Every video/gameplay highlight/developer diary I’d seen of Far Cry 3 before release suggested one thing: This is going to be AWESOME.

The freedom to explore an island reminiscent of the one that captivated my heart back in college with the first game; beautiful graphics in full HD display – even the chance to take on a human foe that has the potential to be one of the craziest villains I’ve ever encountered. The game looked fantastic and I couldn’t wait to play it.

Now? Now that I’ve played it, I don’t know that I would even recommend it to someone I don’t like.

I’m a pretty accepting person when it comes to gameplay. That’s why even I am surprised with the level of inadequacy that I feel I’ve been duped into playing with Far Cry 3.

For whatever it’s worth, here is my list of initial impressions of things that are ruining this game for me, in no particular order:

- The save mechanic is awful. You can’t save during a mission and when you do save, even if you’re on the other side of the island, if you haven’t unlocked a tower or outpost, you restart back where you came from. This means your entire travel experience was pointless if you didn’t finish what you were doing. Oh, and the same goes for when you die, also. The only respite from this is if you happen to be in an active story mission and your game just autosaved at a checkpoint.

- The story is non-existent. I’m not compelled in ANY way to care about this character and it’s still really unclear just exactly what the goal is. “find your friends. No wait, go here. No, you need to go collect leaves for this tutorial. Hey lets go overtake this thing. Go see the doctor.”

- Combat is ok, but not great. You get one weapon, which is fine, but if you shoot someone, 12 of his buddies show up and you’re pretty much guaranteed to die. Even if you try to be stealthy and sneak up behind someone, it ALWAYS alerts others, which defeats the entire purpose of the stealth kill mechanic, so your only real beneficial means of travel is a car in hopes they don’t follow you or sneaking around everything to avoid everyone, which is time consuming and annoying.

- The menus are ridiculous. There are so many menus, I haven’t even begun to try and understand them because it takes away from my gameplay time. The menus have menus, for goodness sake. It feels like Exzibit made the menu system.

- I CAN’T CLIMB THROUGH A F***ING WINDOW!? Seriously. It doesn’t allow you to climb through windows. At least not yet/not that I have experienced. Maybe that’s a skill that has to be earned? Come on, Ubisoft. Even Call of Duty lets you climb through windows, and I barely even like Call of Duty anymore.

- Since when does a tiger require multiple shots to the head with an AK-47 to kill?

- Jumping down 4 feet costs me health. It regenerates, but that’s not the point. The fact that small jumps can cost me health is one of the most foolish things I’ve ever seen. I’ve jumped from tree limbs in real life higher than the points I’ve fallen from in this game and been fine.

Other than the things listed above, the game is great! Unfortunately, the items I’ve mentioned have left such a sour taste in my mouth to this point, I’m not sure I should keep playing it or sell it while it’s still a hot commodity. In the end, part of me things the cash will be worth more than the frustration associated with trying to play a game that has been humped into popularity by gaming media everywhere.

Seldom do I encounter games that boast a great deal of potential for success and timing that might allow them to overtake a genre.

Usually, the games I buy are either leaders of the genre – already established through previous and successful entries – or good examples of them, utilizing features that players enjoy, but not necessarily possessing the ability to overtake the top dog.

In the case of Battlefield 3 (BF3), the potential existed for the latter of the aforementioned two to become the former. Unfortunately, I say “existed,” just as it suggests – in the past tense of the discussion.

Leading the charge of features that put BF3 in position to take the First-Person Shooter crown is the new Frostbite 2 engine, which right away shows how capable it is of delivering top-tier graphics and impressive realism. If you’re like me and my friends, you get a great look at this by entering the multiplayer first.

The best maps to judge the graphic capabilities are the outdoor maps in modes such as Conquest or Rush, with my personal favorites being the maps set in urban environments (Seine Crossing, Operation Metro, etc). The detail and clarity of the architecture in conjunction with the way things like smoke, sunlight and even wind affect the overall environment is nothing short of exquisite, and despite the decreased frame rate of 30 frames per second (FPS) (by comparison, Modern Warfare 3 will be 60 FPS). Add to that the destructive environments and Battlefield 3 boasts one of the most authentic looking experiences of any multiplayer I have ever played.

The campaign sees no drop-off in ability from the Frostbite 2 engine and shows little-to-no screen tearing. The animations throughout the missions have a great look to them as you’re making your way across the different terrains – all of which are visually stunning. The one thing people are commenting on regarding the graphics is that the console versions (I played this on PS3) don’t look as good as the PC iteration. To be completely honest, I don’t think this is something that should take away from the game at all. Given the other game options out there and the way they look, you’ll be hard-pressed to find something much better.

Despite the focus of most modern FPS games being on multiplayer, I’ve always been a fan of a decent (even if it’s short) campaign. Right away you can tell the Battlefield 3 tries to offer what many other FPS campaigns before it – specifically Call of Duty (surprise, surprise) – have done and offered a “playable movie” in the campaign. Unfortunately, unlike those preceding it, Battlefield 3 carries forth a very forgettable story. The plotline – which I won’t divulge for those of you who still haven’t played it – struck me as typical and unsurprising. It had the basic missions (Tank/Sniper/Capture/etc), a couple of somewhat shocking, but not unsurprising twists and an ending that… well… left me asking “that’s it?” Don’t get me wrong – by the end of the campaign, I had enjoyed it enough, but it wasn’t quite the breathtaking experience that I (and I think many) players anticipated it would be.

My biggest gripe about the campaign isn’t in the difficulty – which is easily above Call of Duty on the normal setting – but the way my character is directed to perform tasks and is usually killed while performing them as directed. For example, early in the game, you’re tasked to an overpass where you’re supposed to man a light machine gun (LMG). However, upon obtaining the LMG and laying down suppressive fire, your elevated location combined with the lack of cover usually results in your death. I did this three times before finally moving away from the designated area and completing the task from another location. This one instance of annoyance would have been tolerable, but there are many more like it throughout the game.

When you look past the lack of innovation in the story and the annoyingly poor AI direction, the campaign gets the job done with a story that will at least keep your interest, but won’t likely have you raving about how great it was. The one thing I appreciated the most about this game (at least through most of it), is the realism portrayed in verbal commands and communication, weaponry and scenarios. Outlandishness takes a backseat to the sobering, true nature of warfare.

Of course, it’s not truly about the single-player campaign with Battlefield 3, is it? Of course not. And fortunately for those of us who understand this, the multiplayer doesn’t disappoint. For the most part, anyway – but I’ll talk about the shortcomings in a minute.

To put it as best as I can, the multiplayer experience and gameplay of Battlefield 3 is something I haven’t experienced for a long time. With Call of Duty, it’s less tactical maneuvering and more run n’ gun intensity. With Socom, it’s less intensity and more luck of the draw (provided you can move past the fact that there hasn’t been a good Socom since Socom 2). Battlefield 3 gives you a well-rounded experience that offers something for everyone and doesn’t confine itself to a specific designation.

One moment, I’m lone-wolfing it through Tehran Highway with my sniper rifle in hand, moving around the map as cleanly as possible during a Team Deathmatch, the next minute, I’m in between the shipping containers of Operation Firestorm with my shotgun or LMG, moving with my squadmates to secure an area in Rush. Or, if I’m looking for something that is literally bigger than just my squadmates and I, I’ll head to Conquest mode for a trip through the Grand Bazaar and an epic battle involving ground forces, tank and jeep supports and airstrikes moving overhead.

In addition to the stellar gameplay, the environments are, as I mentioned earlier, the best I’ve seen. The maps themselves seem particularly well put together, allowing for a great deal of freedom when approaching an objective or attempting to flank/sneak up on an enemy. I appreciate this in particular due to the usually-confining locations in most multiplayer games. While there are areas you cannot venture past in Team Deathmatch, the freedom you are allowed still far exceeds anything currently offered in a multiplayer experience.

Unfortunately, there are a few problematic items that have persisted since the launch of Battlefield 3 that may keep it from reaching above and beyond the “Call of Duty Crown,” which is honestly disappointing for me to write. The biggest issues:

— The party system: While it is understood that Battlefield employs squads, which allow for only four people at a time, there seems to be a big problem with joining a match and keeping your squad intact at the same time. In the multiple instances (at least 10) that I have tried to do this with various friends, not once have I ended up on the same team. Now, when I get a game invite, I usually decline it because it’s very unlikely that I will end up in the same squad or even on the same team.

— Hit Detection: I talked about this in the Things I love/Things I hate piece I wrote not long ago, but hit detection in this game is something to be desired. The biggest sign of this for me is when using a sniper rifle. More often than not in games that utilize sniping, a headshot – if well placed – will give you a one-hit kill. That is only the case some of the time in Battlefield 3. I can honestly say, I have fired upon multiple enemies several times with my SVD or MK11 and hit what appeared to be their heads, only to receive hitmarkers that gave away my intentions and usually cost me the kill. This problem also persists with shotguns at close range (but less often than the sniper rifles).

— Spawn locations: This is a big one for me, as I HATE when I don’t have the opportunity to move before dying. However, that is precisely the problem I am facing in nearly all of my matches in Battlefield 3. Just last night I spawned in front of the enemy time three times in a row and had them spawn behind me another four, resulting in seven VERY frustrating deaths. I understand determining a way to work out random spawns for players is difficult, but this is something that should have been a priority from the beginning instead of a problem now.

— Weapon Progression: There is nothing more rewarding than knowing you’re within reach of that next weapon unlock and getting into a match you are confident will yield the fruits of your labor. The thing is, that labor seems to take a REALLY long time, especially with the escalation in point requirements with each unlock. I know this lends itself to the player ranking system, but come on – it shouldn’t take three days of playing eight to 10 matches per night to get an unlock of a weapon or for a weapon.

— Servers: I was so giddy about having dedicated servers for games I almost wet myself. And then I got online to find the majority of the servers empty, with just a select few having actual gameplay on them. Then I discovered that these functioning servers usually had a wait list attached to them because they were the only ones available in the region. Yikes.

Scarily, these are just a few of the issues that persist in the multiplayer. While these things may not seem terribly game-breaking to many players, they might be deterrents to players who are unfamiliar with Battlefield and are used to the “plug and play” features of other multiplayer experiences. Hopefully EA can get things under control and fixed before there is a mass exodus due to the MW3 release next week (which you will be able to find a review of right here).

Still, I don’t think there should be a large decline in interest, given the functioning aspects of the game. Battlefield 3 offers a great multiplayer experience complemented with an intuitive menu system, which allows you to filter the games you want based on their server, core/hardcore nature, region and game mode. It gives you a nice level of customization that you can even track online thanks to Origin and the Battlelog.

But most of all, it gives you a multiplayer that currently (and for the foreseeable future) has no rival. Though the problems are a nuisance and should have been dealt with before launch, this may be the quintessential FPS multiplayer of the year – especially if it receives the patches it so desperately needs. So if you have any kind of interest in online multiplayer, I definitely recommend picking this up (just make sure you buy it new as it requires an online pass).

So, you might have heard that Homefront sucked. You might have heard that from very reputable sources with lots of fancy advertising or even from the CEO of THQ himself. You may have been told that sales of the game sucked so bad, they shut down the development studio. While the last one may be true – I don’t know, I don’t know the math – I would strongly caution you against believing everything you hear about this game.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect. So, I rented this game with an open mind, and boy am I glad I gave it a chance. While this game is every bit a linear shooter, it puts together two of my favorite game themes: apocalyptic stories and revolutionary tactics. The intro to the story is in the form of a lead-in cutscene. It starts with a press release with Hillary Clinton from May of 2010, and then progresses through a fictional but somewhat believable account of how Kim Jong-un re-unified Korea under a single banner. Then Kim Jong-un goes on to launch an ostensibly benign communications satellite which turns out to be a weaponized satellite which emits an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) and destroys all electronics in the United States. Following the EMP, Kim Jong-un’s forces invade Hawaii, then California, then the midwest. Somehow the midwest – including the home of yours truly – becomes a nuclear wasteland from the Mississippi all the way through the western-most third of Indiana, from the top to the bottom of the country. Freaky, no?

So, as the cutscene fades, you wake up in a small room with not much around you. As you’re kind of getting the hang of the controls, you hear a knock on the door, and your objectives tell you that you need to open the door. as you’re trying to open the door, you discover how much it sucks to be you: the KPA (Korean Peoples’ Army) busts through the door and arrests you. They stick you on a bus and you drive through town. You’re riding, chained up on a bus, down the streets of Montrose, Colorado and you bear witness to some pretty horrifying scenes – even for a video game. There was one scene which particularly weighed on me, a couple with a small child is pleading with their young child to look away, not to think about it, and right as you’re wondering what will happen….

This is where I’ll stop on the walk-through as I think you should see it for yourself.

There is something else that I found interesting in this game: product placement. In just the first 15 minutes of the game I have seen a lot of ads. First, there’s one for TigerDirect on the menu screen, it’s a sign on a store (I don’t think TigerDirect actually has a physical storefront). The second product placement I noticed was White Castle, which was shortly followed by an awful lot of FullThrottle energy drink ads on two vending machines and a park bench. It seems that THQ decided to make some extra coin here by sticking products into the game, but they did it WELL. These ads fit right in, and while I think most folks will notice that these are real-world brands, they make sense in the place and time where they live. Now only if folks like THQ were willing to drop the price on games they load with ads!

I strongly recommend that you check this game out, I think that if you like linear shooters that you will like this game as well.

When I read reviews, I am often skeptical. There have been some games that I have loved, but received terrible reviews (Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix, ’nuff said). Unfortunately, however, the critics are spot-on with Bethesda and Splash Damage’s latest game, Brink.

Set on a floating mega-city called The Ark – a place of refuge following the flooding of the Earth – Brink is a game where you can play as either a member of the Ark Security Forces, or the Resistance forces as your side (you have to pick one or the other) works to swing the arm of control within The Ark. Though suggestive of having a great deal of depth, the rigid story line seems to only vary depending on which side you pick. None of your battles affect the story, other than ending it and forcing you to repeat the level.

As you go through the story, there are a series of missions for you to undertake where you’re either defending something for a period of time or trying to overwhelm a defender (you know, the standard set of objectives for missions). However, I found it remarkably difficult to keep up with everything that was going on in the game as far as the story went. At first I thought that it was a lack of clarity in the game telling me what was going on – and there is plenty of that – but I’ve come to the conclusion that the bigger problem is, there’s too much going on simultaneously; it’s cluttered. You’re trying to find your way through the map and you find yourself with enemies on two sides, then your commanding officer tells you that you need to get back and defend the objective, and then someone tells you they need you to use your class power, then your commanding officer tells you the objective has been lost and to reclaim it. It’s an overwhelming amount of stuff going on all at once.

Adding insult to injury, the missions themselves often had a very nonsensical feel to them, leaving you wishing clarity or at least the ability to understand why things were the way they were. In the first mission as a Revolutionary, for example, you are tasked with defending a door. This door appears to block absolutely nothing. You can actually stand on one side of the door, then duck under some ducting and find yourself on the other side of the door, and the door is still intact and you did not open it. Then, if you fail in that – which I always seem to – you are tasked with preventing an informant from being kidnapped by the enemy, but you can’t kill him. When I say “you can’t kill him,” I don’t mean the mission ends if you kill him… I mean that it is actually not possible to kill him. What’s particularly frustrating about this is that the audio from your commander says that you’d be doing the guy a favor by killing him and preventing him from being tortured. So, just to make sure you’re following me, your commanding officer says to kill the guy, but the game won’t let you kill the guy. Don’t think I didn’t try. At one point I had all enemies cleared, and I stood over the guy shooting into his head for like 30 seconds, and even when his health bar hit zero, the guy still didn’t die. It felt like I was dividing by zero.

The length of some of these missions is arbitrarily set, and is far too long in my opinion. 10 minutes to defend a door, or to prevent a guy from escaping, all the while nothing new is happening. An enemy pops up, you shoot the enemy, then you wait some more, you get the picture.

One of the bright spots of this game was the character customization. Being as Brink is shooter with classes, there are four areas to choose from: operative, soldier, medic, engineer. If you’ve played any games with character customization or shooters (Killzone, for example) then you’re pretty familiar with these classes by now (very TFC-ish). This does add to the gameplay a bit since you can use your class to gain experience and really make a difference in how well your team performs. It was definitely one of the more enjoyable portions of the game (of which there were not many).

I really wanted to have fun with this game as I really do like wasteland scenario games. I was excited to see Bethesda doing another wasteland/free-roam scenario game, as they’ve done a great job with the Fallout series as well as the Elder Scrolls Series. The concept for this game would have been aided much more had it been done similarly to Red Faction: Guerrilla. While I personally believe an open-world lends itself to revolutionary games, I didn’t have much fun with Brink and it will likely be returned tomorrow.

This afternoon marked my first opportunity to play Red Faction: Armageddon, and I must say,  so far I’m impressed.  Still,  I have barely even scratched the surface of this game.  So, here is just a taste of what I’ve seen to this point.

First up is Ruin Mode.  I’d like to start out by saying that I’m disappointed in THQ for deciding to have a core feature of the game require a disposable keycode. Games that have diminished features because the they were not purchased new – effectively holding the gamer hostage for the sake of a few dollars more, DOES harm gaming culture.  But that is for another day.

That said, Ruin Mode is a whole lot of really repetitive fun. The key thing about the modern Red Faction franchise that I love is the destructive engine they use. Volition, Inc. is very proud of the fact that they develop the engines for their games in-house – and they should be. Red Faction: Armageddon’s Ruin Mode is nothing short of a fully-functional demonstration of their destructive engine. You are presented with a world wherein your only task is to blow stuff up, and boy is it going to be fun!

The levels are unevenly difficult, so they don’t appear to be more difficult in a linear fashion – as one may expect. I think the lighting may be off a little bit, too, as sometimes it is hard to see exactly what is supporting that road up on the top of the hill that you’re trying to take down.  Other than that, I can’t really complain.

The tools of destruction at your disposal (fancy way of saying “guns”):

• Plasma ray – This gun shoots a basic, yet powerful plasma ray, but overheats quickly
• Plasma cannon – This gun fires a large plasma burst with a large blast/damage radius
• Nano gun – Shoots out nano bots, which eat whatever you shoot
• Remote Charges – Explosives triggered by a remote control
• Singularity Gun – Fires a temporary gravitational singularity which sucks in all surrounding matter for a brief period of time
• Magnet gun – Fire one shot at what you want to move, and the next shot at what you want it to move towards
• Rocket Launcher – Fires rockets, blows stuff upI have found that a combination is necessary in some maps: first fire a rocket to expose the under-belly of the bridge, then fire the singularity cannon at the supports, taking the whole thing down.

While this game mode does repeat itself quite a bit, and though it can be a little frustrating, it is a lot of fun and provides a perfect way to unwind when all you want to do is blow something up.

In this fast-paced action game, we start again as Ezio Auditore da Firenze, as in the previous iteration of the franchise. You begin in your villa, Monteriggioni, victorious after your last battle (if you haven’t played Assassin’s Creed 2, I won’t spoil it for you… but you totally should play Assassin’s Creed 2). You’ve come back to find all things beautiful and in order. Then, as you’re checking out your defenses, that’s just when the Templars attack! They manage to snag the Piece of Eden in your possession and take it with them back to Roma.

Enter Desmond Miles – your character and the modern day decedent of Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad from the first Assassin’s Creed.  You find yourself back in the van in modern times once again; back with your real-world companions.  Only now, you’re trying to find a place to set up a base of operations below ground where Abstergo Industries - the modern day Templars - won’t find you. You and Lucy make your way through catacombs and tunnels trying to find your way inside a what looks to be a fortified location of significance when it finally hits you: You’re in 21st century Monteriggioni!

From here, the vast majority of the game (like all Assassin’s Creed games) is played within the Animus, the virtual-reality machine used to channel the ancestors of Desmond Miles for their “genetic memories.”  Other than a few clever quips from Desmond, you don’t really experience much in the real world until nearly the end of the game. There are a few useful cut-scenes that help you learn more about how the modern-day Assassin’s Order is fighting the modern day Templar’s Order by reading everybody else’s email, but short of that, I really think Ubisoft could have integrated a lot more modern day gameplay into the overall experience.  Having you in modern day Monteriggioni without the ability to really do little more than explore in the dark is a wasted opportunity to connect the past with the present.

Inside the Animus, the game is played – with the few side-mission exceptions – entirely in Roma. Within Roma there are jaw-dropping, gorgeous graphics that highlight a great attention to detail, even with the pace of the game. The cut-scenes are stunning and even the the non-player-characters (NPCs) are well designed and animated. You even get to drive the vehicles (gondolas)!

As with all Assassin’s Creed versions thus far, you have a pretty wide-open world. There are areas to explore, there are guards to utterly destroy, and there are relevant memories which push the story along. One of my favorite facets of this franchise is that I don’t have to move the story along any faster than I want it to go. If I want to explore ancient Roma, I can explore. If I want to move the story along, I can move the story along.  Though the primary gameplay moves quickly, the player is ultimately in control of throttle.

Making its return in “Brotherhood” is the money side of the game, though it’s nowhere near as integral as it was in Assassin’s Creed 2. You can buy businesses, you can buy armor, you can buy paintings, and all of these things increase your armor. Unlike the previous installations, however, not all armor is for sale. Some of the armor and weapons are for “sale.” Some of them you have to complete “shop quests” for, which essentially boil down to finding materials for the shop keeper before they can get you the items you want. I found this a tedious aspect, and an annoying barrier to getting the armor that I wanted. It really didn’t add to the game, but it did force me to engage in some repetitive tasks I would have preferred not to do.

A new ability in “Brotherhood” makes it so you can recruit assassins, which is a very useful strategic feature of the game. You can recruit assassins by busting up fights and saving townspeople, winning them to your cause. As time goes on, you meet up with carrier pigeon stations to send your assassins on missions in different territories, which is the component that helps them level up.  While you have some minor control over them – you have a handful of wardrobe choices and weapons choices – the ultimate goal is to direct them, so to speak, and get them to level 10 Assassin. Once they’re up to the level of a true Assassin, they have already gained all skill points and weapons, hence your only control being over their wardrobe. That said, you don’t recruit assassins for their ability to accessorize – you recruit them to kick ass.

There are three distinct ways in which your recruited assassins can help you in the game. First, you can call on them in a fight, giving you strength in numbers. Second, you can use them to collect items while they’re on your missions, which will all you to use those items in shop quests. Finally, there is a special attack that your assassins – who are presumably following you around at all times – can do: Arrow Storm. When you call on your assassin brothers to perform the Arrow Storm attack, they will fire arrows into any group of baddies in your targeted area. All surrounding enemies die simultaneously and without raising your notoriety or causing you to be discovered. It’s quite useful to learn this attack and use it whenever you need, but be careful because it is timing-based.

Now the time has come for me to discuss my least favorite feature: Multi-player. I love multi-player games. I play them all the time.  Multi-player in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is very repetitive, very boring and very frustrating. Imagine you’re in a city full of competing assassins. Your job is to find and kill your target without being detected. The thing is, it’s far too easy to put yourself in a position to detect your enemy. Sitting on a chimney on a rooftop somewhere will almost instantly expose anyone coming to get you. I don’t know what a good multi-player experience for Assassin’s Creed would be, but this wasn’t it. Perhaps some co-op missions would be more suitable, similar to what you see in the Crackdown franchise. I know I’d love to play Assassin’s Creed with some friends online. There are some games you play for the gorgeous scenery and the storyline, and there are other games that you play for the multi-player experience. This game is the former. Any multi-player – or other game mode – that does not include the storyline, leaves me struggling to see how I would enjoy it.

Finally, there is the training mode. In this version there is a mode where you’re in the “white room,” sneaking around and training with virtual guards as targets. Training mode is very hard and I found it unnecessary when considering that most of the skills in Assassin’s Creed are fairly simple to understand.The scenarios cooked up for training  mode were much harder than most of the situations I encountered in the actual game.

One big criticism I do have of this, and previous games in this franchise, is that the controls are sometimes clunky. For example, sometimes it’s not obvious which way you want to hold the stick to get the character to jump. This is especially noticeable during the timed bits of the game – of which there seem to be fewer in this version than last.  The lack of confidence in controls can be frustrating to the point of cursing and throwing the controller. Some serious refinement is necessary, though for the most part, this doesn’t take away from the enjoyment of the game overall, just during brief times wherein you’re struggling with inaccurate and counter-intuitive controls.

The long and short of this game is that it’s a blast. Despite a few minor annoyances, this game is gorgeous, it’s got a deep, rich storyline, and I found the characters to be easy to relate to for the most part. I truly cannot wait for the Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.

I highly recommend this game, though I don’t recommend starting the series with this entry.  Instead, I strongly suggest you play Assassin’s Creed 2 prior to Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, as you will miss out on most of the story that is continued in this iteration.

 

When I first heard about Rockstar Games‘ and Team Bondi’s newest IP, L.A. Noire, all I could think was that it would be another iteration of Rockstar’s popular Grand Theft Auto series with a different skin (a la Red Dead Redemption).  However, the more I read about the game – a crime drama set in late 1947 Los Angeles – the more intrigued I became, especially with the idea that gunplay was not a primary aspect of the game.  So, I took the bait.

The opening scene begins as you would want any noir-style film to begin – dark and somewhat brooding with an intangible but ever-present tension.  You assume the role of Cole Phelps, a WWII hero and up-and-comer in the Los Angeles police force.  Though the first mission is no indication, you quickly learn that Phelps is a by-the-book type of cop with a nose for details but a man with demons he can’t seem to outrun.  Each conversation between Phelps and other Non-Playable Characters (NPCs) paint him as a man out to prove nothing to anyone but himself as he ascends through the detective ranks and desks of the LAPD.

The progression of Phelps’ career and cases works well in showing the rise to stardom – and fall from grace – that shape the overall narrative tone of the game.  Among the stops you’ll make after you put in your time during the Patrol desk (which is mostly arbitrary to the actual story, save for a few tidbits revealed in cutscenes, walkthrough sequences and necessary character development) is the traffic desk, where you’ll get a taste of the seedy underworld that is Los Angeles, complete with jilted lovers and the darker side of the film industry.  From there, you’ll make your way through the Homicide desk with a multi-part jaunt through the real-life Black Dahlia murders, onto the Vice squad where the line between justice and corruption becomes questionable at best, before finishing at the Arson desk – a progression move that becomes apparent with time.  The story stays compelling up until the final scene that will likely leave you – as it did me – feeling conflicted but satisfied.

As far as gameplay is concerned, I enjoy the “words-not-bullets” approach taken in the game, headlined by interrogation and interviewing that rests how much – or how little – evidence you collect for a case or against a witness, squarely on your shoulders.  Aiding you in this venture is an intuitive “notebook” feature that catalogs all the details of each case – from a blood stained stocking or known-address, to the dying – but implicit – words of a shooter in a robbery-gone-wrong.   Unfortunately, the investigation process – though thrilling at first – seems to become formulaic as the game marches on.  By the end of your time on the Traffic desk, you know the drill of “Arrive at scene, collect clues, initiate small-talk, conduct interviews, case closed, repeat.”  Scouring scenes for clues becomes very tiresome very quickly.  Were it not for the fact that I didn’t want to miss out on any dialog, I could have just as easily skipped entire rooms during searches and still completed my cases. While there are foot and car chase sequences to break up the procedural feel of the game, even these aspects become predictable by game’s end.  Once you’ve experienced one car chase, you may as well have experienced them all.  This doesn’t mean they aren’t enjoyable, but you won’t find many varying details from one chase to the next (as is true with the foot chases).

The real substance of the game comes through in the interrogations themselves, which pit you against the potential suspect in a game of playing on emotions.  All accusations must be backed up by proof and the difference between that next lead and empty hands may be the difference between believing someone or doubting them.  This can be frustrating at times due to the very fine lines between suspecting doubt and the truth and the ability to incorrectly utilize evidence that otherwise seems to fit perfectly. Still, despite the ability to lose leads and information, how you decide to conduct interviews and interrogations has no actual impact on the main storyline, which I found to be a bit of a letdown.

Mechanically, the game moves well.  The facial features – which are most evident in the interviews and interrogations – blow away anything I’ve ever seen in a video game and give you the feel of watching an interactive movie.  Character movement is very fluid, highlighted by great details such as changing shadows and clothing that moves when your character does.    My only real complaint is the driving ability in this game.  Driving to and from locations can be very frustrating at first due to the car control setup.  This is amplified by the inability to select any other control methods or even an adequate alternate camera view.  Fortunately, you can forgo driving yourself to locations by having  your partner do so, a feature I love, since driving became very stale after only a few cases.  If it weren’t for how amazingly put together the city of Los Angeles is, I would say have your partner drive to every crime scene.

Despite the lack of impactful decision making and some control gaffs (looking at you, cover system), compelling plot-lines help drive an overall enjoyable experience.  Being as this is a new venture by Rockstar and Team Bondi, I feel inclined to overlook the flaws for the sake of an experience that you would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.

However, if this is indeed the next great franchise, a lot of changes – both minor and major – need to be made before greatness is truly realized.  If Rockstar and Bondi can learn from their mistakes in L.A. Noire and prove it, I would have no problem throwing down money on a Chicago or New York Noire.