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Sin Ogaris
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 Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 1:57 am Post subject: |
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GAH!
Typical of anything with the Rockstar name in some way attached this game isn't without its bugs. Twice now lines of dialogue haven't been spoken and in a cutscene a man was invisible save for his hat.
Not major, but it certainly kills the immersion factor.
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Nietzsche
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 2:35 am Post subject: |
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The killers a ghost.
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Lemmiwinks
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 8:36 am Post subject: |
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I think the game is highly original and has some good points that have been discussed here, however there are some overiding negatives in my opinion:
The first is the pacing:
I felt like I burned through the first two desks in the better part of an hour. There was no sense of earning your way up the ranks aside from completing the set case missions. As soon as you finish one case it propels you immediately into the next. Couple this with the relatively slow pace of the mission and it kind of kills the immersion for me.
Speaking of killing the immersion, I feel that interrogations make little or no sense if you deviate from the right questions and answers. You seem to move between 'good' cop and 'bad' cop so frequently that it just makes no sense at all. Crims clam up then in the next answer are all too happy to talk to you even though you have repeatedly accused them of their dead wives'murder. It seems that unless you ask the right questions every time the dialogue seems ludicrous.
Also, I love how you score low on a case mission and are berated by the sergeant who sends you back to the traffic desk only to carry on as if nothing happened in the next cut scene.
Finally, why bother to lovingly recreate 1947 Los Angeles and then give the player little or no reason to explore the world. Either it's a sandbox game or it's not. Make up your mind.
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Gamesta
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 10:23 am Post subject: |
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The only bug I have seen is a pedestrian disappearing right in front of my eyes.
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Luketheman5
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 11:00 am Post subject: |
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Only bug I seen is people sitting in thin air, then a bench will pop out of nowhere.
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Sin Ogaris
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 12:30 pm Post subject: |
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Oh, there's been object pop in as well, while walking around and in cutscenes.
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Aussie XP
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 3:34 pm Post subject: |
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I played about 30 minutes of it. The face capture stuff is amazing, but it doesn't feel like the sort of game I'd ever play again after my first playthrough. I know there are different outcomes but if you already know the cases there's not much point right? Its still an impressive game, just perhaps judged a bit harshly in light of Rockstars other children (GTA4, Red Dead).
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Soap of Death
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 3:50 pm Post subject: |
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I beat the game last night, I won't spoil anything.
I liked it overall, it did what it set out to achieve but I wasn't a huge fan of the ending and the events leading up to it. Once more people have beaten it I might start elaborating. I didn't really care much for Phelps either but that's another thing I'll discuss later.
Some well known things I will discuss. The city does feel lifeless, I didn't hear any interesting NPC chatter. It was the usual "Oh, it's that cop in the paper!" or "Hey buddy, you heard of soap?" It's a shame there's no consequence for failing a case, I seemed to have failed one case because after the conviction my captain was giving me an earful about how I ****** up. However at the beginning of the next case I'm his favourite detective who always gets results.
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Benza
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Aussie XP wrote: | | Its still an impressive game, just perhaps judged a bit harshly in light of Rockstars other children (GTA4, Red Dead). |
As one of the people who don't think the game is good, I'm not basing it on GTA 4/Red Dead comparisons since well.. it's not made by Rockstar (That and I thought GTA 4 was pretty dissapointing) It's just did nothing to grab my attention in the first couple of hours and was ridiculously cutscene heavy.
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Luketheman5
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 10:55 pm Post subject: |
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I accidentally skipped a cutscene, a flashback. Can someone link me to it/tell me what I missed alternatively?
It was the one after the first case as an Ad Vice.
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Aussie XP
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 10:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Benza wrote: | | Aussie XP wrote: | | Its still an impressive game, just perhaps judged a bit harshly in light of Rockstars other children (GTA4, Red Dead). |
As one of the people who don't think the game is good, I'm not basing it on GTA 4/Red Dead comparisons since well.. it's not made by Rockstar (That and I thought GTA 4 was pretty dissapointing) It's just did nothing to grab my attention in the first couple of hours and was ridiculously cutscene heavy. |
Yeah I know its a different developer, but people have been coming into EB calling it "that new gta game' because its attached to Rockstar. Those people are idiots anyway...
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Guffers
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 11:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Sin Ogaris wrote: | GAH!
Typical of anything with the Rockstar name in some way attached this game isn't without its bugs. Twice now lines of dialogue haven't been spoken and in a cutscene a man was invisible save for his hat.
Not major, but it certainly kills the immersion factor. |
I must be really lucky because I pumped 100 plus hours into both GTA IV and Red Dead and never saw any bugs at all. I've always heard that Rockstar games are buggy but they seem to be quite polished to me.
Dumb luck I guess...
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Sin Ogaris
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 11:52 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, so I'm pretty sure Homicide could have been a game on it's own, that was amazing. Although I did think the ending developments were too heavy handed and didn't play out as well as the rest of the desk, it was all very "blah, let's lay a twist right out in front of you instead of working up to it". Still a really fun ride, and I'm glad I'm in Vice now, been meaning to see where things will go with this Vice fella.
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Crank
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 1:29 am Post subject: |
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| Sin Ogaris wrote: | | Yeah, so I'm pretty sure Homicide could have been a game on it's own, that was amazing. Although I did think the ending developments were too heavy handed and didn't play out as well as the rest of the desk, it was all very "blah, let's lay a twist right out in front of you instead of working up to it". Still a really fun ride, and I'm glad I'm in Vice now, been meaning to see where things will go with this Vice fella. |
I've heard the story arc described as like two series of a television show. Having just finished it, I'd say that the end of homicide climaxes as though it were the end of season one.
Great ending, the final desk really shakes things up leading up to the finale. Don't want to say too much, but after the credits is another snippet of storyline, so look out for that. And the newspapers also flesh things out, so keep an eye out for them. They are pretty easy to find, though, I only missed one.
More thoughts when I have had time to compose them properly, but overall a great game that tries to do things differently and, in my opinion, succeeds brilliantly.
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Sin Ogaris
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 1:51 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, I love the newspaper stories, I particularly love how...
| spoilers wrote: | The Newspapers, the flashbacks, and the actual desk progression, all seem to be leading up to the same point. If it plays out how I think, at the very least, Vice is going to have a pretty spectacular finish.
It does make me curious about arson though, it seems like a strange way to finish but maybe I'm not seeing all of the bigger picture yet.
I'll keep the next bit in the spoiler tags because people might not want to hear it.
Oh, and I love how each desk plays very differently, Traffic seemed to involve a lot more running around and chasing people down, while Homicide plays out like a strong "whodunnit" with more intertwining suspects and witnesses and the like with bucket loads of clues to sift through. Now that I'm on Vice it plays like a more typical action game, still with the occasional questioning but it's a lot more about cracking skulls and shooting the bad guys. You get a lead and then you kick in the door and badger your way to your next clue. |
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bobboblaw
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 2:34 pm Post subject: |
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I just finished Homicide this morning, damn that last section was immersive and atmospheric especially exploring the house at the church. The last case was a bit hit and miss for me though. Great idea and some awesome segments, but flawed execution that really disappointed me in the latter half.
| SPOILERS wrote: | I loved the idea of working out the locations the clues led to, and then finding new hints, but the problem was, I knew what places the clues were leading to (The Church and Tar Pit), but because I never drove past those landmarks prior to this case, they weren't on my map. I just had to drive around until I either found them myself, or the game tells you where to go. It would've really helped this case out if all landmarks/descriptions were marked on your map. As for the twist, while it was well done, I suspected the temp bartender had something to with it from the 2nd homicide case.
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Can't wait to get stuck into the Vice cases now, though I'll miss Rusty.
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metalgear_yoshi
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 3:14 pm Post subject: |
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| bobboblaw wrote: | I just finished Homicide this morning, damn that last section was immersive and atmospheric especially exploring the house at the church. The last case was a bit hit and miss for me though. Great idea and some awesome segments, but flawed execution that really disappointed me in the latter half.
| SPOILERS wrote: | I loved the idea of working out the locations the clues led to, and then finding new hints, but the problem was, I knew what places the clues were leading to (The Church and Tar Pit), but because I never drove past those landmarks prior to this case, they weren't on my map. I just had to drive around until I either found them myself, or the game tells you where to go. It would've really helped this case out if all landmarks/descriptions were marked on your map. As for the twist, while it was well done, I suspected the temp bartender had something to with it from the 2nd homicide case.
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Can't wait to get stuck into the Vice cases now, though I'll miss Rusty. |
Hmm, that's interesting. *kinda spoilers*, When I played it those locations where marked with a ?, the same way the hidden cars are. It was actually a bit of a buzz kill as it made the locations obvious, the ones I hadn't passed before anyway.
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Sin Ogaris
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 3:46 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, what he said.
Spoilers below:
I'd already discovered about 4 of them, so it was a bit trickier for me.
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bobboblaw
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 4:23 pm Post subject: |
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| metalgear_yoshi wrote: | | Hmm, that's interesting. *kinda spoilers*, When I played it those locations where marked with a ?, the same way the hidden cars are. It was actually a bit of a buzz kill as it made the locations obvious, the ones I hadn't passed before anyway. |
Oh shit, I had no idea 
I take back my complaint, I can't believe I didn't notice that. I looked at a few of the ?'s on the map while looking at the unlocked landmarks, and they said "Hidden Vehicle", so I just assumed that all the ?'s were cars. 
Oh well, it was only 2 locations I was missing, one I found myself in a few minutes (as it was close to the previous), the other the game told me after driving around for about 5 minutes.
Maybe they should've markes all 30 landmarks on the map (rather than just the right ones), which might make it more challenging to work out where to go, but then again it'd make finding them for the trophy/achievement easier. (Though surely the devs realise people will just look on the internet/guides to find all the collectibles.)
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Last edited by bobboblaw on Tue May 24, 2011 4:31 pm, edited 2 times in total
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Soap of Death
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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An easy way to work out which is the correct place to go is by marking it as a waypoint. If the objective pops up on screen eg. Investigate the ____ then you've got the right one.
They aren't too hard to work out but no harm in knowing a quicker way of going about it.
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metalgear_yoshi
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 4:46 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, I only had two of the sites not seen so it wasn't that big of an issue. As you said, they should of marked all 30 locations.
Anyway, just finished the game! Thoroughly enjoyed the whole lot, I really don't think it dragged at any point for me. I found the story to be pretty great with only the couple "twists" being a little bit weak but by no means truly impacting on my overall impression. I found the ending to be really fitting, not necessarily rewarding, but I liked it.
I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on the pre-order dlc and anything they release latter. Does anyone here have any of the extra missions and played them? I'm interested in how long they are and in what way they relate o the main narrative, if any.
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Gamesta
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 10:39 pm Post subject: |
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Woops posted in the wrong thread.
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mrpookles
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 11:18 pm Post subject: |
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Finished it tonight. Definitely didn't think it dragged, but I thought the latter part of the game could've been stronger.
I'm not sure about the ending yet.
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kartanym
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| Posted: Wed May 25, 2011 12:13 am Post subject: |
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I'm enjoying this so far. I can understand the gripes about pacing, it's certainly not an action game, but I like it. It's a refreshing change of pace, to really explore the surroundings and take it all in before moving on. Maybe I'm just over the shooter genre, but I really am liking this one.
I'll be fair, it's far from perfect, but I can forgive it because of it's storytelling. Yeah there's some hiccups with that too, some character reactions don't make sense considering what may have happened before. But it's still a scripted story, I had the same issues with Mass Effect 2 come to think of it.
In the end, it's the characters that do it for me. There's some great performances, some really great acting and dialogue. I can forgive the technical faults because of the level of detail Team Bondi put into this, and I get the feeling Rockstar may have suggested adding elements to expand the gameplay beyond the initial idea (such as fist fighting. Is it me, or was that really needed?)
You know what, I'm going back to Mass Effect again. This feels just like it. A game with some fantastic ideas, some great characters and compelling stories, but minor bugs and control problems that hamper it. I think that's a good comparison, and based on how well it's tracking even with these issues, I can see it becoming a great franchise. Niche maybe, but a perfect distraction considering the overabundance of 1st person shooters.
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Sin Ogaris
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| Posted: Wed May 25, 2011 12:30 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, my biggest gripe narrative wise is how forced the story is. I think the game would have been damn near perfect if you narrative flowed with your actions, rather than pushing your action's towards the narrative.
And after just completing the Vice desk I also think that it's the exact opposite of "dragged" I actually think it needs a bit more to flesh out the story, which stems back to my original point, the narrative really needs some "outside the department" moments because apart from one scene, which was pretty vague and a newspaper headline it was completely from left field.
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