There are two things you need to know going into L.A. Noire, and the first is that this isn't just a 1940s-set Grand Theft Auto. Yes, it features a lot of driving and shooting in an open world, but its real focus is on investigation. And while you're probably already aware of its detective-sim aspects, you might be surprised to learn that you’ll actually spend a lot more time scouring crime scenes and questioning suspects than you will chasing them down and/or shooting them dead...
Let us begin by saying right off that we’re sort of rabid Tomb Raider fans. We liked even the lesser entries in the series, except Angel of Darkness, for obvious reasons. Even so, one does not need to be a Tomb Raider fan at all to enjoy Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. One also doesn’t need to play it in co-op – it’s still a tremendously fun experience when played alone. Before we get into the rest of the review, though, we should address Lara’s elephant in the mansion: the lack of online co-op for the initial release. In case not everybody knows, although we were all led to believe it would be an online co-op game from the get-go, instead it currently features only sit-next-to-your-buddy co-op, with online being released through a patch in about a month...
Can a top-down shooter ever truly be scary? People have certainly tried to light us up with frights over the years; Larva Mortus is a solid recent attempt from independent developers Rake in Grass. Demonic faces come screaming out of the screen, while your sword and shotgun make short work of zombies.
So it turns out the guy you need when the zombie apocalypse happens isn’t actually a soldier or biologist; it’s the nerd that spends all his time on Google Maps. In a world suddenly filled with shuffling killers and giant bugs, you play as a lone, friendly zombie, leading lines of refugees to safety across detailed satellite images of real world locations. These range from San Francisco to exotic Newcastle.
Last Rebellion offers an interesting idea for its world: the main character(s), Nine and Aisha, share a single soul, so only one of them can exist in reality at a time. The world in which these characters live is pretty brown and boring, but this otherwise passable RPG’s ace in the hole is its creative attack system.
Ouch! This was supposed to be Square Enix’s attempt to make a truly global RPG. Not so much a Japanese RPG, more an Everywhere-RPG. So why is the opening hour so utterly confusing and unwelcoming? An unfamiliar battle system, all stats and weird terminology and with not much in the way of a helping hand. We can’t think of an RPG that starts this badly.
Some say that The Last Story is an appropriate title for Mistwalker's Japanese role-playing game. After all, it's coming during the twilight hours of the Wii's lifecycle. Is it an appropriate swan song for Nintendo's blockbuster console?
I have a brilliant financial plan: Games should be cost-adjusted to what they would’ve cost during the time they’re set in. You’re making a depression-era mafia epic? Price it at $2. Creating a caveman-themed, rocks-and-clubs beat-’em-up? That’ll be four boars. Star Wars RPG? 3,200 credits.
Lead and Gold is worth its weight in any currency. It looks and plays better than what I’ve come to expect from a $15 game; ask it to stand in the street with only its polish, lighting effects, gunplay and level design to defend itself, and it’d leave any other game in the third-person, team-based genre full of smoking holes...
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