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Rockstar games always seem to get an (in my opinion) a totally undeserved 9 or 10/10, this is someones impressions of LA Noir (not my impressions). My reason for posting this is as a heads up to people thinking of getting the game, thinking it will be like RDR or GTA. :)

I personally wont be getting the game, I have never played an investigation game I particularly liked (apart from Condemned 1 and 2), so its not a genre that I'm really in to.

it is visually a very good game. the whole city and characters are done very well. the facial expressions and voice acting is the best i have ever seen in a game.

its easy to learn everything and the controls are pretty smooth. i didnt have a single problem figuring out anything at all. looking at clues blends in with the normal gameplay perfectly.

looking for clues and solving crimes is fun. its addicting and its easy to loose track of time when playing it.

load times arent a problem. i didnt install it on my hard drive and i didnt notice it taking longer to load than a normal game.

bad:

its too simple. you can "interrogate" people and you have to guess if they are telling the truth or lying. but it doesnt matter if you get it right or not, you can still solve the cases even if you get every one of them wrong.

your guns have infinite ammo for your pistol. you dont have an inventory where you keep the guns you pick up. if you pick up a different gun during a shootout, you loose it once the shootout is over. the only time you can use your gun is when the game tells you to when there is criminals to shoot.

i played for 4 hours and beat 7 of the 21 missions. i was taking my time too and doing all of the optional crimes that come up. thats 1/3 of the game.

the games keeps a lot of stats you can look at and in the 4 hours i played, less than 10 minutes of that was having shootouts. so most of the game is just walking around pressing the a button looking for clues.

when driving, you cant drive through simple objects like bushes or wooden fences. you cant drive through chain link fences either unless they have a gate and you can only go through the gate when in a car and not walking.

overall its a pretty fun and unique game. but i think they dumbed it down way too much.

I finally did it: I just had to correct the spelling of the game's title.. /Art

With so many restrictions I`d say this is not a game that appeals to me either  ????

Thanks for the heads up anyway, Fiach...  :-X

Cheers, Fiach :)

hmmm.. might be something.. reading that reminds me of Alpha Protocol a bit which was cool.

I wanted to be interested in the game, but something about it never got me going.  I'd be interested to hear of anyone here that actually plays it.  If you're in the right mood for it it could be pretty cool. 

I recall being concerned about the facial animation technique they used - scanning real actors - I love well done facial features/animations (Enslaved, Heavy Rain, etc.).  But I still want them to be new characters, not look like the actors (or at least well known actors).   I'm concerned it would lead to say Brad Pitt as John Marston, instead of "John Marston".  You know what I mean?  I'd rather be impressed with the developers abilities rather than lump praise on an actor for his/her abilities.

When I read "facial animation" or "motion capturing" I never think of lookalikes. The technique is capturing movements rather than images, applied to images designed by artists. They use affordable talents rather than expensive stars to capture motions and facial expressions.

So even if Brad Pitt's or Jerry Lewis's grimaces had been recorded to animate a face, you'd never recognise him by the mimics alone if you saw the face of Marilyn Monroe animated with his facial expressions. Or vice versa.  :-()

I know.  My fears are probably irrational.  But it's just one step away - you wait.  **Who's that behind me?  What's that noise?**

Yeah, if you're not paranoid doesn't mean there aren't twenty million people spying on you.  :-D

OK, currently I am playing LA Noir, I havent completed it yet, but it comes on three discs and I am about halfway through Disc 2.

Firstly I'll outline the good and then go into the "bad" (for me) in greater detail.

It is an awesome looking game, Its hard to believe that GTA4 sired this game, its crisp and clean looking, bright sunny skies, really makes you feel like you are in LA.

The map is pretty big, the first case I did, I started on one end of town, had to drive to the other side, investigate a case, then ..... drive to the other side of town for a further 10 minurte investigation, I was like .....WTF???? Luckily, if you hold the "Y" button, you partner will drive you to the destination you set on the map.

The acting is awesome for the NPC's, great believeable characters, really well emoted, it actually makes Enslaved look like amateur hour in the local town hall. I have never seen better Mo cap, lip synch, eye movements, it really needs to be seen in action.

The rest of the game.

Well, you go through a number of different "desks" as you progress through your police career, Traffic, Homicide, Arson etc. As you clear each section you are promoted, each section has a few cases you investigate, then with the clues, you collect, you interrogate your witnesses. As you question them, you watch their gestures and make a guess as to if they are lying or telling the truth, or if you doubt them, each of these has its own button, so, you ask a question, they give an answer, you decide if they are lying or not and press the button that you think best represents or feeling about their answer, with reference to the evidence you have collected.

This seems OK on paper, but getting the choice wrong wont fail your case, you will have points deducted after an interrogation, you will recieve a score of eg. 3/4 (4 questions asked, 3 answered correctly).

In game its a wee bit different, Doubt and Lie have similar reactions from the perp, so if they look shifty and you pick the correct choice of Lie or Doubt, great, if not, you may as well just reload from the previous autosave, which can be a chore. Some of the evidence and answers can be quite ambiguous, throwing you off the correct path. Sometimes the perp and you seem to be taking part in quite different conversations, which is funny in a bad way.

There was one case, I picked up two suspects, the evidence was pretty overwhelming against one of them, but the other was a child molester, so i put him in jail instead, I still solved the case with all correct answers ....wth???

Collecting evidence is annoying as the crime scenes sometimes are littered with incidental debris, that cause you controller to alert you that its evidence, only to have the character pick stuff up, examine it and after a few seconds will say its not pertinant to the case, this is &*%$ing intensely annoying.

There are times in cases where you have to chase after a suspect on foot, mildly annoying or in a car (really annoying), if you hit a pedestrian, you fail the case, but the perp can cause mayhem, thankfully these are not too long. There are incidental cases you can check out, if you choose to answer a Dispatch Call on the radion, but they all seem to lead to driving and shoot-outs, neither of which are the games strong points.

There is a story buried in here somewhere, you pick up newpapers and each seems to have a story about a psychiatrist, these are played as little dramatic vignettes and are well done, but I havent figured out what they are about and I am halfway through, there are also scenes from when you character was in World War two in the pacific, these are sporadic and although well acted, seem to have no bearing on the story, hopefully they will be fleshed out later.

All the acting is great, with some very diverse characters, the only fly in the ointment is your character, who is voiced by someone that sounds like they phoned in their lines, (which as other players have also said), really detaches you from him as he is pretty unlikeable and has an annoying voice at times.

Well thats it so far, I dont know if I will complete it, the cases are good, with interesting background stories, but the gameplay gets in the way of the story for me. Its kinda like reading a book, where someone has shuffled all the pages around and you have to sort them out as you read the story.

the description of the facial animations and eyes (THAT much better than Enslaved?) certainly piques my interest (though Monkey and Tripp as characters interested me as well while so far nothing about the characters in LA Noire interest me).  I'm intrigued to see it for sure, but thanks to your very thorough descriptin of gameplay I think I still need to pass on it.

Well, you see, theres the thing, you cared about Monkey and Trip, you dont give a toss about the characters in LA:N.

Its a very disjointed game, there is a series of murders that you investigate, all have different people involved, you probably spend about 10 minutes at the most with any of them, labouriously ticking off questions in your notebook, each one of them is crossed off the list, until you arrest the one thats left, he goes to jail and you hear no more about him.

The thing is, even though you arrest them, there are more murders, all having the same MO. which gets really boring, I guess there is an actual guy that is not caught and he is doing all the murders, but if so, why do all the other perps let you arrest them without contesting your decision. As I said above, I even sent the wrong guy to jail, but because I ticked all the correct boxes, the game allowed me to do that.

But, getting back to your point Spaceboy, You dont have time to empathise with them, maybe I conveyed the wrong impression, they are more lifelike in their acting./expressions, than Monkey and Trip, you just dont care about them, hope that makes more sense :)

For some reason, your description made me think of Dark Rain. I'm not saying you made it sound as if it were like it, just thinking about Dark Rain. How the characters in it were great, how you had to solve puzzles, to find out about what on earth was going on.. and all the time it rained. I didn't play it myself but I did watch an entire playthrough on YT which was impressive.

Is this game anything like it?

Fiach - yeah I understood what you meant - made perfect sense! 

Art - you mean Heavy Rain.  That game I played and really enjoyed.  I'm interested myself to hear the comparison since I know Fiach played that too.  It's why I've been surprised that LA Noire hasn't interested me - then again, no Madison Paige in LA Noire  ;)

But seriously, the characters in Heavy Rain interested me early on from watching the preview vids (even the memorable "audition" video).  Something the characters in LA haven't done.

Well yes I have played both and while I didnt enjoy HR as much as you Spaceboy, I preferred it alot more than LA:N.

Just to be clear, the only things I didnt like in HR, were aspects that I considred tech demos for the 6 axis controller, crap like taking care of the baby, putting on make-up etc. I thought they were annoying and superfluous to the actual game. I really liked the characters too.

HR had a diverse range of characters that you got to play as and thus, formed attachements with them and their respective plights, Also the rain itself was very important to the story plus it added tons of atmosphere! But as a more direct comparison, the investigator guy with the glasses (I so want a pair of them!!! :)), when he went to a site to investigate, it was quite simple, you scanned the area and picked up the clues.

In LA:N, you got to an area/house and walk around (kinda like resident evil with its tank-like controls) and wait for your controller to vibrate, then you pick up a clue and use the L Stick to rotate the item until it vibrates and the camera will focus in on a design or a name as a further clue, unfortumately the controller will vibrate for anything that is nearby, cups, bottles, cigarette buts, ashtrays.... but until you pick the item up and rotate the stick a few times, you wont know if its an actual clue or just a useless item.

The story so far seems like just a series of random killings that you plod through as I said above.

I would like to recommend two games where you investigate, by spotting clues and scanning them to your lab for information, they are Condemned  and Condemned Bloodshot the sequell of the first game. Buy spare underwear :)

Cheers both of you, and yes, I meant Heavy Rain  :)

I'm pretty far into LA Noire and agree with the previous comments.

A very well made and great looking game but not to my liking, really. The investigation thing has gotten quite tedious. I have to admit to consulting a walkthrough to help me get through the evidence collection and interview process more quickly....ie, I'm cheating.  8)

Very repetitious... drive to crime scene, talk to coroner, examine body and nearby evidence, drive to other places collect evidence and interview people, drive somewhere else, chase someone down, drive back to police station conduct interview, charge suspect and close case. Wash, rinse, and repeat.

While doing to the usual point a / point b  stuff you can take street crime calls that offer some action -- usually a pursuit or shoot out but the shooting part of this game is pretty weak, IMO. Unlike "Red Dead Redemption" there really are no interesting stories associated with the side missions. It's merely lip service to people who want to chase and shoot stuff, I think.

It is a huge map like you see in open world games but gameplay is awfully linear. 

I do love the music in it. The original score is great but I am partial to classic jazz. The incidental music and radio programs are interesting and the details of 1947 Los Angeles are incredibly accurate from what I can gather. My mother lived and worked in San Pedro during the war. I really regret she isn't alive and I can't show her this game and get her impressions on the cars, the clothing, and the architecture.

For me to really like a game, I need to empathize with the characters or admire what they are trying to achieve but I really don't care about them in LA Noire. The main character is an a$$hole --sort of like Jack Webb (Sgt Friday of "Dragnet") alternating between a crack head and a mean drunk, remaining self righteous the whole time. He's getting screwed over (as male leads in film noire typically do) but you really don't care... at least I don't.

I'm working the Arson Desk now which is the final act of the game. We'll see how it ends but it's obviously going to be dark. I'm expecting we will find out that Detective Cole Phelps himself is a morphine addict,  commits suicide, or something predictably tragic. Perhaps we will find out that he is actually a federal agent and the woman he has been supposedly involved with is a suspected Communist agent he has been ordered to track.

Unless something quite dramatic happens, I seriously doubt I will experience any emotions  at the end of this one like I did at "Mass Effect 2" or "Red Dead Redemption."

Hope you stick with it, I would like to see what it turned out like story-wise, why they had the army scenes and the psychiatrist newspaper articles.

I just ran out of patience with the game after the White Shoe Murders (well white something anyway :)).

Quote from: eor123 on June 04, 2011, 09:21:27 AMThe main character is an a$$hole ... I'm working the Arson Desk now which is the final act ... it's obviously going to be dark.

Reminds me of "handing something to somebody on a silver platter" -- in this case replace it with an Arse On a Desk which is funny when thinking about how it might be going to be dark.. ^+-+

Spoiler Alert



Phelps kills the true Black Dahlia killer but the department keeps it quiet as the killer is the half brother of some high placed official in Washington. He is informed that all the people he has arrested will eventually be freed as the result of contrived procedural errors, lost evidence, etc.  He's told to keep his mouth shut and then transferred to Vice.

Phelps solves more crimes in Vice [ involving members of his old unit]  but becomes involved with a German jazz singer and drug addict. Vice needs a fall guy to take heat off an investigation into corruption and Phelps is ratted out by his partner. Phelps is suspended for Adultery, his bosses and the other cops shun him, and his wife kicks him out of the house. He returns to duty but has been demoted to Arson Desk, awaiting a board of review hearing.

We learn he really wasn't a hero in WW II. He just happened to be the last guy alive hiding in a foxhole when the shooting stopped.

So unless he is actually working undercover, he's pretty much a jerk. Maybe that will be the twist at the end. ?



 

But since this is based on the film noire genre, something pretty tragic is likely to happen to Phelps.

Actually the game seemed to find its legs in the final act ( The Arson Desk ) Phelps gets an cynical but later affable  partner and Phelps himself and has become more likable himself. He is not so arrogant and self righteous. after his fall from grace. He actually develops a personality.

You play as another character, Jack Kelso, in the last half of Arson Desk. I enjoyed playing as him more than Phelps. He will obviously be the main character in the inevitable sequel.

There is more action as the game comes to a close as well.

It took me a little over 24 hours to complete the game but I only completed 8/40 street crimes.

Spoilers

In the end Phelps works out his long standing fuel with Jack Kelso and Kelso develops a relationship with Phelps' mistress, Elsa.

Kelso and Phelps w%&k together to bring down the syndicate that is intentionally building substandard housing for Vets in the path of a soon-to-built freeway, knowing that if improvements are made to the property its value will dramatically increase when the city acquires the land through imminent domain. This effort is partly funded by the sale of Army surplus morphine syrettes  stolen by members of Phelp's Marine unit.

Phelps redeems himself in the end by sacrificing his life to save Kelso and he his buried (cynically) with honors. The crooked Vice cop that ratted him out delivers the eulogy. 

The last act of the game was enough of an improvement to give me a much more favorable impression of the overall game. I still don't think LA Noire is anywhere near the caliber of Mass Effect 2 or Red Dead Redemption.

Eor, thanks very much for that synopsis, you just saved about 12 hours of my life  :-X

What was going on with the Psychiatrist in the newspapers, if you dont mind taking the time for a bit more exposition.

Thanks again :)

Plot spolier follows



The Corpsman from Phelps' unit (Sheldon) convinced his buddies that they should steal and sell the surplus morphine from the ship they were coming home on. Later, Sheldon was in med school and taking a class under the psychiatrist. You might have watched the cut scene in which Sheldon asked the doctor to help a Veteran friend who was really disturbed.  Turns out the friend was the unit's flame thrower guy. 

On Phelps' orders he had torched a cave the other men in the unit tried to get Phelps to bypass and move on to their objective. The cave turned out not to have enemy soldiers in it...was a makeshift hospital full of injured  civilians. They were burning alive and Phelps ordered his men to shoot them but he couldn't do it himself when they refused, telling him it was his fault and he would have to do it. The flame thrower guy had a nervous breakdown and one of the guys shot Phelps in the back. The guys in the squad carried Phelps' out of the burning cave and vowed to never talk about what happened.

That's how Phelps got his purple heart...shot by one of his own guys. So that, like his silver star, was a sham.

The psychiatrists' revolutionary method of treating patients was to turn them into morphine addicts. He was an investor in the crooked land development scheme with the DA and the Chief Of Police, among other prominent citizens. They needed someone to burn down the homes of people who wouldn't sell to the land development company so who better than the flame thrower guy who was now a patient of the doctor's and under his control?

Phelps's former squad mates got in over their heads with the morphine distribution scheme and tried to back out after getting involved with the mob. Then the mob started killing the Marines so Phelps was investigating the murders of his mates from the War.

Sheldon confided in his mentor (the doctor) about the problem with the mob and the doctor offered to take all of the remaining morphine, convincing Sheldon the proceeds would be used for the land development company to help GI's get affordable homes, making Sheldon and his fellow Marines investors in the company.

Jack Kelso, the former friend of Phelps from OCS in the beginning of the game, was now working as an investigator for the insurance company whose vice president was a partner in the land company and was writing bogus insurance policies on the development. Kelso was convinced by Phelps' mistress Elsa (at Phelps' request) to investigate the company building the houses.  Kelso discovered that they were using poor quality building materials and his investigation paralleled Phelps'. As Kelso dug deeper, he learned the identity of the mysterious partners in the land company and how high the corruption went. He was hired by an assistant DA who had political ambitions and wanted to bring the whole thing down. So Kelso and Phelps reconciled their differences from the war and ended up working together at the end.

Half the police force was trying to kill Kelso and Phelps at the end, ordered to by the corrupt Chief who knew the lid was about to blow off. The crazy flamethrower guy killed the doctor and kidnapped Phelps' mistress Elsa (also a patient of the doctor) -- shades of Frankenstein, killed by a monster of his own creation. Kelso killed the flamethrower guy in the final battle in the tunnels under Los Angeles and rescued Elsa as Phelps showed up.

Phelps died after insisting that Kelso go first and escape the rising water in the tunnel. Phelps drowned.

The Chief made a deal with the assistant DA and he, along with the corrupt Vice Cop Roy Earle were "grieving" at Phelps' funeral -- in true film noire style. In the end Phelps found his redemption and was really the hero he had been mistakenly tagged as (and burdened with) earlier. 

Sounds way more interesting than at the beginning. Perhaps if the "wash, rinse and repeat" part of the game had been significantly shorter, you'd have been more enthusiastic all the way to the end.  :)

Wow eor, thanks for taking the time to write such a lengthy explanation of the plot, I'm between two minds now as to whether I should buy it later at a reduced price and give it another shot, or just leave it as is.

Thanks again for such a well written synopsis, I liked the frankenstein analogy :)

I bought the game today. It's installing now. I'm in a sunny L.A. mood, maybe that's why I couldn't resist the 'complete edition' for €40,-.

I'm expecting a game where you don't have to be on the tip of your chair all the time, where you can relax and sit back during large parts of the gameplay.
A great open world with nice music and a 'feel good vibe' all over the place.

I'm a bit worried about the repetitive gameplay and the evidence-scan mechanics.
I'm also worried that the main character's an a$$-hole, so I'm trying to imagine myself already being a donut eating prick messing up other people's good moods. Hope that helps ;D

Looking forward to great graphics and a sunny experience. With nice old fashioned guns and cars.  ^-^

Looking forward to your experiences!  :-X

Its a love/hate game, I have mates who love it and hate it, hope you are one of the former. :)

Well, first of all about my worries. The cop I am, Cole Phelps, Looks a lot like Sean Penn in his ways and acting. Cole really reminds me of Sean's role in [imdb]colors[/imdb]. I was kind of prepared to that, and so far I like being like that. Must have been the preparation thing on donut eating jerk off's >:D

I'm impressed like you all for the facial expression. I also like the way they sort of blur the graphics. For the faces and also for distances. It's a good way to save on calculating power I guess.
I was a little annoyed by the way the graphics seem to stutter a bit. The image doesn't really run fluidly when moving fast, like in a car turning round a corner for example. Doesn't matter what I do with the settings, it stays that way. I have everything maxed out now (AAx4 and maxed detail) and it seems to be a little better. I also found that I can choose between 1920x1080x25 or ...x29, ...x30, ...x50, ...x59 or ...x60. No idea what the difference is, or what it means. First I thought it should be the desired framerate, but since it doesn't influence anything as far as I can see, I don't get it.

I'm starting to like to guess what's the best question to ask and to choose weather you doubt an answer or not. But so far I suck at it big time :-D I think I don't even have half the questions right.
I'll post some pics as soon as I discover the way to make screenshots. '47 L.A. sure does look nice ;)

Quote from: Binnatics on March 21, 2012, 11:25:30 AM
I'll post some pics as soon as I discover the way to make screenshots. '47 L.A. sure does look nice ;)

:-X

Can't find a way to make screenshots. That's too bad. You guys 'll just have to believe me the graphics are great. I found a solution to the stuttering. The camera for the car was set to be fixed with the driving direction. I could move it a little with the mouse, but it would rapidly return to its position. I changed to setting to have free looking in car and now everything runs fine ;)

I do find the clue-searching a bit annoying sometimes. But I'm getting used to it. Just look farther than your nose length ;) Sometimes though it's hard to focus on items since you have to be at the exact right spot to be able to. That can be frustrating.
I'm getting better at the questioning though :-()

There's one bad thing to this game. It's the autosave. I don't mind autosave in general but this game only saves once you solve a case. And that takes quite some time. So if you're halfway the investigation and want to stop, you'll lose your progress or have to continue playing >:(

I, Cole Phelps, can be a real a$$hole at times. I say to a pregnant woman that she'd better tell me the truth about her small-time criminal boyfriend or I'll put her and her unborn in jail :o >:D But my partner on the traffic department is even worse ::) >:D

I managed to make a screenshot. It's a bit complicated though; use 'Prtscn' and paste it into 'Paint' works.

Here's a busy street impression:

[smg id=4124]

looks nice  :)

Indeed - a sort of retro GTAIV  :-()

Yep. There are some differences though, compared to GTA. There's a border to the gameplay area, which is formed by fences and streets who just don't continue. There's more city, as you can see on the map, but that part is not accessible. At least not yet. There's no coast and beaches to be explored, just a seemingly endless number of blocks.

Something else that's starting to get on my nerves is the fact that the game decides weather you may shoot or not. And that the game parks your car for you when you approach a crime scene or investigation area. You just miss the liberty that fits an open world environment like this. And then suddenly there's that fence :angry-new:

The idea of creating a detective game is nice, but I agree with the rest who wrote here that the way they gave birth to it is rather annoying sometimes :-\\

stuff like that reminds me of the film [imdb]The Thirteenth Floor[/imdb] where at a certain point one of the main characters finds out that he lives in a world that turns into a grid after leaving the city and crossing the border.. ??? :)

It took me some sweat, but I finally managed to kill an innocent:

[smg id=4131]

I was trying to run people over for 15 minutes already until I found this young lady sitting on a bench. I drove through it and hit her against the wall. Then, when she kinda got stuck there I pushed her over the side-walk for an entire block. When she finally fell, I was able to properly run her over and kill her  >:D >:D

I think I killed someone during a chase and I think I failed the mission, because of it.  :D

Binn, regarding screenshots - have you got IrfanView? You can get it from here:

http://www.irfanview.com/ (http://www.irfanview.com/)

Have a read about it there ("What is IrfanView"), and if you decide to download it go for the CNET download option (the first one in the DL list).

It's freeware, and it's very functional. If you do a PrtScr and then Alt>Tab to your desktop, you can then open IrfanView and paste the image into it from the clipboard, then immediately save it wherever you like. Then go straight back into your game, and leave Irfanview open until you do another screen capture and repeat the process. I think it's better then putting the image into Paint as Irfanview allows a greater range of file format options to save as, and it's easier on your resources than Paint is if you want to leave it open in the background while you're gaming. The .jpg compression functionality is about the best I've ever seen - better than Photoshop's even, allowing excellent compression ratio vs. image quality. I used it to do all the Tomb Raider pics I posted here, as well as CivV and any game that doesn't have a built-in screen capture function (which seems to be most of them for some stupid reason).

It has heaps of other handy features as well, like allowing you to easily put together slideshows - lots of stuff. Some of the chaps here at OWG put me onto it and I've never looked back - an excellent product.

or, in the case you don't get PRNT to w@&k, download (https://sites.google.com/site/mrhaandi/injectSMAA_by_mrhaandi_1.2.7z?attredirects=0) this "SMAA" which is a dll you place in your game folder. It will improve AntiAliasing (it is an "injection" for directx-based games) without the need of using your gfx AA functions (can even be disabled in the gfx card's driver) and you toggle it with PAUSE/BREAK (very subtle AA and damn fast) and also...

..it will add a screenshot function when using PRNT -- it will create a BMP in the game folder.

This is basically what STEAM and FRAPS would have done.

Forgot to mention - Binnatics, you're a very naughty boy for running ladies over with your car \:/

Aw come on, he had such a hard time accomplishing it.  :-D

True - he did go to a lot of trouble... OK then :-X

Careful when installing stuff from CNET and also what you are clicking when installing, they try to add spyware toolbars on some stuff.

Thanx for the tips guys!

I'm working on it :)

Quote from: Binnatics on March 20, 2012, 03:49:55 AMI bought the game today. It's installing now. I'm in a sunny L.A. mood, maybe that's why I couldn't resist the 'complete edition' for €40,-

Same, only for less than 14.--€ (steam weekend sale) with help from Binnatics who purchased it for me.  :) :-X

This is my second case. It is easy: That is one violent case of a heart attack.  :-()
[smg id=5923 type=preview align=center caption="2013 04 27 00014"]

I like the game so far, I enjoy searching areas for evidence and doing interrogations. There are some shootings and fist fights, too, which is fun. Funny thing, being a cop, to have stats that include headshots. I would have guessed that as a cop you try to incapacitate someone by, say, shooting his leg or some such but no, I strive to blow their brains out  :-D

...headshots, yea, that was one of the reasons why I left the game behind. The lack of liberty to draw your gun out in most situations. Only when the game decides that it's punishment-time you suddenly have firearms to your possession ::)

But I clearly remember the sunny mood. The whole mood in L.A. Noire is brilliant, to be honest. Maybe I'll pick up the game where I left it one of these days. First, I'm going to check out Raccoon City 8)

Quote from: Binnatics on March 21, 2012, 11:25:30 AMI also found that I can choose between 1920x1080x25 or ...x29, ...x30, ...x50, ...x59 or ...x60. No idea what the difference is, or what it means. First I thought it should be the desired framerate, but since it doesn't influence anything as far as I can see, I don't get it.

Those last two digits, e.g. x59 or x60, stand for your hardware's refresh rate in Hz that the video driver will be set to and your monitor has to be able to deliver. It did make a difference when we used the old tube monitors which probably no one is using any more but it may be useful if you use a TV set perhaps as a secondary display device. Flat screen LED monitors that we're using these days will w@&k nicely when set to 59 or 60 Hz.

Sorry for the late reply.  :-D

Quote from: Binnatics on April 27, 2013, 02:43:27 PM
...headshots, yea, that was one of the reasons why I left the game behind. The lack of liberty to draw your gun out in most situations. Only when the game decides that it's punishment-time you suddenly have firearms to your possession ::)

But I clearly remember the sunny mood. The whole mood in L.A. Noire is brilliant, to be honest. Maybe I'll pick up the game where I left it one of these days. First, I'm going to check out Raccoon City 8)

I really like Racoon City, make sure its patched and all should be good. If you are having difficulty finding 100% cameras and data, one of the classes (forget the name, but its a kinda spy guy) has the skill to see all data and cameras, so just reload the mission and use them to clear the data etc.
Good game, got alot of hate because it wasn't like Resident Evil 4, but I really liked it alot....not being like R4 is nearly like a bonus for me lol :)

So far I find the game very nice.  :)

Graphics are really great and it is open world as long as you're not doing main missions which in a way makes sense, usually you need to search the area for evidence. A chime gives you a hint that you're almost looking at a clue (plus you can have the game display a magnifying glass on your mini map along with the sound) so usually it's no big deal to find them all.

There is a little trick: you acquire "intuition points" (up to 5 can be kept at once) that may be used in case you don't know what to do. If you check for the option to spend one on evidence not yet found, you'll obviously know that there still is evidence around IF you can spend one point and that there are no more if you CAN'T spend one -- easy to save your points, then :-()

As to interrogations, the deeper into the game, the longer they become (more questions and branches) but it is quite easy to learn during the first small interrogations what truth looks like in a face and that the difference between doubt and lie is for you to choose as follows: if you have evidence then choose lie, if you don't have evidence to prove that they're lying, choose doubt. So indeed the facial expression is identical for those two. Basically all you have to do is to check whether they're telling the truth or not and if not, whether you have evidence to prove it. So far, I've always got all answers right and found all clues so my cases have all been rated five stars  :-()

I don't have to sympathise with my character or his partners, they're just there and the main thing for me is to solve cases which are all nicely done. Many people are involved and damn it, they all  lie more or less often when interrogated  ::) :)

When not on a case, you may enjoy some free roaming the city and find hidden cars and some such and just walk or drive around. La Ciudad De Los Angeles (city of angels, L.A.) is really nicely done. All those old cars, the fashion wear, women's make-up, advertisement and of course the jazz music are very convincing.

The street crimes are fun, you get to do all kinds of fights and chases, involving climbing over rooftops and tackling suspects or shoot-outs in a parking lot, a lot of fun, really  :)

Here I poke fun at the profession of a policeman: Driving around with an obviously stolen car  :-()
[smg id=5932 type=preview align=center caption="2013 04 28 00029"]

Quote from: Art Blade on April 28, 2013, 06:43:26 AM
, the fashion wear, women's make-up, advertisement

Huh???? OK....  :-[ 8-X

Note to self : never...NEVER enter a lingerie section with Art.... >:D :laugh:

I know, it's going to be tough for you to hold back but if you ask nicely, I'll buy some for you. :-D

Here some interesting things (apart from lingerie)  ^-^

[smg id=5933 type=preview align=center caption="1940s time clock"]
[smg id=5934 type=preview align=center caption="oil pump"]
[smg id=5935 type=preview align=center caption="Ford H-Boy"]

Quote from: Art Blade on April 28, 2013, 09:04:17 AM
I know, it's going to be tough for you to hold back but if you ask nicely, I'll buy some for you. :-D

Ok, I s'pose a few frillies is OK :P

Being a good Irishman, you do prefer wearing green frillies, I suppose? ^-^
for some reason it reminds me:

Quote from: Art Blade on March 13, 2013, 02:24:43 PM
??? if indeed the one who wrote the post I was surprised by wasn't Fiach but an obedient willing husband, wouldn't that mean that Fiach was the complementary (perhaps Brentwood) housewife?

err.. OK: "it ain't so." :-D

Fiach, I found something naughty for you..  :-D
[smg id=5936 type=preview align=center caption="made in Ireland"]

I do enjoy this game immensely :) By the way, every case can be selected for a re-play and there are several automatically saved games to pick to continue where you left.

So far, all cases solved flawlessly, completed "Traffic"  :-D
[smg id=5937 type=preview align=center caption="promotion 1"]
Here, a free roam option to choose  :)
[smg id=5938 type=preview align=center caption="traffic complete"]

That first image looks like it could have come out of one of the Fallout games.

yep, the late 40s already form a trend that stretches out into the 50s which is what FallOut mimics.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-02-13-rockstar-mulling-la-noire-2-development (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-02-13-rockstar-mulling-la-noire-2-development)

thanks for that link, mate :) I think we'll have to wait and see, as usual.

Oh, and.. no comment on the lingerie bit?  :( I put in so much effort to keep you going  :-()

Quote from: Fiach on May 24, 2011, 01:59:37 AMThere was one case, I picked up two suspects, the evidence was pretty overwhelming against one of them, but the other was a child molester, so i put him in jail instead, I still solved the case with all correct answers ....wth???

I had that in mind all the time because it worried me a little. Now I just finished that mission called The Golden Butterfly murder case. I made a backup of the savegame before I did the interrogations so I could do that last bit again with a different outcome, just in case.

The captain told me before the interrogation that the child molester was a special acquaintance and that he wanted to deal with him personally no matter how it all would go.

Having finished the interrogations of the husband whom his daughter had accused of being violent against his wife, her mother (the victim) I wasn't sure whether or not he was the murderer. So I went and finished the interrogation of the known child molester in the other interrogation room. I got all answers correctly by both suspects but for me, however, none of them seemed to be convincing enough to accuse one of the suspects of murder.

Because I had to accuse one of them, I thought well, the other guy has a 15-year-old daughter who already lost her mother and would end up alone if her father was put away while the child molester was already known as such so I opted for the child molester and accused him of murder. I thereby solved the case with five stars (best possible).

Then I quit and used the backup savegame and did the same thing again except this time I accused the violent daddy of murder. The captain was furious and called it disappointing and that he had already promised the press (what the hell, before I finished the case?!) but still, I solved the case with three stars.

To me that looks like a political decision. If I had been allowed to do what I see fit, I would have continued the case trying to find more evidence or witnesses. The evidence I had wasn't at all enough to undoubtedly accuse one of them of murder.

Sorry mate, hadnt noticed it, I thought I had left them in the glove compartment, thanks for finding them....er....hope you're not looking for a finders fee?... :-[ :o 8-X >:D

only if there are frills involved. :-D

Man, those random side missions, "street crimes," are really nice! This is 14 and 15 out of 40 different crimes. One took place in a bank, shooting from the street, into the bank and kill some more, I even had to use a lift to get upstairs to the vault and take out the remaining robbers. The second started outside some shop that got robbed and the robbers used an entrance to go underground, I chased them on rail tracks. I nearly got killed by a train that came by just the moment I stepped onto the tracks  :o ??? lol   :laugh:

[smg id=5941 type=preview align=center caption="Bank job 1"]
[smg id=5942 type=preview align=center caption="Bank job 2"]
[smg id=5943 type=preview align=center caption="random street crime 01"]

 :laugh:

hey, you replied before I finished uploading the pics!  ??? :-D

Yeah... I was laughing at the interaction you were having with Fiach  :-()

Nice pics!  The graphics look great  :-X

oh I see  :-D And yes, the graphics are exceptionally nice :-X

Here, a pic of me ..and Fiach, about to go shopping.  :-D
[smg id=5944 type=preview align=center caption="shopping time"]

 :laugh: :-X

ROFL!!! /end thread!  :-X :laugh:

OK, then :-()

Damn, I've just had a hard time to get one case straight taking a second go at it because the first time I only got four stars due to three missing clues. Not because of my own errors but game design. At a certain point in The White Shoe Slaying murder case you have two locations to choose from and it is the order that counts plus it does count when you investigate a certain yellow cab trace. Checking out the wrong one first will deprive you of one complete branch of investigation hence the lack of evidence despite the fact that the second location and that cab driver are still there and have to be investigated.  :D However, I managed and got my five stars.

Edit:

Here is the bus driver whom you'll never get to see if you got the wrong order.
[smg id=5961 type=preview align=center caption="bus driver"]

Coming up is the cab driver. I'll take him as a role model for what you can see throughout the game, facial expressions are incredible. I created a patchwork so don't worry about the strange format :)
[smg id=5946 type=preview align=center caption="facial expressions"]

Cool; much better than the robot-like faces reminiscent of ventriloquist dummies you see in most games.

Absolutely. Even random NPCs on the streets look good :)

It basically feels as if you were actually playing in a movie :) Voice acting, preps, all those billions of details.. Remember the pic showing me and "Fiach" in front of a shop? All those things you see in any shop window are 3D models, not just 2D pictures that always annoyed me in most games.

Here, even a contemporary aeroplane of the 40s can be seen in the following picture (I cropped and resized it) that also shows my newest achievement, a posh suit with a fancy shoulder holster -- the suit gets unlocked reaching rank 18 out of 20 (which means I got that rank quite early due to all those 5-star-ratings and finishing 17 out of 40 street crimes) It provides more damage resilience.

[smg id=5947 type=preview align=center caption="Hawkshaw rank 18"]

You certainly get to the bottom of this :-D

But indeed, the game detail is remarkable. And for the expressions; They are damn good. The only thing negative there is to say about them is that the eyes sometimes seem a bit flat, like a moving painting. Not that this is annoying, just a minor thing that could be farther approved in the next edition ;)

Quote from: Art Blade on April 30, 2013, 11:27:02 AM
... also shows my newest achievement, a posh suit with a fancy shoulder holster -

You look kind of like Frank Nitti  :-()

Interesting guy from Chicago known by the nickname The Enforcer, he was apparently far from what we know from the movies. What stands out is that he had been friends with Al Capone since almost childhood and later was Al's choice to run "the outfit" (mob organisation) while Al was put in jail. He was not a public guy and his organisational talents and brains were his capital although he knew how to use violence.

Apart from nice suits there is not much he has in common with Cole Phelps, the lead character of L.A. Noire, but thanks for the unexpected comparison because I first had to learn who he was  :) and so watched this (hopefully) good documentary about Frank Nitti:

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SeQWSjWXtM

Difficulty increases over time. The cases are more complex and interrogations comprised of more questions to be asked and answers to be evaluated. The last case, the Studio Secretary Murder, again required me to replay a case. This time it was necessary to interrogate suspect A before B although both were in interrogation rooms at the same time. I had to go back and forth between them and even do a phone call in between to solve the case with five stars.

Now I'm on my last murder case before moving to Vice :) This case is different. I am following a trail of clues all across the city, the Black Dahlia murderer is playing games with me. Coming to think of it, some of the previous cases made me wonder whether I really charged the right person with murder. It seems possible that we all were played by someone unknown.

However, in between, I enjoy the marvellous views and details. Driving a police car using the siren actually influences traffic: cars wait or pull to the side lane so I can race on. And I try to have fun -- my partner shouted, "you can't be serious!" when we got into this vehicle :-D
[smg id=5950 type=preview align=center caption="some fun ride"]

The visuals do appear to be quite spectacular.  It the game similar to the Fallout series in that you need to find and speak to people as the main thrust of the game?  That is the main reason that I lost interest in Fallout because I was not patient enough to listen to everyone's sob story.  :-()

I got you, PZ :-D

Yes, in a way it is similar. It is even far less of a shooter. I reckon that you spend most of the time without shooting. Within 56 hours of gameplay, I haven't yet killed a hundred people. Nearly, though, 94.. and 70 of 'em with a bullet between the eyes :-() and spent almost exactly one hour in gunfights and another five minutes in fistfights.

Most of the game (a case, respectively) works like this:

• Inspect the crime scene and find clues like a matchbook in the victim's handbag
• drive (or quicktravel) to the first new location; e.g. the address was imprinted on the matchbook and belongs to a bar
• talk to the barkeeper, he might give you names ("person of interest," POI) a time, an address..
• follow the clues you got
• sometimes you need to chase someone as they run or drive away when they spot you
• interview (on site) or interrogate (at the police station) those POIs and use your informations to rebut wrong statements
• search a POI's residence and find evidence such as blood stains on a white shirt..
• talk to all POIs and visit all related locations until it's time for the final interrogation
• conduct the final interrogation at the police central and prove someone is guilty
• case closed, go for the next one. Maybe do some free roam or some street crimes in between or during cases

OK, I got promoted for my last 5-star case (which was a tough thing, regarding my character's career, the case "never existed") and left homicide to join vice.

Here a pic from my last homicide (mass murderer) case. It is not a pic in any way related to preparing a juicy steak, though  :-D
[smg id=5951 type=preview align=center caption="black dahlia residence"]

I found PZ's most favourite secret hideout.  :-D
[smg id=5952 type=preview align=center caption="nibbles"]

 :laugh: :-X

The game is beginning to look more appealing!

Fastest car in the game, a 1934's Duesenberg Walker coupé. Its top speed is 140mph. Most other cars in the game range somewhere around 100mph. Some are slower, some faster.
[smg id=5954 type=preview align=center caption="Duesenberg Walker coupe"]

showing the car in action

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vybJkFxJzyk

Great rundown so far, Art :-X Looks and sounds intriguing. Love the pics! 8)

Is the game open-world in terms of playing area, like a whole city as in the GTA games? Looks to be a pretty big area judging by your screenies.

Thanks, mate :)

And yes, on both aspects.

Only during parts of any given mission (e.g. having to interrogate someone or when inspecting a crime scene) you are somewhat restricted which makes sense. You can walk freely on a set, you have to discover clues and evidence, and after you're finished with that set you can do whatever you like until you choose to take on a new part of the case.

It works like this: You start a new case with a cutscene of a briefing and are given a first location, obviously the crime scene. Then you can do what you want and eventually you'll visit that crime scene which triggers a new cutscene. Usually you'll walk around in that restricted area to find evidence and clues and gather new goals, usually a new address. Then you are free again to do what you want until you want to visit that address, new cutscene, inspect the location and find more clues. From this point on, you'll usually have a couple of people you need to find and interview. Some of them try to escape which triggers a chase that takes as long as you take to stop someone which means it may be a short or a long chase. Some are on foot, others by car, or both. Rinse and repeat until you end up with a final part which usually means that you'll have to go to the police station and conduct a final interrogation in order to charge someone with something. Cutscenes are commonplace as the entire game is meant to be a movie that you play the lead character in.

Between visiting mission-related locations you may receive a radio call (only if you're driving in a police car) telling you about a crime in your vicinity (or you may check your map to see if currently there is a symbol for such a crime; they occur randomly) and you may choose to to participate in that. This is like a small case: Get there, cutscene, and either get into a firefight, a fistfight, or a chase on foot or by car, or any combination of it. Sometimes you have to follow someone without being seen. Cutscene, done.

You may explore Los Angeles whenever you like. There are hidden collectible things such as police badges, special cars and film reels and there are landmarks to discover.

Quite a few of the buildings are accessible and some ("dry cleaners") are access points to the subterranean railway tracks where you can walk around (careful, trains may catch you :-() ).

You can stop any vehicle at any time and take it so you can drive around with it; there are 95 different cars to have fun with. And of course you can walk around.

Here a stand-alone example of a dry cleaners building. You can open the front door, find another door inside to a staircase that leads several storeys down to the rail tracks (bloody hell, that IS far down).
[smg id=5955 type=preview align=center caption="cleaners subway entrance"]

Nice  :-X

In the video the car was heading toward the Hollywood sign in the hills, and that scene reminded me of a clip in "I Love Lucy" where they were in L.A.  Almost made me feel like I was there.

Historical facts:
The sign originally was an advertisement for a housing development and erected in 1923. It was only meant to last 18 months but already had become a landmark so they left it standing. Over time, it deteriorated and fell victim to vandalism and accidents rendering it quite a mess. In 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the City of Los Angeles Parks Department decided to repair and rebuild the sign which included removing "LAND" (and by that the roots of the advertisement) to read "HOLLYWOOD," the name of the district.

Here, I came to see it myself, using the same type of car as depicted in the video :)
[smg id=5956 type=preview align=center caption="Hollywoodland"]

Another fact: The HOLLYWOODLAND sign was illuminated with around 4,000 light bulbs and they used additional search lights. Here's a nice game screenie showing the sign at night :)
[smg id=5959 type=preview align=center caption="Hollywoodland2"]

I'm quite enjoying your screen captures.  I might even invest in the game just to wander the streets of old L.A.

I'm sure that you'd enjoy at least that and I also think that you'd enjoy the game itself. I know you like old movies, this is your chance to play a lead role in one of them  :-()

You'll even meet a character (during a street crime called "fatal plunge") who bloody damn well could be Orson Welles as Citizen Kane (1941)  ??? :)

Trivia: Orson Welles died in Los Angeles October 10, 1985.

[smg id=5962 type=preview align=center caption="Citizen Kane Orson Welles"]
[smg id=5963 type=preview align=center caption="Citizen Kane Orson Welles 2"]

PZ. check the previous post again, I edited it after you started viewing it.  :-D
[smg id=5964 type=preview align=center caption="random impression 01"]

I just did a quick check on the price of the complete edition for the PS3 and it was still $57!  That's steep for a game this old!

whoop.. indeed  ??? Maybe you can get a special offer like I did, by chance.
By the way, check this: the real Orson Welles as Citizen Kane.. doesn't the guy in the game look just like him?  :-X
[smg id=5965 type=full align=center caption="real Orson Welles Citizen Kane"]

copyright notice

This w@&k is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1923 and 1963 and although there may or may not have been a copyright notice, the copyright was not renewed. Unless its author has been dead for the required period, it is copyrighted in the countries or areas that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works, such as Canada (50 pma), Mainland China (50 pma, not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 pma), Mexico (100 pma), Switzerland (70 pma), and other countries with individual treaties.

LA Noire - Walkthrough - Street Crime - Fatal Plunge (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHhjQpei4hs#ws)

Yes he does!

I can get a used game for $$27 at Gamestop, but I might wait for a better deal.

indeed.. unless you can't wait  :-()

I edited the previous post adding a YT clip with said street crime, maybe you want to take a look.

Just did; that clip is kind of cool.  My partner reminds me of my little brown faction friends hanging out of the helos in JC2  :-()

:)

Actually, all of your partners are capable. I had several shoot-outs, needed to replay some, and my partners actually killed bad guys more than once and more than one  :) :-X

OK, meanwhile I finished vice, or, more to the point, I got played so it finished me. Now I'm demoted to arson and busy with pyromaniacs. Still, I got all cases rated 5 stars so far.

General tip
The game does a lot of autosaving for you but you've only got one savegame of the current game which is highlighted in bright green. The others serve for replay purposes. It is very helpful to frequently make and keep a backup of your latest savegame. Like that, you are able to override the actual savegame and reload a point before you screwed up  :-D

You can do that while the game is still running. Best bail out with ALT-TAB, override the current savegame with your backup, ALT-TAB back into the game and choose "quit." Like that, when you now choose "resume," the savegame will display the correct time stamp of your backup and you can indeed resume your last backed-up game. Extremely useful for achievements that require you to do something at the first attempt without failure or when you screwed up interviews/interrogations :) To get 5-star ratings, you'll really appreciate a proper backup strategy: When you start a case, make a separate backup so you may indeed start the case anew and not as a replay. Then, regarding the normal playthrough, save (backup) early, save often (and careful, don't backup screwed-up saves) :-()

However. Arson is quite something. I just finished my first case :)
[smg id=5966 type=preview align=center caption="arson 01"]

Excellent detective w@&k on that tip, Mr. Tracy  :-X +1

 ;D
Thanks, PZ :)

The cases differ regarding complexity of those interviews you conduct and sometimes you're likely to screw up without knowing by following "the wrong" clue first rather than the other. Although you may have followed both clues, you do sometimes deprive yourself of a branch if you chose to follow trails in the wrong order. In interviews it may deprive you of "the full story." Sorry for the quotation marks but indeed the clues are not wrong and the case may be closed without having followed every possible branch. The thing is, the whole game is one massive film and I don't want to miss out on anything in it at least the first time through. If you get everything right, you get to see it all. :) So for me it has been worth it to be prepared to fall back and start a case anew just to get everything right regarding the story. Sometimes I wanted to get an achievement that I hadn't been aware of and therefore screwed that up, so I had to do it again. Costs maybe an hour or more, snack breaks included, to do the same case from scratch.

Right now I'm on my 100th hour in the first playthrough which includes finding most of the cars (88/95) and doing quite a few street crimes (27/40). I spent nearly five hours examining 270 clues (hold them in my hands and turn them around) which lead to interviews during which I asked 205 notebook questions and successfully accused the suspects or witnesses 155 times of lying to me which I was able to prove thanks to my clues. That made 17 cases a 5-star case, 4 to go :-D Plus, of course, I spent time in free roam to unwind  :-D

Here a funny scene. Both my arson partner and I have both eyes closed at the same time. And I caught that in a picture  :laugh:
[smg id=5967 type=preview align=center caption="closed eyes"]

Quote from: Art Blade on May 03, 2013, 02:39:57 PM
... Both my arson partner and I have both eyes closed at the same time. And I caught that in a picture  :laugh:
[smg id=5967 type=preview align=center caption="closed eyes"]

Isn't that always the way it goes!  :laugh:

 :-D

Anything wrong with this pic? You got that right.. I'm now playing as Kelso who works for an insurance company! He has been Phelps's rival since Officer Candidates School in WWII. However, playing as Kelso is limited to one particular case.

[smg id=5968 type=preview align=center caption="being Kelso 01"]

some random (nightly) impressions

[smg id=5969 type=preview align=center caption="random impression 02"]
[smg id=5970 type=preview align=center caption="random impression 03"]
[smg id=5971 type=preview align=center caption="random impression 04"]

By the way, I'm on the second case in sequence playing as Kelso.

Damnit, he did it again!
Gord must have skedaddled, leaving his wheelchair behind. :-D
[smg id=5972 type=preview align=center caption="wheelchair"]

 :-D

Man, he sure gets around!

 :)

Finally, I completed all story missions with a 5-stars rating (only 0.9% of the steam gamers have got that.. must be quite difficult to get that achievement, then) but it's not over yet because I've got the complete edition including DLC cases. A few of them were interwoven, slipped in between vanilla missions, and they do blend in perfectly well. That's why I've spent more time on the story than I would have without DLC.

By the way, when I said I had 100 hours into the game, the stats inside the game only showed some 37 hours. I don't think that I spent 63 hours in the pause menu nor that I fell back that often using backup saves which no doubt did reset some of my gaming time. It appears that those stats refer to something that may be related to actual investigation and interrogation during cases.

I had to go to the grocery today (the local super store Fred Meyer) and lo and behold, they had L.A. Noire on sale for $13.77 for the PS3.  Naturally I could not resist that reasonable price.  >:D

excellent!  :) I'm curious about your impression regarding the story cases, PZ :) Even if you don't like that part, I'm sure that you will enjoy the free roaming.

Quote from: Art Blade on May 04, 2013, 09:40:01 AMI completed all story missions with a 5-stars rating

By the way, that is misleading and I was misled by that achievement. I know how the story for Cole ends which is why he cannot solve the case with 5 stars, so I still have one story mission to go after my current (and last) DLC case.

During a DLC case, Nicholson Electroplated, I found a situation that allowed me to do something I wasn't supposed to do: Walking around, although a small radius it was at least allowing me to go away from the objective, with a gun at the ready  >:D However, injuring a civilian hit me with a "case failed" message. But I did cause quite a chaos  :-()
Of course I reloaded (first the gun, then the savegame) and finally finished the case with 5 stars.
[smg id=5973 type=preview align=center caption="running amok"]

Just started the final case, and I'm Kelso again!  ::) At least he gave up his old job at the L.A. Fire and Life insurance company during the last (vanilla) case and now works for the District Attorney. One way to get around easily as Cole Phelps was to use his police cars. As Jack Kelso, I can at least "borrow" police cars  :-D Switch on the siren and traffic is much less of a hassle.

Damn, the last part reminds me of the movie "The Third Man" with Orson Welles. A deadly hide and seek in the sewers of L.A. rather than Vienna, though.

[smg id=5974 type=preview align=center caption="the third man"]

Just began the game install, went to get a snack expecting to do the requisite half dozen updates, but was pleasantly surprised when I returned a few moments later with the start screen displayed.  Donning the headphones, I was immediately delighted by the jazzy music playing!  (I really don't care for the heavy metal head banging music most games like to display these days.)

After immediately appreciating the soundtrack, I started the first mission where I was to drive to a murder scene.  Pleasant music was in the background as I approached the scene.  Then as I walked down the alley a soft chime would sound when an object of interest was near, which I could examine - cool.

I have a notebook which keeps track of my objectives, the people I meet, and locations of interest as well as the clues I've discovered.

So far, the game is a winner just from the sound track alone  :-X

:-() :-() :-() That is great!

Funny, I've JUST now finished the game and you've only just begun. Great, now it is your turn, you may post about your way through it, too, which will be two consecutive personal narrations of what an individual OWG player experienced. :) Well, after what our fellow players already did two years ago, that is  :-()

As for me, I love this game like crazy  :-D I even watched through the endless credits to find a rewarding last cutscene which tells us about how it all started  ;) :-X

I solved all cases, including DLC, with the maximum score of five stars each and investigated at least 95% of all clues (there's an achievement I got for that) but actually I must have got 100% as I always had maximum scores for every case and got all branches right and all interviews/interrogations were completely flawless. Some were difficult but hey, you can always ask the net..

I found the very best help, I have to say it is outstanding how well that is done, at IGN. Here's a start and check the left hand menu for any particular case you want to have a walkthrough for, including valuable tips and hints. It may help you get the best out of this game.

http://www.ign.com/wikis/la-noire/Basic_Tips (http://www.ign.com/wikis/la-noire/Basic_Tips)

I only read the tips there after finishing the game, during the game I only sought help for specific cases and used their walkthrough. Most excellent, except for the DLC cases which they treated with less care as in a very brief help and once only a YT link. The vanilla cases were most excellent, though.

One tip about something I found out I'll repeat here: The intuition points. Check your handbook if you're not sure whether there are more clues to be found; you can tell there are IF you can (still) spend intuition points on that. But instead, don't, just keep looking until the handbook doesn't offer that option any more (greyed-out) and save the point for something else :-()

By the way, don't spend intuition points on the "ask the community" option during interviews. It will only show a percentage of how many players chose which option, e.g. truth, doubt or lie, but when I tested it, the majority got the wrong option  :laugh: so it is not worth it.

P.S.: The game doesn't end after the story. :-X

Only now I've checked the "cases" menu to go for the free roam option I saw after finishing the traffic desk. Now I've noticed and just tested that you have that free roam option on all desks except the tutorial one. This means, you can choose who your partner will be (bloody hell, I'm not going to like to get Roy from Vice!  :-() ) because every desk has your respective old partner for your free roam! Nice.  :) :-X

Well, I'm anticipating a wonderful experience even though it is not the shooter game I typically like.  It is so refreshing to experience great music and order and structure rather than chaos.

By the way, here is the second source I have frequented, many useful informations and trivia there to be found :)

http://lanoire.wikia.com/wiki/The_Streets_of_L.A._%28Free_Roam%29 (http://lanoire.wikia.com/wiki/The_Streets_of_L.A._%28Free_Roam%29)

Ah, finally I found the last of the 95 cars available. The wiki link in the previous post holds a list of all cars so it may help you find the one you're looking for.

Funny enough, it had been sitting there in the parking lot just across the street from central police station all the time (it is a DeSoto Custom Suburban)  :-D Achievement "Auto Fanatic" unlocked, only 0.5% of the steam players have gone to the trouble of getting this :)

One achievement takes quite some doing. You'll have to waste a nice rating for a case in order to get the achievement:
Cause $47,000 damage during a single case. I did it using a replay option, I went to the case desks and picked one I was already doing for another achievement.

I tried it wrecking the Duesenberg car about 10 times and even derailed an electric tram, twice  :laugh:
[smg id=5975 type=preview align=center caption="Public Menace 1"]

And was surprised at how massive the damage was. You only get to see it when the case closes, at least on a PC you can't check your current damage costs. Well, but I got it, anyway  :-()
[smg id=5976 type=preview align=center caption="Public Menace 2"]

The Chicago Piano Gun, in the trunk of your partner's car, is available together with a 12-gauge shotgun in case you need (or want) extra fire power. Here I use it during a street crime. I just ran back to the car and grabbed it  :-D

[smg id=5977 type=preview align=center caption="Chicago Piano Gun 1"]
in the 2nd pic, there is a Thompson M1 on the ground. I had picked it up after a gangster had dropped it and that reminded me of the Chicago Piano Gun which I hadn't used before.
[smg id=5978 type=preview align=center caption="Chicago Piano Gun 2"]
[smg id=5979 type=preview align=center caption="Chicago Piano Gun 3"]

Well, with help of the Chicago Typewriter (Chicago Piano) it was easy to do a few of the last remaining street crimes  >:D

Now I've finished all 40 of them. Most of them differ not much regarding action, either a chase or a shoot-out or a fist fight or any combination of them. But the locations and stories are all nice :) Usually there's a small intro cutscene and sometimes an epilogue type of cutscene, apart from the coroner showing up or the paddy wagon driving away with the suspect. But some of them are like mini cases which may include following a blood trail or finding one or two clues before you go on apprehending or subduing your suspect(s).

During free roam, you may replay street crimes ever so often, they show up randomly on your map or you receive a random radio message. The ones you already did show up as a grey running man symbol and the yet unsolved ones are red. There is a number of street crimes limited to your desk. For example, I got the message "all street crimes on this desk have been completed." Which makes it easy to find the ones you're still missing.

Some of the street crimes involve faces you'll see or have seen before during desk cases which is funny. This guy, Oswald Jacobs, was a witness during The Consul's Car which was a DLC Traffic Desk case (by the way, if you like L.A. Noire, I strongly recommend the DLC cases) and this is a street crime belonging to Traffic, too. Nice to see how Cole Phelps recognises the guy and asks, "Oswald Jacobs? You w@&k here?" and Oswald recognises Cole, too.  :)

[smg id=5980 type=preview align=center caption="meeting old friends"]

Thanks for all the tips, AB!  :-X

Any time, PZ :)

PZ, one tip for console players as well as PC players: Observe the "saving" icon in the lower right corner of the screen to get an advantage in case you're going to screw up an interview or interrogation. Usually the game saves before you enter a location or if it doesn't, on leaving. Just walk into and out of a location where someone is going to be interviewed by you so you do have a save point. Now, after scratching a question and getting an "X" rather than ticking it off with a "checked" symbol ("X" means you chose the wrong option, i.e. using "truth" rather than "doubt" or some such) you just exit to the game/pause menu and hit quit. Then choose Resume and you should be starting where you last saved: before the interview :) and do it again, hopefully right this time  :-()

***

Man, I've now got all but three achievements (57/60). One I'm currently on is getting all landmarks (star map achievement) and the next would be finding all golden film reels (erm, I got 2/50) and that would then amount to the 100% completion achievement.

That's a great one!  :-X ^-^

That one will most certainly prove itself valuable rather sooner than later :-D You're welcome, matey :)

Meanwhile I got all landmarks. And now I don't feel like searching L.A. for another 48 hidden golden film reels -- sod that, and the 100% completion. Now I'll just take a stroll or cruise around in all kinds of non-police vehicles (to avoid those radio dispatches). :)

I just now went from uniformed cop to my first suit.  In between main story line cases, I've been hijacking cars, but it is more fun so far to turn on the siren and watch people get out of the way as I race down the streets of the city.

Even though the old signage is not authentic with respect to companies, it is lots of fun examining the old advertisements  :-X

The gun fights and fist fights are also fun and add a small element of excitement to the detective w@&k.

Heh heh, so the fever has caught you, too :) "I can virtually taste it,"  as our FC2 merc friends would say  :-()

Indeed, and the only bad thing (if you can even call it bad) I have encountered while playing the game is the up-in-the-face realization how much head-banging music is in most games (and television).  The music in this game is so pleasant and a wonderful breath of relief.

For example, this morning I watched a program called Restaurant Impossible in which a chef (Robert Irvine) is invited to rejuvenate a failing restaurant in two days.  I've watched this program periodically for the past couple of years, but this morning realized how assaulting the music to one's ears.  Robert (and others in the program) literally need to shout above the "background" heavy metal head banging guitar music.

Just goes to show you how one can filter out the annoying while focusing on the content.

yep.. one of the reasons why I haven't watched TV nor listened to the radio for years.

During free roam I realised that in L.A. Noire they put on radio shows from back in the day. I listened to a comedy programme that was about a married couple, at night, husband snoring, wife couldn't go to sleep due to that. Then a funny dialogue ensued. I remember a few funny things (partly paraphrasing)

wife <whistles a few notes>
husband: "what was that?
wife: "nothing.
husband: "you whistled!
wife: "only to keep you from snoring.
husband: "I don't snore.
wife: "Yes, you do.
husband: "stop talking and let me go back to sleep.
wife: "I have to keep talking to keep you from snoring!
husband: "Go back to sleep, god damn it!
wife: "it seems that the only way I can get any sleep is to stay awake all night!

***

wife: "that's not true; you don't tell me anything any more!
husband: "Oh, I told you a lot of things that weren't true at all.

***

wife: "You don't love me.
husband: "Well, I married you, didn't I?
wife: "Why?!
husband: "So I couldn't forget you.

:laugh:

there are so many different vistas to check..  :)
[smg id=5984 type=preview align=center caption="random impression 05"]

Does a train run on that track?  ????

When playing the Fallout series, I installed a mod that allowed me to play my own music.  I found a site that had old radio stories and advertisements, which I installed into that mod.  It was great fun roaming the waste land listening to the retro sounds.

No, they're not moving there. Only the "trolley" (electric tram) but apparently you can't use any public transports, unfortunately, just cars.

Correction. At Union Station, I saw more than one train that moved. The one in the background to the right (orange) just arrived. I happened to get there because I decided to do the film reel quest -- in the end there is not much else to do except again street crimes I already did and free roam. Now I do want to see crazy locations where they hid those reels. Got 10 now, one was around here. And by chance I found a police shield (badge) here at Union Station, too  :-D
[smg id=5986 type=preview align=center caption="moving trains"]

There seems to be quite a bit to do in the game.  :-X

Yay! I've got the 100% achievement.
Only 4 out of 1,000 steam players got that achievement, the hardest achievement to get for L.A. Noire.  :)

Here, time really goes by.. those clocks do w@&k! (1 minute game time = 1 second real time)
[smg id=5991 type=preview align=center caption="as time goes by"]

By the way, the longest road I know is 7th Street. I have a record of 2 minutes and 6 seconds of full throttle non-stop, going up or down that street.

Here a pic that shows the aftermath of powerful shotgun hits. Check the walls in the back..  :-D I got shot at because I walked in John Wayne style and wiped them all out without ever seeking cover.
[smg id=5992 type=preview align=center caption="blood shot walls"]

Congratz on the achievement!  :-X

As I was racing across town I received an achievement called "Lead foot"  :laugh:

Great tips and achievements Art!! :-X

It gets more and more tempting to get back to the game. Currently I'm not playing any game (reading books for a change ;)) but once I get back to gaming, I think this will be the game that attracts me most. I'm looking forward to the unwinding effect of it ;)

Indeed PZ, the jazzy sounds greatly help in that matter, plus the whole sunny environment and the antique setting, that gives you the feeling that no matter what you do, you'll be late anyway. So what the heck, why hurry??!! :-D

Thanks, guys :)

100% = 60/60 achievements (actually 59/60 and that made it 100% so for that I got the last one, called The City of the Angles, at the same time I got #59 :)

The lead foot was one of my earliest achievements, too :)

The sunny mood is case dependent. Some cases will let you see transitions, day to night, sunny to rainy, and stay there until after the case. Only in free roam there is an actual day/night cycle as you may have guessed by the picture of the clock "as time goes by"  :)

The 1940's look is exactly what I like about the game;  I can just stand and watch the traffic go by  ^-^

Makes me want to dive right back into it.

I just watched a film again, called..

[menu][button active=true url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117107/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1]Mulholland Falls[/button][/menu]..which reminds me a lot of L.A. Noire.

QuoteThis film is about the adventures of a 1940's special anti-gangster police squad in Los Angeles, the infamous 'Hat Squad.' The four members of this squad are big, tough, no-nonsense cops who don't hesitate to break the law, if it suits their purposes. When a local woman is murdered, their investigation turns up the fact that she had been romantically linked to several prominent men and had secret films taken of her liaisons. Since one of those men is the powerful U.S. Army General at the head of the then-new Atomic Energy Commission and another is the (married) leader of the Hat Squad, complications ensue. The FBI even gets involved in an attempted cover-up.

Looks like a good movie!

Good use of the enhanced bbc by the way (and the title bar in your signature)  ;)

The film is quite nice. An IMDb rating of 6.1/10 may look a bit cheap but it isn't, particularly not considering the ambience: 40s/50s and hat-wearing L.A. cops, some of the cars there look like those seen in the game, a murder case of a female victim, the married lead character (cop) having an affair with a beautiful woman,  a hidden camera filming the room next doors and the film a means of blackmailing, a political cover-up.. all known as parts of the game :)

And thanks, was about time I tried the BBC code :-()

Tip regarding Chicago Piano gun and 12-gauge shotgun in the trunk
These weapons are actually not only in the trunk of your partner's car but in every police car's trunk (the common black and whites) :)

Here a tip, regarding the International Police Wagon.

Hard to get your hands on as they don't drive around in normal traffic, you won't see them unless you're on a case or street crime. So IF you see one of these, ignore your current case and enter (if you can, sometimes they are locked) the International Police Wagon to make it your own. After the case it should still be there, most certainly if you acquired it during a street crime. The Bus Stop Shooting is an Arson Desk street crime where you can get your hands on one of those and keep it. Here it is:
[smg id=5993 type=preview align=center caption="International Police Wagon 1"]

Tip: The biggest jump
..can be achieved on 4th Street going from East to West, the jump is right in the middle of the E of CENTRAL division 1 on the map. One street crime will make you jump there during a car chase. Cars tend to dissolve on landing (  :-D ) but I did the jump with the big police wagon and was able to continue driving  :-()

Here the jump location and below, I'm on my way down using the IPW :-()
[smg id=5994 type=preview align=center caption="jump on 4th street"]
[smg id=5995 type=preview align=center caption="International Police Wagon 2"]

Excellent tips; I don't think I'd have discovered them on my own. +1  :-X

thank you, very kind of you, PZ :)

I love the jump on 4th street. Do you see the car that is parked half on top of a wall, half in the street, below that billboard centre left? That's Phelps's police car after a "fly-through."

Once you landed, reverse (if the car still drives, that is) and go around counter-clockwise: Flower st., 5th st., Grand Ave., 4th st. again and jump. Excellent for testing a car's driveability. How well does it take corners (drift) at full speed with handbrake on firmly, durability on impacts, speed, engine power (i.e. when driving uphill, is it still accelerating or nearly stalling) and.. coolness factor.

The blue one here isn't half bad.  :-D

[smg id=5996 type=preview align=center caption="jump on 4th street 2"]

Cool!

I finally made homicide  :-()

sounds as if you were moving up the ladder rather quickly  :-X :)

I've not been doing any of the side missions  ????

Re the last pic Art, who's that in the car with you?

And why is he crying out for his mommy? :-()

PZ, you don't have to.

All it does for you during the main story is giving you additional XP to level up your rank more quickly and a few achievements are related to those side missions, too. The maximum rank is 20. On your way to 20, there will be a few rewards such as revealing locations of hidden cars and a suit but more notably intuition points. Intuition points may be used for finding clues at locations you need to visit during a case and for eliminating one option when you have to decide between truth, doubt and lie during interviews or interrogations (i.e. leaving you with just two options so your chance is 50% to guess correctly).

I've never spent any intuition points (except during a replay to get one achievement using four intuition points to get four questions right in a single interview/interrogation). For clues: As long as you may spend intuition points on clues, there are still clues to be found. Once that option is greyed-out, you'll know that you found all of them.

So you may as well wait until after the story and do them during free roam :)


fragger: you'll always have a partner who will follow you wherever you go unless you manage to get into your car before he does and rush away. That is funny as eventually he will be back and give you a good speech  :-D During nonsense like in that pic, he'll indeed shout and scream  :-D

Thanks for the tips, AB!  :-X

you're most welcome :)

[smg id=5999 type=preview align=center caption="random impression 06"]

hey, I found that radio show I mentioned before!

QuoteThe Bickersons was a radio comedy sketch series that began in 1946 on NBC, moving the following year to CBS where it continued until 1951. The show's married protagonists, portrayed by Don Ameche and Frances Langford, spent nearly all their time together in relentless verbal war.

Here is a transcript of that particular show, called "The Honeymoon Is Over" :)

http://www.genericradio.com/show.php?id=112eae912b2d10a1 (http://www.genericradio.com/show.php?id=112eae912b2d10a1)

Apparently there are several of those Bickerson shows on the radio in LAN, the one above only partially matches what I heard but still, to get an idea, it's worth reading that transcript :)

A friend of mine just showed me this, so I had to share it with you.  :-D

If you don't want to watch all of it, at least skip to 2:30 and 3:05 :laugh:

L.A. Noire Bloopers / Outtakes (Funny Video) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scQKQjosJek#ws)

I dusted off this old beauty and restarted the game. Back when I first started this game I never finished it, and after reading about all the joy Art had in the game, I decided that I would once go back toit. Now, after finishing Max Payne 3, I found out there's a lot more Rockstar Social Club achievements to deal with.... in L.A. Noire :-D

That made me finally go back to L.A. of the late 40's and rejoin the LAPD. Having great fun! I first had to restart the principal mission 4 or 5 times, but finally, with the help of Arts tips, I got my first 5 star accomplishment ^-^

Thanks for the reminder, Binn  :-X

I need to do the same because I too have not finishedthe game.

enjoy and good luck, both of you  ^-^

This new playthrough is being fruited up with some help online I found a page that provides a list of all the clues and all the answers in the investigations. That makes it a lot easier to get the 5 star graduation. I do think for myself though, and when I made my choice I check the list, see if I'm right. I'm starting to get a little more comfortable with the interrogations. I now can tell when someone is not telling the truth; usually moves something in his face, or blinks a lot, or looks away frequently. It's still tricky though to know for sure that they are lying. And I still find it difficult to come up with the right proof.
The list makes the game a lot more fun for me. I get a nice 5 star on all the missions so far, and can easily follow the story without being frustrated because of wrong guesses 8)
I just finished the traffic desk and got promoted to homicide. Completed all missions, but I was afraid I wouldn't get a 5 star on that last mission. 2 cars full of bad guys try to kill you when you leave the prop store, and you have to defeat them. Officer Bekowski isn't shooting much, so I decided to ram them off the road and trough the tarmac. That, together with all the shooting, got my car totalled. I was sure I would loose a star on that one, but it seems in a hot chase you can make a lot of damage before loosing it. I got $500,- damage on that mission, and still graduated. Thank god :angel:

Tomorrow is a good time for the next desk, it has been enough for today ;)

What!  ??? I think my total damage in all the game didn't even come close to $500  :laugh: you really must be a bloody reckless driver  :-()

I knew there was something that didn't quite match the previous statement but then I saw I did it after the playthrough so I think it's still accurate to say that I didn't even rack up $500 during a full playthrough. :)

Quote from: Art Blade on May 05, 2013, 10:53:51 AMOne achievement takes quite some doing. You'll have to waste a nice rating for a case in order to get the achievement:
Cause $47,000 damage during a single case. I did it using a replay option

Less than $500,- in the entire game? That's extraordinary. And indeed, more than $47,000 in a single case is another tough challenge. No idea how to and which case is the best scenario. You mean replay as in doing multiple times the same stuff without finishing and that counts ????

I wanted a perfect score and was extremely cautious not to wreak havoc driving like Spaceboy, PZ, or you :-() 8-X >:D

And, having finished one or more desks allows you to re-play the corresponding missions and of course, finish them. In order to get some achievements, it may be a good idea to try to improve some results of some cases or, regarding the $47k damage, to do the opposite. There's always an option to start a new career..  ;)

Quote from: Art Blade on April 14, 2014, 12:44:23 PM
I wanted a perfect score and was extremely cautious not to wreak havoc driving like Spaceboy, PZ, or you :-() 8-X >:D

:laugh:

I'm looking forward to the 47k :-() Nothing like being able to make good benefit of your personal qualities :angel:

See, son, that's the difference. When I was told to rack up 47k, it was next to impossible to achieve it and therefore it was actually an achievement worth mentioning. You, on the other hand, you just need to be given a car. The rest will follow about as certain as dusk follows dawn. In your case I'm inclined to congratulate you for not having achieved it yet. :-()

 :laugh:

"Bulletproof Windshields" is a tough one ;)

It was one of the cool achievements, an interesting challenge. So far, only 7 out of 1,000 players made it. :)

That is indeed few... I will be one of those 7 soon ^-^

 :-() I count on you. Seven times  :-D

I just managed. It was a bit of a guess when finished the task; Did I really kill two? I heard the horn produced by the dead driver and they both didn't get out, so I was sure, but no achievement popped. I knew that in L.A. Noire sometimes the achievement pops up after the next autosave so I completed the mission; nothing popped. Then, during the cutscene for the final Arson case, suddenly both achievements popped; the windshield one and the one for completing the DLC mission ^-^

nice. congratz  :)

Yesterday I completed me renewed first playthrough. With a little help I found all clues and got all interviews and interrogations correct, so I was able to follow the story very well. I can only conclude with the statement that this story is one of the absolute best stories I've seen in video games. It is actually like reading a novel, and taking part in the most exciting bits of the hole thing. The end, and the sudden turn in the plot once you reach Arson desk, was brilliant. The parallel storyline of the young GI's fighting the war against the Japs was intense, and very well interwoven with the rest of the things that happened through the game.
The way Rockstar managed to tough a spirit of the age of the 'after-war-society' with the movie business coming up and LA becoming one of the world's 20th century example-cities is astonishing.

This game is complete. It takes a bit to go through and to get comfortable with, mostly because of the new gameplay introduced, but it's definitely an artwork!

I have 6 achievements left to do, most of them collecting stuff, so I will be roaming the city of LA for quite a while longer :) No problem ^-^ :-X

I completely agree, great story and game. :) Good luck (or patience) with the rest of the achievements. Collecting those records took ages  :-()

I tried to get the public menace achievement, did my best to destroy literally everything I came across, but only summed up $32.000 of damage. Need to do better than that :-\\ :-D

I was thinking about paying a visit to the airport and destroy the planes there, but they never seem to get really damaged. Any idea how that may w@&k out, Art?

Btw, I found the vehicle showroom, and the 8 missing cars on my list. So that will just be another list to complete then 8)

hehe  :-()

get the most expensive car, the Duesenberg or what it's called, and find the longest road so you can go full speed and then crash the bugger. Get the next Duesenberg and do it again. I even rammed a tram and derailed it. Twice. All of that was worth $115,000+ so.. no problem.

You know, I think I learned that from you, observing your driving skills in GTAIV.  :-D

I wrote about the achievement by the way, and here for your convenience a quote. ;)

Quote from: Art Blade on May 05, 2013, 10:53:51 AM
One achievement takes quite some doing. You'll have to waste a nice rating for a case in order to get the achievement:
Cause $47,000 damage during a single case. I did it using a replay option, I went to the case desks and picked one I was already doing for another achievement.

I tried it wrecking the Duesenberg car about 10 times and even derailed an electric tram, twice  :laugh:
[smg id=5975 type=preview align=center caption="Public Menace 1"]

And was surprised at how massive the damage was. You only get to see it when the case closes, at least on a PC you can't check your current damage costs. Well, but I got it, anyway  :-()
[smg id=5976 type=preview align=center caption="Public Menace 2"]

I got the same city damage, and also derailed a tram. I had also $800,- injuries. I had put my money on that, trying to ram as many pedestrians off the side walk as I could. I was in the car with the grumpy copper from the homicide desk, and it was great fun hearing him freaking out on my driving skills :laugh: I haven't had such a laugh all by myself in a long time, that guy is priceless :-X :-D

I had expected more costs though, causing injuries, but it did not pay off. I think I rammed at least 3 dozens of citizens into health care, or even the morgue, but it didn't cause spectacular costs. Now I guess that is the generation gap :-()

Going to do the same trick with an expensive car. Good idea ^-^

Now we know what expensive cars are really good for. :-()

Hahah, indeed ^-^

Just got my last achievement in the game, the Chop Shop. I killed a goon by letting an engine drop on his head by shooting the chain on which it was hanging. Took a few tries, but the skipper was very pleased with the result; 12 dead criminals were extracted from the crime scene, yet the LAPD counted no casualties :-() 8)

Lovely game, that's for sure. And lovely streak on the Rockstar Social Club achievements now. Got 100% in L.A.Noire, Max Payne 3 and GTA IV, including all DLC achievements for those games ^-^

Time to move on, let's see what Sleeping Dogs has to offer :)

well done, my friend  :) +1 :-X for your 100% ^-^

Thank you  :)