Eh, I liked it a lot due to me enjoying Noire in general, the gameplay wasn't bad and people seemed to be expecting GTA in old LA with better motion capture. Seeing as I remember Shenmue having a lot of ask questions, get answers type adventure game gameplay I would see how some elements fit in comparison. So yeah, if LA Noire isn't a good game while doing somethings Shenmue did but better, then where does that leave Shenmue?
Exactly my point.
The parts of it which worked were the in-game cinematics, driving, and shooting. So... yeah, the GTA-like parts. The portion of gameplay which didn't work were the investigations and interrogations.
The former manages to try to be a point-and-click adventure, but due to layered middleware making fine character movement a chore, players experience distress just navigating to the point of interest instead of being able to tap-to-interact during the clue's brief "here I am!" vibration. Doubly pointless because the clue has an examination cutscene which could be used immediately, alleviating player stress.
The latter is an even greater offense, as the great technological leap of LA Noire was the 3D facial mo-cap, but here's the main place it would have been useful, and we're viewing from a fixed camera. Moreover, there is no consistency with the player's interactive choices, due to a late-development change in gameplay, but needing to work with the existing performances.
http://www.significant-bits.com/l-a-noires-interrogation-systemAnyway, yeah, I'm still bitter. I love crime fiction, I love GTA and open world games, and I was so excited about this game. It's utter rubbish to me though.
