L.A. Noire

Let me start by saying that getting LA Noire to work has been the most frustrating experience in my 15+ years as a PC gamer.

Quick tips:
- If you want to play this game on a laptop: DO NOT BUY!
See the 1 star reviews of laptop owners for more details
- If you cannot install this game on your C:\ drive: DO NOT BUY!
Read my review below to find out why

I had been following LA Noire for some time and received it as a Christmas gift.
Like many other PC users/gamers, I have a C:\ drive reserved for Windows and other related applications (Office, browser, etc) and dedicated drives for music, games, etc.
So when i first installed this game i put it on my usual games drive, instead of the default location on C:\. Game installs fine and when i launch it for the first time it takes me through the activation and mandatory patching process via Rockstar Social Club (= Rockstar's DRM crap).

After this first patch the game needs to be restarted and when it launches again suddenly the patching fails.
Error:
Patching LANLauncher.exe
Error Patching: Error binary patching file

But i can just proceed with loading the game despite this, or so i think...
LA Noire continues by checking for saves, DLC, etc., but then it hangs on the final loading screen before the main menu (LA Noire neon logo).

I forcefully quit the game and try to relaunch. This time i get a fatal error stating my settings.ini file is malformed and i need to delete it.
Very weird, considering i haven't even looked at the settings yet, but I delete the file and restart LA Noire.
The game starts up, creates the settings file again and then gives me the same malformed settings file error...

At this point i start looking around the internet for a solution, but apparently there is none out there. So i contact Rockstar support via the Social Club...
2 days after creating my initial support ticket (during which i have been troubleshooting as well) it hasn't even been assigned to a support engineer yet.
So i hit up their Twitter accounts (@RockstarSupport & @RockstarGames) to complain and suddenly a response appears. Sadly, it is a useless copy-paste answer that ignores everything i have been writing in the 2 days since opening the ticket.
So 2 more days pass and i keep doing these trial & error reinstalls: switching installation directories, disabling/enabling firewall and anti-virus, etc.

At one point i just install the game with default settings, which on Windows 7 (64 bit) puts the game in C:\Program Files (x86)\Rockstar Games\L.A. Noire.
BUT EVEN WITH DEFAULT SETTINGS THE MANDATORY PATCH FAILS TO INSTALL!
That's right: straight out of the box, no changes at all, and the damn game does not work.

Since it is clear that Rockstar support is utterly useless, i keep looking for answers on the internet and find out that for some reason the patcher cannot cope with "weird" characters in the installation path: selecting any path that is not on your main drive (C:\ in most cases) and contains anything like brackets or spaces means you won't be able to run the game.

So in a last ditch attempt i install the game in C:\Program Files\RockstarGames\LANoire (no spaces, no brackets) and lo and behold: it works!
For the first time in more than a week i can patch the game and get to the main menu!

I'm very happy at this point and immediately start a new game, only to run into the next issue: whenever Cole Phelps (your character) moves, the game stutters so hard it becomes unplayable.
Very weird, considering i have an up to date gaming PC and even setting the game to the lowest settings does not fix the issue.
So back to the internet, since Rockstar support is still not doing anything.
Turns out LA Noire cannot cope with multi-core CPUs (gg again Rockstar!) and you need to add the '-str' parameter (forcing single threading) to the commandline when starting the game.

After adding the parameter and more than a week after first receiving/installing the game, i can finally play!

It's a shame that Rockstar once again dumped a shoddy console port on the PC market (remeber GTA IV anyone?), because the game itself is actually quite fun.
I am only at the start of the game, playing as a detective in the traffic department, but so far it is quite fun to gather clues, interrogate witnesses and suspects and solve crimes all over the city. As you have probably already seen from game footage, the facial animations are top notch and really add to the whole process of the interviews.

It is up to you if you want to risk spending your money on a game you might not be able to play at all, but i cannot recommend this game to anyone due to the myriad of technical issues and the appalling lack of support from Rockstar.

First off, I've been lucky enough to avoid the installation and startup issues that mean a lot of people can't play the game. I have had a performance issue which rendered the game unplayable which I was able to fix using '-str' in the command line, and the game still runs slowly all things considered.

The game has been out for some time now on consoles and has been well covered elsewhere. You can view it as a scaled back version of the city and driving aspects from the GTA series but with a more narrative driven missions. Shooting is similar and uses a cover based system that doesn't work especially well and there's less to do in terms of distractions which I prefer to the sprawl of GTA and it's side missions. I've marked it down in terms of fun for a few reasons. The missions become very forumlaic after a while, drive to a location, search it/question a suspect, repeat. Fortunately, the content is excellent and keeps you invested in the outcome of the case. There is also the occasional shift in tone or a mini-game style sequence, and while these don't always work well the variety is welcome.

And while the writing is pretty good, some of the questions and clue combinations seem fairly random. Ask a guy about selling stolen morphine and the fact you found a load hidden in his office throws up a fail if you put that to him. This boils some questioning sessions down to trial and error, and with no quick load option it gest tiresome. There are some really inspired moments in the game and it's entertaining enough to keep me from finishing Arkham City. The bonus content is a nice touch and 5 extra missions is not to be ignored in this age of being charged for costume packs and skins. If you liked the GTA series and enjoy hard boiled detective stories, LA Noire is well worth getting. Just be warned you may not be able to run it without problems.

I'd been admiring the graphics on this on Xbox for ages so when I found the PC version cheap in Best Buy's closing down sale last week I grabbed it. Once it was installed though I couldn't get passed the launcher screen to start with but the first result I got with google was on the rockstar games forum which told me the problem was a known issue with Comodo AV/Firewall and once I'd added the LA Noire to the ignore list as suggested everything ran fine. I haven't actually tried logging into the rockstar social club, I'm happy playing on the default profile. One note though, while the manual says no internet access is required after initial activation when I tried to run the game with it's internet access blocked [just to test] it didn't get passed the loading screen, after a reasonable wait I gave it web access again and it ran.

I'm point-and-click adventurer gamer primarily, Lego Star Wars/PotC is about as action-y as I get so I'm pleased with the more intellectual rather than action based format of the game, the occasional shooting and driving sequences are fun but I'm glad they don't make up the entirety of the game, I tend to use the 'make your partner drive' option a lot but you can drive yourself if you want to. I also like the way the screen greys out as your character gets injured, I'm not a fan of gore and it's nice way to indicate damage without it being graphic.

It is pretty easy to get promoted through the ranks, possibly too easy as a fellow reviewer said but you do at least feel you are making progress. Judging the right answers in the interviews is quite tricky sometimes, studying the realistic people to judge the right choice and choosing the right evidence to prove they're lying all help make you feel really involved in the story. I love the L.A. Confidential film, [and the book come to that], so I'm really happy with the film like introductions to many of the cases and the flashbacks of your character's past with the voice over that is very reminiscent of the opening of the film. The mentions of real people, the newspapers and landmarks you pick up through the game all help with the feeling of the historical accuracy of the game. The whole of L.A is gorgeously displayed, the graphic detail is lovely to look at, I often want to abandon the case and just admire the scenery!

The controls are simple enough, the key layout is well thought out for easy gameplay, and the onscreen reminders of what keys control the less frequently used actions are a big help. You can use the mouse for more than the tutorial says, for example I find it easier to 'steer' my character with the mouse while on foot and just hold 'w' on the keyboard to keep him moving.

I have a Win7 desktop with AMD Phenom II 960T, Nvidia GT 240 and 5gb RAM and have no trouble running it, even with Chrome left open with a load of tabs open. I've got a 1680x1050 monitor and the game displays at 1280x720 perfectly, you can alt-tab out of it and back in with no errors, which isn't something I always find with fullscreen games.

In conclusion, a nice hybrid between action and adventure games, beautiful graphics, good controls and game play, I can see why GTA fans might be disappointed but it's just what I hoped for; an interactive version of L.A. Confidential.