Shane394

You've just forced me to rethink my whole life...

Flippy394 - Flippy394 
 
I'm pumped!

 
SPOILERS FOR LA NOIRE, RED DEAD REDEMPTION AND GTA IV

Recently, I was forced to turn in my gun and my badge. Or, rather, Cole Phelps was forced to turn in his gun and his badge for having an affair with a German morphine junkie. Not many games have touched on adultery with such maturity before, and it's refreshing to see a developer explore uncharted territory. While there are issues that can be taken with this, such as how the player has no actual input on the relationship, the big issue I take with it is that you do not know that this is happening, and you play as the person having the affair. When you play L.A. Noire, you play as Cole Phelps, you should be able to know his wants, needs and flaws. While he seems like a stereotypical, justice craving hero, there is much more to his character.

And the player isn't allowed to see it.

You see Cole's wife ONE TIME in the game, just seconds after it begins, and the next time you see her is when she is packing up and leaving. And while Cole is a pretty big asshole to his wife for doing what he did, the player is left wondering why they should care. His wife says things like “Think about the children, think about what you are doing to them!” but we've never seen the children before. In fact, I had forgotten he had children because Cole just kind of mentions it to Galloway in the car one time. Something like “I have kids. That might be important later in the story. Maybe.” So when disaster strikes in the home, the characters act like it is a big deal, but because these are brand new characters whom we've barely seen before, it doesn't pack the emotional punch it seems like it is reaching for. Seeing more of Cole's wife and children before the affair would make that moment so much more effective. We would view Cole as a real douche, rather than left wondering “What? Why?” Expansion on his relationship with the German girl (Whatever her name is) beyond cutscenes of Cole sitting at the Blue Room could help too.

Similarly, You spend the majority of Red Dead Redemption in search for your family. John Marston tells almost every person in the game “The only reason I'm working with the government is because they have my family,” gaining their support with his sob story. However, because the player doesn't see Marston's family for the majority of the game, it seems to beg the player to wonder if he is actually telling the truth. I was convinced that John was working for the government the whole time, that his family didn't really exist. And while this may sound ridiculous, John doesn't see his family until his mission is over, leaving the player plenty of time to wonder whether they really believe John Marston or not.

I'm not saying that every video game character needs the same treatment. We don't need to know what Gordon Freeman's childhood was like or where Master Chief gets his haircut. While these things may help the audience understand a character, they aren't crucial to the plot. A good example of something like this is Grand Theft Auto IV. That game is very much Niko's story, and at the beginning of the game we learn that he's done some pretty messed up stuff in the past. He conveys that through his dialogue and behavior. We understand that he had a bad past, even though he does not go in to detail about it. While his initial mission is to find a man who wronged him in his past, he quickly gets overwhelmed with a whole host of new problems, so when he finally finds the man he was looking for, it isn't a big deal anymore. And that's exactly how the player feels. They know Niko has a beef with this guy but understand that there are bigger fish to fry at the moment.

Spoiler Free Quick Summary:

Story critical information should not be hidden from the player. And every Rockstar game has the exact same story.

Everybody loves solving mysteries. As soon as something goes unexplained, our curiosity kicks in and we crave answers. Cole Phelps is a video game character who not only loves solving mysteries, but can get us the answers. Rather, Cole Phelps is a character who can walk around in circles listening for a piano jingle. Cole Phelps is a man who can discern details that players would like to figure out themselves. L.A. Noire frustrates me more than it seems to amaze others.

My frustration is brought on mainly by the fact that crime scene investigation aspect of the game (a pretty significant chunk) is lacking. The game seems more about the protagonist solving crimes than the player. You walk Cole through an environment until the controller vibrates. He examines an object, and if it is of any significance at all he will comment about it and add any important details to his handy dandy notebook. I'm not arguing that the notebook is a bad mechanic or really hurts the experience as a whole, I end up referring back to it many times during a case. The problem is that it downplays the importance of the player. The investigation sequences remind me of Heavy Rain; the player ends up walking the character around the room until they are prompted to look at something, something that they would never have noticed if the character hadn't pointed it out. Luckily for L.A. Noire, its story is compelling enough to make this process worth while, even though it is still very much a chore. I almost would have preferred a cutscene to these sequences, it would give the player all the information they needed to know in a more timely fashion, without dragging them through the process of spinning around in circles until Cole finds a clue. The chimes and controller rumble can be turned off, but then the game becomes basically impossible. The third person perspective makes it very, very easy to miss important details at a crime scene, and the player just ends up reverting back to walking around the environment, this time hammering the A button until Cole finds something. 

Investigating these crimes has had me thinking about what other games have even attempted something like this. I failed to think of any better example than Condemned 2. I forget how other people felt about this game, so I might just be the one insane person who has any kind of reverence for Condemned 2, but I remember the game being pretty solid. My favorite bits involved the player stumbling upon a crime scene (Most of the time it was a murder, which was strange because I believe the main character was a homeless ex cop who was violently murdering dozens of homeless people) and having to investigate said crime scene. If I remember correctly, there was far less hand holding, the player was left on their own to actually examine a scene and determine what had happened. I don't believe there were any prompts letting you know you had found a clue, you would just have to be thorough and attentive enough to find anything of significance. When you signaled to the game that you were done, it quizzed you on the scene. Was the victim stabbed or bludgeoned? Were they killed here or was the body moved? And while getting these questions right wasn't crucial to the overall experience like it is in L.A. Noire, it was still pretty cool to have to figure out all of that stuff yourself. Keep in mind, Condemned 2 benefited greatly from a first person perspective, allowing the player to examine the environment more closely, as opposed to L.A. Noire, which fills forty percent of your screen with a character.

 But that raises the question: am I the only one who has a problem with that? The rest of the game is pretty awesome, I'm just disappointed with the way crime scenes are handled. But am I missing the point? It is very possible that the game is just trying to translate the experience of watching a detective movie in to a video game form, not trying to replicate actual police work. Detectives in movies know just enough to let the player fill in the blanks, and Cole Phelps is no different.

And maybe the crime scenes aren't as important to the game as I think they are, or want them to be. The rest of the game seems to have been handled in such a way that everything in it is deliberate. Maybe they thought players would have a hard time. Who knows? I don't.

The technology is great, I'm not trying to say it isn't. I'm also not trying to review L.A. Noire. I'm simply commenting on its crime scene investigation gameplay and how it can be improved and how it already has been improved.

When they bump it to 60$ a year, people are gonna freak the hell out.

Jim Sterling truly believes what he writes in his reviews, whereas Armond White writes controversial things about bad movies merely because he is an asshole.

I can make my Mass Effect character look like an idiot, therefore making me unable to emotionally connect to anything going on in the story. 
 
So yeah it's pretty gnarly. 

 I didn't like Uncharted 2 as much as everyone else.  
 
 
So me.