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LA Noire Day#7: Another Day, Another Murder

Day#7 and I have to say that the game is starting to get old for me. The story is dragging a bit now. Clearly there’s something going on, but the game is just dragging it out. I have a pretty good idea where it’s going, so I want it to move already. And the gameplay is totally redundant now. The interview is too opaque, and I feel like I need to use tons of hints to feel confident about victory. The clue searching in houses and crime scenes has become click through boring. This game better start firing some bells and whistles soon, because despite some strengths, it’s getting old fast. And when murder cases are getting old, your game is going off the rails in a BAD way. Spoilers within.

We pick up with a repeat of the CS start of the “White Shoe Slaying.” I get control as the cops in the room talk about the veracity of a new Black Dahlia letter. I head to the scene, and en route, Galloway and Phelps talk again about whether it’s one murderer or many. I’m not sure how many different ways they can say this. I drive to the site and follow a car up to the actual murder scene. There’s a CS discussion with the coroner, revealing that rain washed out the crime scene, but in many ways (get ready for it….) this murder seems the same as other murders: same rope, same trauma. The victim is clothed though with no message and no valuables on scene. Phelps asks where her other shoe is. I get control and search the body. I find a dry cleaning label, but no other clues really. As I leave the scene, someone CS pulls up. It’s a neighbor. I get control to interview her. She tells me about hobo “leader” – disfigured lunatic who was looking around and lives at some hobo camp. The game won’t let me leave yet, but there’s nothing more to find. I finally try a police phone and that lets me go, since I get the addresses of the hobo camp and the dry cleaner. I can’t find my car as we leave, so I just take a random one. Huh, taking other cars is completing some kind of set. Anyway, now in car, I drive to the laundry.

When we arrive, Phelps CS talks to the owner and mentions the tag. The owner gives Phelps the register. I have to look through the sheet to find the tag number, and doing so I find her name and address. I immediately go to the house as Galloway again says it’s a wife killer case. We arrive at the house and CS meet husband. He describes his wife and they tell him that she’s dead, to which he seems quite upset. He takes his two daughters into the kitchen. I get control to look around the house. I find a picture of the couple turned down and a Baron’s Bar matchbook. I also find her handbag in the house, so she went out without her id and no lipstick (and thus no writing on the body). I also find muddy shoes and missing rope on the boat outside. I decide to question the husband next. I go 2/4 questions to the guy, missing something big at the end. He says that they went to a party together but she wanted to go dancing. He tried to reminder her that they had to come home for the kids, but she didn’t care so he stayed at the party playing cards when she left.  I can’t see anything else to do here, so I go to Baron’s Bar.

The bar scene starts with a CS talk to the bartender. The bartender heard that the victim was killed and says that he called the husband to pick the victim up, but the husband was out. I get control and give him a very sloppy interview him, but I get that two creeps hit on her – a sailor and a guy in the back. Once that guy is pointed out, he runs. I get control to chase him outside, which leads to a car chase that I fail once, then get. Oh why do they make me car chase in this game when the driving SUCKS SO MUCH? When I get to the end of the chase, I get a chance to question him. He saw the victim go off with the sailor in a cab, but that’s all he knows because the sailor cold cocked him and left him on the street.  He’s a previous sexual offender, and so Galloway puts him in a cell as a witness. I call an operator and get the cab info . When I get it, the operator also tells me that the sailor came by the station to give evidence and is being detained. The cab gets called in and I have to chase it down on the street. I do it, and the driver gets out to talk CS. He says the couple got dropped off at the Crystal Ballroom. She wasn’t having any of his action in the cab, but that’s all the driver knows.

I decide to go to the hobo camp before the station. I get to hobo camp after totally crashing my car — ah, this is Rockstar driving. When I arrive, I CS talk to a hobo at edge of a fence. He’s crazy and Galloway concludes that there’s nothing here to see and I have to leave. The residence is still a location I can go to, so I go back there for one more clue (a wet shirt) and then go to the station for the sailor. I manage to hit a pedestrian on the way back to the station, hero cop that I am. In the sailor’s interview, I get 3/4 questions right and find out that the sailor left her on the bus and she got off at her stop. I get the CS word that my hobo was spotted at the camp and has priors with women. I also get word that the card game at the party the husband was at broke up late and so they have husband brought in. I get to the hobo camp and enter. CS, Galloway (with a shotgun) and Phelps enter the camp, and the hobo we’re looking for is rallying the troops and threatens us with violence. Galloway shoots one guy as they approach, and I have to fist fight the hobo, which I do handily. He claims we can’t take anything more from him than the Japanese did and he is clearly a communist. I search his shack. I find a newspaper and see a flashback. A vice guy has a friend from the war (a doctor) who was selling morphine to gangsters to sell to clinics, but the gangsters sold it to addicts instead.  The friend wants help stopping it, but the cop doesn’t want to. I get back to the shack and find the bloody rope as well as the change purse of the victim. We arrest the hobo tout suite.

I go to the bus depot before the station. Phelps CS talks to the dispatcher, and she tells Phelps the driver of the previous bus is on a route right now. I have to drive the route looking for him. I miss the bus going the opposite way up front, so I end up driving around a while trying to find it. Then I do see it and ARGGGHHHH FUCKING BUG! The bus stops because of an accident and it won’t pull over. Fuck it, I’ll try to finish the case without it. I interview the hobo. In CS, he reveals he was a flamethrower user. I question him correctly and get him for murder, even without the bus. He just starts spewing how much he hates women and how he can’t remember all the women he’s hurt. We cut to a CS of scene with commander; he’s happy to have a chance to clear out hobos. I end the case with 15/17 clues, 12/16 questions, lots o’ damage, and tip that says that the bus driver would have liked to testify. YES AND I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO HAVE A CHANCE TO TALK TO HIM — FUCK YOU GAME!!! We then cut to a CS of Phelps at a jazz club. It’s a pretty club, but he then cut right away. Why was Phelps there?

“The Studio Secretary Murder” is the next case. It begins with a CS of a woman drunk at a train yard and guy assaults her with a tire iron. We cut to a CS of the commander assuring a councilor over the phone. When he hangs up, he tells Galloway and Phelps that a pawn broker was just sold a ring of Muller’s (a previous victim) and then he wants us to investigate a new murder at the railyard. I get to the pawnshop. The owner, David Bremner, shows us the rings. Galloway promises to give him $10 as compensation for the evidence. He’s got nothing on the guy who brought them, although I do get a manufacturer on one of the rings. I get a “Misunderstanding” subplot as I drive around. That subplot starts with a guy threatening a foreigner and then shooting him. I have to chase the perp, and corner him in a parking lot. Again, I can’t capture him even though I run into him, so instead I have to chase him around the lot and shoot him to death. I have my partner drive to the railyard.  Galloway CS says to keep ring thing under our hats. When we get to the scene, a beat cop CS tells Phelps that some creep Jamison found the body. I talk to a rail worker so says he saw Jamison on top of the dead victim. I then talk to the coroner. There’s no writing, more blunt trauma and strangulation. Searching the body reveals that she’s a vagrant and missing a ring. Her name is Evelyn Summers, which I discover when I find a studio ID for a closed studio as well as a list of personal effects in her purse. I then talk to Jamison. He says he was kissing the body, and that he went through the purse and didn’t take any money. Galloway punches him a few times and then has him arrested. I call for the location of nearby liquor stores and get one. I start to head there, and on the drive, Galloway talks about the Japanese rising up against the emperor and Phelps is contemplative. I have enough driving for one session, so I call it a night.

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2 Responses

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  1. Heath says

    I think the boredom is coming in part to play style. I blew through the game in a weekend or so. Thought it was great. It might seem lengthy if played in short bursts. It does get repetitive but truthfully all games do at a certain point. I cut this lone some extra slack as a lover of the text adventure game genre.

    [WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.

  2. admin says

    I’m not as quick to forgive it, Heath. Boring is boring. But I’m still going. It’s just interesting enough to keep me plodding along.

    I think Clayton put it best when he said, “I can’t wait for LA Noire 3.” They’ve got an idea here that’s worth exploring and there are certainly high notes, but there are also tons of kinks to work out.



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