Not to overload everyone with impressions on L.A. Noire before a proper review goes up, but I’ve had a few thoughts about games as a whole while I’ve been busting through it the last few nights. You see, as much as I love the game (it’s already one of my frontrunners for GotY, even halfway through), it’s got quite a few bugs and glitches that I’ve run into.
In one case, I was told to immediately return to the Coroner for urgent news, so I went there instead of the next place on my list of locations. When I arrived, the cutscene that played essentially pretended like I had been to the previous location, and actually spoiled some of the case for me by assuming I’d already done those things. Later in the game, I had the choice to charge one of two suspects for murder. However, the game wouldn’t allow me to pick the suspect I really wanted to nail for the crime. I had to pick the other one by default, and yet, all the cut scenes since then have acted like I picked the suspect I couldn’t pick to begin with.
Needless to say, these outcomes are a little annoying, for as much work as the cases are, particularly when you’re as meticulous about finding the clues and exploring every avenue of the interrogation as I am. The interesting thing is, these issues don’t keep me from loving the game, even though they tend to be frustrating. I remember feeling the same way about Mass Effect, a wonderful game with lots of glitches. One particularly keen review I read of that game had the reviewer seeing those bugs as the sweat on an Olympic athlete. I feel the same way here with L.A. Noire.
So my question is this: at what point do we stop forgiving a game all of its faults and bugs? For other games, I probably would have been fed up after some of those story issues happened, but L.A. Noire has me so enthralled I just kept playing. When do you guys get too fed up with games to continue? What bugs and issues would you consider game breaking? Go!
you probably saw it coming but, the Witcher 2. It does not do the best job of explaining to the player what they are supposed to do which can be frustrating. however they do have a very nice journal that explains everything, it just means you have to do lot of reading. Reading copious amounts of back story and journals is part of what I like about RPG’s so this does not bother me.
A game breaking bug for me would be playing Resident Evil 5 single player Sheva is so stupid!!! She would hold the flashlight the opposite direction causing me to blunder through the dark getting killed, and when I held the flashlight she would stand behind be and try to shoot threw me, killing me ten times in a row until I rage quit.
Games are getting more complex code wise, which means bigger teams of people coding them. The more people you have working on the same thing, the more chance of errors. It’s just a consequence of what “gamers” have been asking for for a long time. More depth = deeper problems.
Just go play Deus Ex and have that “holy shit” moment.
Despite the aforementioned bugs, I’ll be buying L.A. Noire with my B-Day money on come Monday. Hard to imagine that of the 26 years of my life, 20 years have been spent playing whatever video game I could get my hands on… but enough about me.
Prior to the PSN going down, the last patch made available for Mass Effect 2 on the PS3 had a similar bug to the one encountered in L.A. Noire. Despite having solved a few issues, it created a whole new one.
Problem Solved:
Heavy weapons, purchased armor, and the specialized weapon (selected during Derelict Collector Vessel mission) can finally be carried over into re-playthroughs. Earlier patches lacked the carryover feature.
New Problem:
Inconsistency with story canon. I noticed that choices made during the “Interactive Comic Book” section were not carried into the game’s conversations properly. For example: I saved the Council and nominated Anderson for the Council position. During the meeting with Anderson, the Council was alive and reinstated my SpecTRe status. Immediately after that conversation, Udina acted as though he were the Councillor and Anderson was his advisor. Thereafter, conversations regarding the decision to save the Council became inconsistant. The reporter, the turian weapon merchant and AVINA implied I had sacrificed the Destiny Ascension. However, news broadcasts could be heard reporting on the Destiny Ascension’s victory cruise.
This was a much larger issue for me than the previous lack of weapon carryovers. Mass Effect’s greatest achievement is its unique, consistant storytelling. Losing that, I had to bench ME2 from my PS3 line-up until PSN was back online and the new patch rectified the issue.
I’ll still buy LA Noire, but mostly out of a curiosity to see how quickly these bugs will be patched.
Gadfly, would you recommend playing the first game before getting Witcher 2? I see it’s only $5, but is it one of those things where I’d be fine skipping it to get to the second game, which I hear is fantastic? I’ve also heard it’s got its share of problems, too…
And DarkLight, that’s really frustrating. Especially in a game like ME2, where everything matters.
Eddy, I didn’t mind the clunky combat in the Witcher 1 because the story was really good. it is worth mentioning that the storytelling/pacing, at least in the beginning, is really slow. It took me a while to actually get into the game partly because of the combat and partly because the pace of the story at the beginning. Its one of those games that I just fell in love with, its dark brooding world is right up my ally, but I totally understand why other people don’t like it.
As far as needing to play it before playing the Witcher 2, what TW2 does is throw around names of people and places without explanation, If you have played through the first game its awesome because you have lived in those places and grown to know the people, in some cases intimately. But if you are a newcomer you will be left in the dark unless you read the journal or wait for more explanation later on (it does explain who the people are and why the places are important, just not right away which makes it hard for newbies).
If you don’t mind paying $5 for TW1, with the knowledge that it has its flaws and might not be for you I would say go for it, I payed full price for it and loved it to death. But if it doesn’t seem to be your kind of game then go strait for TW2 because it is a vast improvement, its one of those sequels that even if you didn’t like the first you will would really like TW2 (I think).
P.S. I believe Jeff got it on GOG.com so it would be worth seeing if you can try it out threw his copy, or see what his impressions are (I would like to know what his opinions are when he plays it/finishes it, maybe on the podcast(?). I hope that helps, if you need to know more about Alchemy, Magic, or anything else let me know.
I would only stop playing if the game is literally unplayable due to its faults/bugs. Or if the game’s too hard. Like, WAY too hard.
I haven’t got New Vegas yet due to bugs which, from what I’ve heard, fits my above criteria. I said I’d get it when it was patched but I haven’t checked that out in ages, lol.
I havent run into anything THAT bad in L.A. Noire. I have seen its glitches though. The one thing I see most is small things, like AI being retarded, being unable to get into cars, clues not dinging when Im near them. Seen some people glitch in cutscenes too, which is funny. Had a few audio glitches as well. So far I havent hit anything like you did Eddy, which is strange I think.
For me a game has to become really glitchy for me to stop liking it. I usually dont run into any game-breaking glitches when Im playing titles. To me it has to either ruin the gameplay or the story. If L.A. Noire was ruining the story for me, I would be very disappointed. I remember hearing that Fallout New Vagas was glitchy as all get out. While I didnt play the game it sounded to me like it was one that really ruined the gameplay experience. Glitching cant interfere with gameplay.