I creep in my blues into the seedy underbelly of the city of Lost Angels...

I purchased a 2nd hand copy of LA Noire off a mate as I was curious to give it a go. I finally got round to firing it up last night and popping my Noire-Cherry.

First impressions:

Excellent graphics - up until shadows and sprites appear anyway, then it looks a bit iffy, but that could be cos Im playing on a 37" screen which is a bit sub optimal for 1080P - I may give it a go on the 42" in the living room as thats supposed to be the ideal screen size for 1080P - Or so I read, once upon an ethos.

The facial system is good - very good. I kinda expected something a tiny bit better, but also kinda expected something a lot worse. It makes the game look much more movie-like - its one of the appeals for the game - Im a big fan of the TV series "Lie To Me" and read that some of the crime solving you have to do is to pick out the microexpressions etc on peoples faces for telltale signs of guilt, etc.

The layout of the city reminds me a lot of GTA4 - so I think that is a big plus - it seems there is a very detailed city scape that you can explore. Perhaps there are random crime scenes, etc - Im not sure yet. I have just solved my first case, and just started on the mission that starts with you on the beat.

My biggest concerns so far for the game lie in two areas:

Complexity. There is a lot of notes kept in your notebook. I imagine further in this will become quite a jumbled maze... time will tell

Boring. Strong terminology - but the game has not gripped me or done anything super interesting yet. CSI and the likes have never really been my cup-of tea, although I do enjoy a good mystery from time to time. There has not been much action save a couple of punch-ups and some driving about the city. Hopefully as I get some more gametime in I will get more into it and the plot will grip me. Heres hoping! Im sure Ill post again on this game soon.

-V

LA Noire: 7/10 (At the moment)

Geekgasm! : Planetside 2.

Planetside 1: Vanu Sovreignty

Planetside 2: NC and the Terran Republic.

So... Planetside 2...

I so cannot wait... Planetside is my 2nd longest played online game. (MMORPGFPS? MMOFPS may be more accurate, the roleplay aspect is simply that of having character advancement and a side of a conflict to fight for.) I made many friends in that game, and I have many occasions where I wish I could just log on and play like I did back in the day!

After watching the trailer at the above linky... I am stoked, I WANTS IT NOW!!!

PewPew
-V

Google+ - Some comments and some linkies :)

I have been playing about with the Google+ beta - and I am quite enjoying it. At its most basic function, it is Facebook with some extra features, a bit more intuitive, but with some missing functionality (hey, it is in Beta - so some things are still being developed.) - like wall posts.

If all my friends were on facebook and google+ I would likely be using G+ to put up posts and communicate with them.

Probably the weirdest functionality (perhaps its because it is beta so the community is small, a sampling as it were) is that you can actually chat with anyone on there you want to (as long as they are set up and willing to talk back) - the best examples from my experience being web-celebs Scott Johnson, Patrick Beja, Brian Ibbit, Tom Merrit, Brian Dunnaway, Randy Delux, Veronica Belmont, Felicia Day and more. They post, you can comment, and its essentially a discussion. The circles allows you to easily opt to have posts visible to different groups so you can manage your fuctionality.

I must say though, they are surely going for a monopoly here. competing against Facebook and Twitter - they need to bring something new, or something thats a necessity or else they will only get a handful of subscribers I think.

Anyway, here are some links from other blogs that piqued my interest:

Blog post: Patrick Beja
Web comic: Scott Johnston
Podcast: The Morning Stream