[Crunchy in milk]

Originally Posted by TimovieMan

Crud! I'm playing L.A. Noire, I'm still at the traffic desk, and already the game is starting to annoy me.

Its a very long game, lots of traffic cases, and then lots of homicide cases, and then finally you get to vice...

The threads don't come together till many, many, many hours in. For the most part you're just tasked with living life as Cole. I enjoyed the game a lot more once I stopped pressuring myself to finish case after case in quick succession in the hopes that the main story would pick up.

Originally Posted by TimovieMan

My initial "ZOMG! This game is beautiful!!!" shock-and-awe moment has fleeted and now the game is slowly but steadily starting to bug me [...]

The driving was already getting tedious immediately after the tutorial. It's impossible to drive one block without hitting a car or nearly running over a pedestrian [...] having your partner drive makes you miss all the street crime

I honestly felt the driving was great (especially compared to Mafia II), I didn't have any trouble using keyboard and mouse, but I have trained myself to tap the accelerator key and listen to the engine rather than hold it down and go for broke, its the only way to account for digital input. The cars handle really well and I never once hit a pedestrian (through sheer luck a few times I'm sure).

I did once have a guy who'd bought a stolen car take out a pedestrian, and when I caught up to him for the cinematic dialogue he had this silly line wondering why he was being pinched... I couldn't even point out that he'd just mowed down someone.

Car chases are usually quite forgiving, they do slow down for you and your partner is usually a crack shot at their tyres if you get him close on the inside.

I don't mind missing the street crime, as you say they're mostly just shoot outs which is the least interesting part of the game for me. They're always on the other side of the town from where I get the call and they really seem more suited to uniformed police... like they're left overs tacked back on, perhaps from a time when the player was meant to be a beat cop (uniformed police) for longer.

Whenever the call comes over the radio I just open the map, if its not immediately on the way to the next destination in my current case I just ignore it. So far as I can tell the XP is good for achievements (no interested) and outfits, which you'll unlock through general play in short order anyway.

Originally Posted by TimovieMan

Saving at your own leisure would [...] have helped with the interviews, because they're starting to get more and more illogical as the game progresses. The way the developer's mind works is not how mine works and interviews are becoming guessing games.

The game does autosave usually right before a conversation or right before entering an area where a discussion will take place. Unfortunately it will overwrite this autosave once you complete dialogue. Your only option is to quit to menu during the dialogue and then 'continue' to retry a dialogue without restarting the whole case.

I loved the Dialogue system, but the prompts you've given (Truth, Doubt, Lie) are confusing. Visually theres no difference in the actors performance between a correct Doubt and Lie response, the only difference is if you have evidence to the contrary. I would love a hack that just changes the word 'Lie' to 'Proof' or 'Evidence'. If you have no proof, use Doubt. If you've got proof someone's lying then the anger makes sense.

I would have preferred no audio or visual clue that you guessed right until the case was over.

Originally Posted by TimovieMan

I sincerely hope the game gets better, because I was awed during my first two hours of play, but now I'm only getting more and more disappointed...

There's definitely a lull in the Traffic cases, I wonder if its intentional so you share Cole's determination to get to Homicide where the real cases are.

There's a similar lull on the Homicide desk and I'm almost convinced its intentional too. The focus turns to Cole's straight arrow nature coming into direct conflict with the need to please his immediate superiors on the force.

Likewise on the Vice desk... they get you settled in (almost bored) and then introduce a distraction that leads to something big.