L.A. Noire First Impressions

I broke down and ordered the game yesterday. I was going to wait a little while, but figured I might as well get an Amazon credit toward my next game purchase, whatever that might be. I went with the PS3 version, as I'm told that the game was originally a PS3 exclusive for quite a while and the game is so massive that it's 3 discs on the 360. Just simpler this way. Anyway, the game keeps an exact count of your play time, so after 2 hours, 42 minutes and 14 seconds, here are some thoughts:

-The controls, much like the GTA games and RDR, are way less than awesome. While in those games you had to hold or tap A/X to run, in this game you have to hold R2 to run. It still BOGGLES MY MIND how Rockstar does not just implement an analog movement system into their games. Not only do you have to hold R2 to run, but it's just a little sluggish moving into and out of the run cycle. The walk itself is a little slow and clunky for my liking also. Getting around doorframes, etc can be a chore just like in RDR. This could ALL be fixed with analog movement.

-The sound design is top-notch so far. The very first case you take on leads you to an alley. When you arrive and the officer is explaining what's happened, it actually "sounds" like you're standing in an alley talking. Eerily accurate. Same with the echo of the siren on my car as I drove through a tunnel. Awesome.

-Questioning people in relation to cases is quite fun. They'll tell you something and then you have to judge whether they're telling the truth, "doubt" them to try to get more info, or accuse them of lying. If you do accuse them of lying, you must have proof (from gathering evidence) or else they'll call you on it and clam up. I've done 2 cases so far with very different results. In the first one I did almost everything exactly right, but in the second one I messed up both of my big interrogations with a cafe owner and a widow. I think this means I just have to end up doing a little more work, because there will always be a way to solve the case. I'm not sure exactly how "bad" you're allowed to do yet. It's early still.

-After a case, you get rated on number of clues found, questions you got correct during interrogation, how much damage you did to your car or property or people. Also, it gives you a tip on what you could have done better. Cool.

-I had to find a phone and call dispatch to get an address. It just struck me as funny to see that. It's such a contrast to how things go now.

-When you're driving to different locations around L.A., you can have your partner drive, which skips immediately to the destination. Big thumbs up for having that option. If you do this, though, you miss out on Street Crime cases.

-Street crime cases are emergency calls you'll get over the radio when you're randomly driving around during your main cases, much like the side quests in RDR. You can choose to do them or just skip them. One thing that's kind of annoying about these so far is that I've just had to shoot everybody. Some guys had stolen a trolley operator's shoes (of all things) and I came across them in an alley. One guy ran and got into a car and drove off while the other just stood in cover trying to shoot me. I tried to tackle the remaining guy so I could arrest him, but it didn't work and he killed me. Then I let them both get into the car and tried to shoot the tires out. That didn't work either and they got away. It makes me wonder if I'm going to have to simply shoot everyone or maybe use a little strategy once in a while. If it's the former, I'm going to rack up quite a body count by the end of the game.

-You have a log that looks kind of like a movie script that you can check any time. It contains every word that's been spoken so far during that particular case. This could prove to be useful. It would be cool if they did use it that way.

-Finally, I have a specific hope for the game. I want there to be one huge, overarching case that I figure out slowly as I go along. It could (and should) sporadically intersect with the smaller cases throughout the game and the game eventually ends with you solving the big case. I think that would be most excellent.

In closing, it's a good time so far, except for the less-than-perfect controls. I didn't mention it earlier because it's obvious, but the game looks amazing. The facial animations and the mouth movement/lip synch is spot on. Voice acting is good so far and the writing is quality. Going through each case is really like watching an episode of CSI or something. Er, playing an episode? I don't know.