LA Noire (Xbox 360) - Guest Review

In light of the news of LA Noire coming to Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One, here is a guest review of the Xbox 360 version, by The Purple Viper.

How can I help, reader? LA Noire is an open world game which revolves  around the playable character, Cole Phelps who at the start of the game is a beat cop who has come home from serving in the second world war. Set in the 40’s, you go with Cole as he moves up the ranks in the police force (desks) and solve cases. A point to note is that as with most open world games, especially Rockstar, the player is usually on the wrong side of the law, this flips that upside down and even penalises you for behaving in a bad way. It does this naturally and it feels bizarre you ever wanted to break the law on the limes of GTA.

Primarily the game whilst being open world, features linear missions in the way of “cases”. These cases are typically, there is a body and you then analyse the crime scene with your partner for clues which take you around LA to new locations and more clues usually, which enable you to discover who has done the crime. The way you do this is to pick up evidence and then use either the forensic department to find the best place to go to find out more about objects, or you find addresses in things on victims, such as wallets. At locations, you then can interrogate people when you ask them questions and call them either liars (backed up with proof) doubt what they say or believe them, by choosing the right option, you can discover more clues or even solve the case by getting people either to tell on others or confess themselves. When it was released, one of the main focal points of the game was that the rendering of faces was the most lifelike and accurate in any game to date and even though I only played it recently and practically lifelike graphics is the norm now, I can appreciate that this must have changed the whole game when it came out. The faces and expressions are so good, there is no difficulty in telling whether people are lying or not, much to the games credit (not to say the game is easy, but what it sets out to do with characters conveying expression, works more than perfectly).  When cases are complete you get a ranking, based on how well you did the case, such as questions wrong and damage done to the environment, this makes it more rewarding when you get the maximum stars avaliable. 9/10

The story was overall brilliantly put together, rich and long (but not too long) with cases feeling more rewarding for solving them as you progressed through LAPD, there was a bit of repetitiveness at times (especially on one desk, which was frustrating but in context it made sense at the end of that desk) the only faults are something that happens at the end of one of the desks which essentially voids all the conclusions (NB deductions from the player or even some confessions from “culprits”) which I found to be rather bizarre, but the story did work when it was explained (to an extent) so it didn’t ruin the story. The only other fault from an otherwise great story is that something towards the end happens, which whilst introducing us to another playable character, who is well played just like Cole, comes out of nowhere and to me seemed like a badly thought out excuse to bring the new character in for a bit. Other than these two points however, the story is one that I personally found to be very good and it had me hooked for the two weeks I played it on and off 9/10

In the way of side activities, there are also cars to collect, that is, get in and drive them (they then count as collected) and then when you get all of them, an achievement will be unlocked. The best side activity is the other one, which is radio dispatch, for each desk there are a number of calls that will come through on the police radio which are optional for the player to go and see to. Each one of these however provides not just a good side mission (most are not massively long, which I found good as you could do them and then get back to the gripping story) but provides more of a structured experience of this amazing game world that has been created. 8/10

The game world itself is very large and has plenty of character and detail, just driving around and looking at the buildings from a time long gone had me in awe, but also the NPC’s going around their day to day lives and the random chatter you can overhear, this coupled with the radio with music from that time (reminiscent of Fallout 3's Galaxy News Radio) made even driving idly round, very fun. 8/10

The few bugs that I came across were just minor nuisances such as the character moving in a bizarre fashion and making it hard to accomplish something but these were only seconds long and hardly a huge hindrance. The other one was when selecting evidence items, more often than not it would fly over to the opposite one I wanted at the slightest touch of the analogue stick, but again, this hardly ruined the game and is trivial really. 8/10

In conclusion, LA Noire is a brilliantly crafted game, with a huge, beautiful open world to explore and whilst apart from the missions it doesn’t seem like there is lots and lots to do, there is indeed, enough. The story is fantastic with only really one complaint toward the end however it was a gold way to engineer the final act of the story so it is hardly something that should put people off playing. What was one of the main features, is executed perfectly and the facial expressions are so good, it made me feel rewarded at times for reading the faces as if it was a real person in front of me. The occasional car chases could be boring and a pain, but I'm not a driver particularly so I imagine that was down to me as an individual, there is the option to stick. Overall an amazing game which I would strongly recommend to anyone into crime and open world.

8.4/10

The Walking Dead: A New Frontier (Xbox One)

A New Frontier is the third season of Telltale's Walking Dead series. It's continues the story of the previous two seasons and the first two episodes came out at the very end of 2016.

Season two's finale gave you a very big choice, I was eagerly awaiting the third season to see the impact of my decision. I was left bemused at first. We were introduced to a whole new character and not an immediate follow up to the previous series. I was very disappointed to see the game fast forward the story from my last decision, leaving me to think whatever I chose would give me the same story. A feeling I've had a lot with Telltale's so called "tailored to your choices" tagline. That being said, they've made plenty of stellar games.

The story starts with new characters, Javi and his family. For the first time in the series, the story starts at the beginning of the outbreak. We see Javi deal with the beginning firsthand and seeing it devastate his family. Javi has a lot of tension with brother whom he always seems to disapoint. The story fast forwards to the present, Javi, his brother's wife, Kate and his nephews, Gabe and Mariana have been travelling the roads together in their minivan and have been on the road for the majority of the outbreak. During the story, Javi crosses paths with our friend Clementine, (our previous protagonist) and we find out what actually happened after our final choice from season two. We learn there's a group of survivors called The New Frontier, Javi gets in a feud with them and must get him and his family safely out of their crosshairs.

The graphics are updated, they still have the comic book look, but looks much sharper. Once again we have a story that hooks you and makes you think carefully about every choice you're given. The new characters are likeable, some not so much, but that's because they're doing their job of making you dislike them and not because they are poor characters. The voice acting is excellent and shows why this is one of Telltale's strongest series.

There was one relationship they really forced you into during the story, I rebuffed every advance and even after all that, I still pissed off someone, despite doing the complete opposite of what another character thought just because of how much they forced it. It really annoyed me, I had to pay the consequences for something I never chose to do. There was another part where I was given an ultimatum, it was practically a choice of getting attacked or not, I quite clearly chose to not get attacked, and even so, another character disregarded my choice, thus I got attacked. These two 'consequences' came from choices I did NOT make, so why they happened is beyond me. This is what continues to lead me to believe you aren't given as much choice as you're constantly told. If they didn't push so hard that your decisions matter, I wouldn't get so frustrated by it.

I really enjoyed the season three, it was great to introduce a new character and keep the story going with the old ones. Overall I do think the three season are declining as they go on, but this is still a great season, don't forget how amazing the first was. Javi was definitely one of my favourite characters across the series. I really cared about his story and made choices I thought he'd make. He was a great character to take charge of.

This had once again been a great season, the next season has been announced and it's also been confirmed as the final season. This is definitely a great decision by Telltale to wrap it up, it's best to bow out in style rather than get stale. More good news is that season three set up to carry on as Clementine. See you for one last adventure Clem.

8/10

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor: The Bright Lord DLC (Xbox One)

The Bright Lord is the second story based DLC for Shadow of Mordor, and for the first time we don't play as Talion, we play as his counterpart, Celebrimbor.

Celebrimbor forged the Rings of Power, while manipulated By Sauron. Celebrimbor aims to brand Uruks to fight for him in his fight against The Dark Lord himself.

There are some new abilities, but now you no longer have Talion at your side, you lose some too. You are now gifted with the ring, it's a heavily over powered weapon, but it's the Ring of Power to be fair. It slows down time and allows you to hack down a significant number of enemies. The health has now been halved as you're no longer bound to Talion, leaving you to fight stronger and smarter. The whole goal is to brand Uruks, you want to be constantly branding every Uruk possible to fight for you.

The missions are quite strong, they are full of battles and they are tough. I've had my most difficult fights in this DLC, so if you found Shadow of Mordor quite simple, this will sort you out. You're never given a minute to relax, constant enemies and your branded Uruks aren't suddenly stronger.

The best part is the final mission. A one on one fight with Sauron. It's a pretty rare thing and he does a lot of damage. My problem was it was far too easy. It was really cool and disappointing at the same time.

4/5

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor: Lord of the Hunt DLC (Xbox One)

I loved Shadow of Mordor, so much that I saved the DLC's for about two years so I had more to play. Lord of the Hunt once again stars Talion, and brings back out dwarven friend, Torvin. They must fight against the beastmaster warchiefs and prove they themselves can tame the new breeds of creatures.

There are new variations of creatures we've seen before. Caragarth's are stealthy Caragors, a wretched Graug can use a toxic bile to hurt enemies and you can use a horde of Ghuls to attack your foes. Graug's can also grab enemies and eat them to restore health and they can even insta kill some captains, saving you a fight.

There are new missions and side missions. The story is pretty short and not many of the missions are that memorable. There's also new warchiefs and captains.

You can tame and ride wretched Graugs and you feel pretty empowered, although they can die quick if you're not eating your enemies. There is also a warchief who rides a Graug, luckily for us, are tamed horde of Ghuls can attack them. Another problem, a warchief has his own Ghuls army, so it's a pretty even sided content and shows the enemies are just as powerful as you.

DLC is very often a let down, it's by far not a poor piece of DLC, but I don't think it's on the same level as the original game. The new tameable beasts are easily the high point here.

3.7/5

Until Dawn (PS4)

Until Dawn released in 2015 as a PlayStation exclusive. It's your classic teen slasher/horror movie, where you make all the decisions instead of screaming at the TV, "Why did she go in there?!". Not many people survive slasher movies, will you save anyone, or no one?

First things first, even though they're made by different developers, the gameplay is identical to Heavy Rain. This is more of a cinematic experience. Very little gameplay and it's all about the story and your decisions. The characters are real actors, and you may even recognise a couple. The game stars Rami Malek (Mr Robot), Hayden Panettiere (Heroes), Peter Stormare (Prison Break) among others. There are eight characters and throughout the story you will play as all of them. Initially, you can save everyone and they can also all die, for me, only three survived my first playthrough and I tried to save them all.

Josh and his twin sisters, Beth and Hannah invite all they're friends to the 'cabin in the woods'. Most of their friends play an embarrassing prank on Hannah, causing her to (stupidly) run out of the cabin at night, alone. Beth gives chase to find her, and ultimately leads to their deaths, falling off the cliff together. A year after the twins disappearance (none of their friends know they're dead) Josh invites the same friends back to the cabin, to party and remember his sisters. Everyone returns and events start to take place.

In between each chapter, you're in an office with a therapist. He asks you questions and you're given choices. Things like what scares you most or which of the characters you like better after getting to know them. It makes you think carefully about your choices. Will you encounter spiders if you say you're more afraid of them? Will this character die if I say I prefer them? You're too scared to pick an answer and too busy thinking what could ultimately happen. After all, choice matters here.

The acting is fantastic, Peter Stormare in particular is brilliant. The characters are very likeable, some are a lot harder to like than others. A character I thought would annoy me, ended up being my favourite, that was Mike. He seemed to be one of the more favoured characters, as he was given a lot of time. Another favourite of mine was Chris. He was funny and very likable. The dialogue is good, but there are certainly a lot of poor lines. Seeing as it's a game full of horn teenagers, there's a lot of cringey sexual innuendos. "Sex-capade", that's all I'll say. As I said earlier, you get to play as all the characters, some were a lot more involved, which I found disappointing because I'd like to have seen more of some others.

It's a very intense game, you're always on your toes that something will happen or your choice will have a drastic consequence. My issue was that the game hounded you with jump scares right at the beginning. Honestly it just frustrated me and made me not want to play. They throw far too many so soon as nothing's really happening. Once the games takes a more frightening turn, the jump scares slow down. It's a fantastic story, it goes a completely different direction than what you'd originally expect. It's not the only twist either, but there is one twist most players would expect. The game plays heavily on 'The Butterfly Effect' and there's a table that shows your decisions and what ultimately happens for that choice. It's really helpful to see why something happened if it doesn't seem like it should've.

There were also collectables that helped with choices in the story. There were clues about the mystery man and other things that helped influence your choices. There were also totems, some showed dangerous activities and even characters deaths, seeing these put you on edge and made you fully aware of what could happen and want to look out for. You could pick up and inspect items, most gave more information to the story, but weren't needed to be picked up if you weren't interested in the extra story.

Most gameplay was just quick time events, but the standout for me was the 'stay still', literally put your controller the fuck down and down move a muscle. These moments were amazing! They were so tense and absolutely terrifying if you fucked up. I literally froze, my hands stuck in the air, my breathing was on hold. I was terrified! There's some great camera angles, they let you see you character and vast spaces of the area you're in. The flashlight was great, you used it to look around and the light pointed where ever you aimed the camera with the right analog stick.

There were also character stats, they showed how strong or weak the relationship was between each character. I didn't see the point of it really, I don't think it really influenced much. It's got all the classic horror tropes, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me want to watch all those classic 80s slasher movies.

If you liked Heavy Rain and Telltale's story based games, you'll love this, unless you scare easy and aren't fan of horror and gore. I'm not huge horror fan, but I'm a massive story and choice game fan. This was my kinda shit. Now excuse me while I go watch Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street.

7.9/10

Max Curse of the Brotherhood (Xbox One)

Max Curse of the Brotherhood is a side scrolling puzzle game. It released in 2013 and is a sequel to Max and the Magic Marker.

Max finds his young brother, Felix, playing and breaking his toys. An annoyed Max searches for a way to make his brother disappear. He finds a spell and reads it out loud and Felix is soon taken through a portal by the evil Mustacho. Max realises the precautions of Felix being taken, he immediately jumps through the portal to save him.

I gotta say I love the look of this game, the animation is really well done and the graphics are beautiful, great zoomed out shots and gorgeous environments. The puzzles aren't very easy and they're not overly hard, you may be challenged in quite a few areas.

Armed with a literal magic marker, you're able to draw objects to complete puzzles. Unfortunately you can't draw whatever and wherever you want. It's clearly indicated where you're meant to draw. You're able to draw pillars, vines, branches, water flows and fire balls. All these will help you solve puzzles and get passed enemies. There aren't many enemies, but there are a few variations, they're very deadly to Max though. Only the fire ball can outright kill an enemy.

If you mess up your drawing, you can simply destroy it and try again. Another cool thing is you can pass fire balls between branches and also attach vines to branches. Water flows carry you in the direction they flow, vines let you swing, you can do some platforming on branches, pillars take you higher and fire balls destroy walls and enemies. There's cool slow motion jumps that indicate you're in a life threatening position, so you have to act quick.

There is only one actual boss fight near the end of the game against Mustacho himself. There are also running sections where you run and platform your way from a dangerous, gigantic mobster.

It's a fun game, amazing visuals and a decent challenge with the puzzles. It's been free and it's pretty cheap, so I'd say it's worth a go if you missed it.

6.3/10

Bastion (Xbox 360)

Bastion released in 2011, it's a role playing action game. We play as 'The Kid' and are guided through the story by the narrator. The narrator's voice is one to rival Morgan Freeman's.

Caelondia is a city that was fractured by a catastrophe. The kid meets the narrator, a man called Rucks. He instructs the kid to collect cores to rebuild the city. Each core you bring back powers the city and allows you to build new areas of the city, areas like upgrade stations, item pick ups you missed and a few more.

You have the option of which way to proceed with the story, it's not strict in the order you play. There's also optional proving grounds missions, which let you practice with each weapon. There's a huge amount of weapons, you're only equipped with two at a time, one melee and one ranged weapon. There are also health pick ups and potions that let you use your chosen power ups. My favourite weapon was the machete, you could swing it so fast no one had a chance to attack you. My favourite ability was spawning the squibs, a little floating creature, they drew enemies away from you and they attacked for you too.

The world is bright and colourful. Aesthetically beautiful, what makes it even more beautiful; the world falls down from the sky and builds as you walked forward. The world will stay empty besides the platform you're standing on. The world will only build if you move and it looks fantastic. It. Blends even better with the narrator talking.

A side objective to help the game stay more entertaining is the memorial. It gives tasks of all different kinds to implement as you play the game. You can also do these dream sequences where you fight waves of enemies and help practice your fighting skills. Annoying you can respawn off the map leaving you to be killed instantly, especially on levels where you map falls apart.

The story is really interesting, the gameplay is pretty good I just found it hard to play a lot. I played a couple missions a day, I didn't find it addictive enough to play through in one day, although you can. The world building and the narrator are enough for you to try this.

7/10