is amazing and the thought of being a cop in a video game is so undiscribeable, the graphics a downright amazing, and the plot and settings of the story are unbelievably... Read more
Published 1 month ago by vn
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