First of all, it's from Rockstar (GTA series and Red Dead Revolver) so the production values are going to be high.
You play a 1940's cop/detective in Los Angeles.
Positives:
-Game map area is huge and detailed. Best looking open world yet and looks very much the part of the time frame.
-Lip sync for the avatars is best I've seen as well. Faces look great and are at times a little freaky to look at due to the realism. This plays a big role as you must use your detective skills to evaluate facial expressions and mannerisms.
-Animations are excellent. The characters and scenes flow well from cut scene to live action and back to cut scenes.
-I'd put driving on par with GTA IV. Being a cop, you can ram a few cars (accidentally) and not get an all points bulletin put out on you. At the same time, your partner will give you a hard time if you drive bad. I've made a point to avoid running anyone over. I may have killed one pedestrian...not sure. A red icon popped up on the screen after I was in an accident but at the same time there was some criminal activity so it may have been a random crime event I could have pursued while on my way to the next case.
-Searching for clues is fun and they don't always lead you to the clues. Once you find a clue spot (controller rumbles...wonder what they do for original PS3 owners with no rumble) you can move your hand around...pick up various items if more than one...once in your hand you can move it around and examine it...turn it the right way and you may spot a serial number, etc.
-Story seems ok, and it better be for a game like this. There are 21 cases to solve as well as 40 other crimes.
-Voice acting is excellent
-You get experience for doing a good job questioning witnesses, etc. If you guess right on determining if they are telling the truth, doubt them or lying, you get XP. You also have a cool cluebook with all your gathered stuff. Sometimes when calling out a witness, you need to select the clue/evidence that proves or calls into question the witness' statement. You can use your XP to make it easier to find clues at crime scenes.
-The main character is a WW2 war hero so there's some flashbacks which give some insight into the character. So far they've been well done.
-it's one of those games that you sometimes stop and look around at how nice everything looks in the game (just like Red Dead)
-game mechanics are simple as they can be. when possible, the game makes it so you don't need to push buttons to do things...like climbing, jumping over fences, etc. Hand to hand fighting is fun. Shooting on the run is well done. Cover mechanics are well done
-pretty lengthy game stats. Typical stuff like max speed in an automobile...number of cars driven, ways killed people, etc. There's a lot of those kinda stats.
-Looks like they made an attempt to make the games UI as simple and unobtrusive as possible. So far it's been great. Tutorial runs the first few cases and is well integrated.
-If you don't feel like driving around town to get from place to place, you can make your partner drive. I think that's a good move. Sometimes it's fun to drive but with all the locations, you might want to take a breather from behind the wheel once in awhile.
Negatives:
-Hadn't played more than an hour and I was 10% done. Now, I think the percentage is based on the 21 cases alone and the first few cases are really short and easy so I'm thinking that's why it shows close to 10%. I had completed 3/21 cases and 0/40 side crimes so the percentages don't add up. Case #4 which I'm on, seems to be taking longer so I don't think there's reason to panic on game length.
-So far, I've been almost perfect in my detective work. I have feeling this is also due to the tutorial/beginning part of the game. For the first few cases, I didn't have a lot of choice and felt like I was in an interactive movie, pushing a button here and there. It's too early to tell and I think the game world will open up. I wasn't restricted to going anywhere. I could walk across the entire town if I wanted to but stuck to the case.
-Game may move a little slow for the FPS fans out there. This game is story driven not shooter driven.
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I'm not far into the game. Less than two hours, so the negatives I've mentioned may not hold true. There's probably not much convincing needed to try out this game. If you've played GTA IV and Red Dead, you know it's going to be a quality game. Where this game takes another step up is in the facial expressions, lip syncing, etc. I received a promotion after three cases from cop to detective. It's going to be fun watching the main character advance through the story.
