A Slip Of The Tongue, okay was my reasoning wrong here?

[fe]

I lost the case, at the last question. I was a bit confused by all the talk of pink slips, who handles receipts and bills of sales and whatnot, all of it terms that are new to me. But I got all the way to Leitvol, not that hard actually, and there I was with my last question.

I try connecting him to the car robbing folk and I had two evidences to choose from. One was proof that he was losing a bunch with bets, the other a box of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ blank documents used to forge sales I found with the criminals and that could have only come from Leitvol. I choose the latter, the guy walks away free.

Did I misunderstand something? Was that box, in fact, not a box of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ blank documents used to forge sales that could have only come from Leitvol? I just want to know who's the dumbass in this case, me or the game (or me for playing the game).

[Chapter Eleven]

No one is the dumbass its just have to be something more solid as proof, to link the pink slips is right but not good enough as evidence.
It could have been anyone who gave them the pink slips or stolen.

[fe]

Yeah but, at the same time, I feel the betting tickets are even weaker evidence.

[HildyToo]

I just finished it - I offered the note from Ray Pinker and seemed to go ok. From what you say, you missed getting this - I think it came after an interview. Pinker comes up to you with some clues.

[fe]

I offered the note to the guy at that warehouse, that helped me. But when it came to getting the last guy, I talked about the documents that could only come from him and you know the rest.

[Larry]

I'm on this case too and I stormed the garage. When I questioned the guy at the end he told me Leitvol was one of the dead guys left on the shop floor. I knew it was a lie because I just came from Leitvol before going to the garage. I first picked "3. Lie" but it wanted evidence... Evidence I didn't have apparently... Now that's just silly. 1. I know what Leitvol looks like. 2. I just came from Leitvol and 3. It obviously wasn't Leitvol in the shop at all. So, without any evidence to say "Hey! I just came from seeing Leitvol" -- Something you don't have i'm guessing -- I chose "2. Doubt" and got the question wrong. Surely "Doubt" would have exposed the fact that you had first hand knowledge of who Leitvol was or you would have had evidence such as Leitvol running the pink slip shop.

It's pretty dumb like this in parts throughout L.A. Noire as this seems to happen a lot in pretty much every case. Sometimes it's obvious someone is lying and you have first hand knowledge that they are but you just don't have the specific evidence for it or what you would link as evidence to them isn't the specific piece of evidence the game wants you to use even though it should suffice.

There are also other annoying things that made me stop and start the game over such as expecting the character to answer in an obvious way such as "Doubt" somewhat accusing the suspect but then the character says something completely unrelated and of no sense.

I like the game, i've gotten further this time around but it's really irritating how it forces specific answers on you or doesn't offer up viable answers. At least once per case i've been left thinking "Why on earth did Phelps say that when he should have said X, Y or Z?" It's just frustrating to lose a case because of it.

[fe]

Yeah, there's this disconnect between the player and Cole

[Larry]

I just did the case after A Slip of the Tongue and there it was again when interviewing the 15 year old girl. You ask how she knows Bishop and she says she knows him through Junie, that she's a "big movie star" which is supposidly true so I chose "Truth" and somehow ended up getting it wrong even though both Junie and Jessica both said it was Junie who was hooking Jessica up with parts in movies and it is Junie who is a movie star(Even your partner on first meeting Junie commented on how he "loved her in Beast..." Was it a lie? Was Jessica introduced to Bishop before Junie did? And how am I supposed to know this with no evidence to suggest otherwise?

The intuition and interigation aspects of the game bank on foresight, being able to foresee the outcome of your choice in answering questions(Truth, Doubt, Lie) but there's disconnection between the player and the character in how these actions/choices are percieved a lot and instead of it being about the player anticipating the answer or questions towards the NPC it's about the playing trying to anticipate what the game wants you to choose(1, 2 or 3).

This disconnection really brings the game down and provides nothing but frustration. It's annoying to get a question wrong because you simply could not anticipate how the computer would react to your choice. You expect Doubt to shine doubt on the situation and let the NPC know you know something's up but instead you go full gung-ho on their ass when you just expected a slight off handed comment to.

It's just frustrating for this to happen and it happens a lot. One time I even chose "Truth" only for my character to bully the the NPC as if i'd flat out chose Lie. Might have been a bug but Lie always(I think) requires you to follow up with evidence which the game did not offer.

[fe]

I restarted that case you're talking about when I used "lie" for when she said she wasn't abused, and then chose "evidence of abuse", acquired from the doctor, and the game failed me.

Turns out, I had to also look at her file in front of her bed, as if talking to the doctor who made that wasn't enough.

So yeah, at times it is totally anticipating the game, not the character. I don't know if it is because I got better or the game got easier, but after some cases I started getting more correct answers. But still, I can't ever connect to Cole.

I see two main problems with the game. First is, of course, disconnect with the main character. Second is how mechanical it all is. Every question ends with a single choice, every questioning works the same. The result is you aren't really interrogating someone, you're trying to guess where the game's going.

Anyway, this might be useful: Originally, it was going to be truth, force and lie, but they changed it near the end of development to "doubt". When you interpret doubt also as force, it gets easier. Also, after people are done talking, just watch them for a while. This won't work with everyone though.

Also, yes, lie is always about using the evidence. It is a good idea to use intuition if you don't know if you should pick lie or doubt. Also, keep in mind that getting the correct answer, no matter what option it was, may provide additional useful information.

For an instance, if you get "truth" correct, the character will go on and continue talking about something else which might be relevant to your case. If you use doubt incorrectly, the character then gets offended and withholds the information you'd have gotten.

I noticed you can't rely on just their expressions, neither during or after their speech. At times it gets too easy to focus on the face tech and think it is the main way to out a character. You need to pay attention to the overall context, see if what they're saying would actually checks out.

Sometimes it is helpful backing from a question, you can do that when the game asks you to choose truth, doubt, lie. This lets you get to know the character better, check their lying expression, see how good they're at lying. Also, at times what Cole asks and what the characters talk about end up not having to do with the question you selected, this is extremely distracting and may lead you into errors, always keep in mind what the question says in the notebook.

And remember some characters will lie for seemingly no good reason.

You know I'm okay with failing guesses, it is expected, and I won't lie that a lot of times it is my own fault. It just sucks when the game is insane. If they hadn't gone for such mechanical interrogations, if they would give the player more control over questions and responses, if they had made it all more open, with branching paths and multiple ways to get a correct answer, it'd have been a whole lot better.

[Larry]

I agree. Still, i'm actually really enjoying it right now. It's gotten significantly better towards the end of the "Traffic Desk" section but it always ends up frustrating me for the reasons you mentioned. Sometimes it's not a matter of reading their expressions or choosing the most logical option or interpreting an option to mean something that you would think it meant but becomes more about choosing a specific option whether it makes sense or not because the game is simply set to tick that specific option as correct no matter the logic or evidence linked(Or how strong that link is).

As you mentioned Phelps will occasionally ask a question that has nothing to do with the conversation or interrogation which throws you off and does offer up an F-ball on your part which frustrates me far too much(The main reason I kept quitting actually as this happens a lot in the beginning cases). This makes the game feel like you have less control but even so it is a nice way -- when it works -- to keep you guessing about a case and how it could have gone like you said about additional information being shared if you get the correct answer. I chose to be a purist in this playthrough and live with the consequences of getting an answer wrong no matter how the game wanted me to answer and overall i'm quite pleased with it but this game would have been so much better if they at least spent more time on some of the cases so they're a lot more open to reason and directly react the way you would expect it to react when you choose the option you choose. They should have gotten a behaviourist involved in the work if they didn't already.

When you look at the options where Doubt is seen as Force it makes a lot more sense but you can understand why they changed it. I'm guessing they wanted the second option to be more of an inbetween truth and lie as opposed to being skewed towards knowing a person is lying and getting the truth out of them. I'll keep it in mind when I choose option 2.

It is a good game and worthy of a decent to high score even on PC. An L.A. Noire 2 would have been welcomed though, hopefully to address all the problems in this game and make it much more enjoyable and less frustrating. Unfortunately the studio behind L.A. Noire has been closed which is a shame. They did do a good job and they really have done a great job and turning it from individual cases to -- I'm guessing -- a huge story about a good cop against a corrupt police force or how he deals with all the things that unfold as he goes through the ranks. I'm only on my first homicide case but if there is a bigger picture here then I gotta say i'm really impressed. In some cases they really delivered on making it interesting. A lot of the cases I really want to know what's happening and get to the bottom of and in others they do a great job of teasing out what is actually going on if you fail a question or two(Such as what was really going on with the 15 year old girl and the producer). That's quite something to accomplish especially to have so many different cases or stories so interesting and have the player guessing as to how the case could have gone and who was behind it all. In that regard they did a great job of essentially giving you a D in an exam, passing you but not giving you the honours.

[fe]

Yeah despite the problems I'm enjoying it too, the biggest issue I have is, well it isn't a fair point but, the problem I have is with the wasted potential.

The technology is great, the writing is actually pretty good too despite how moronic some cases are, the voice acting, the work done on the settings. But then they kinda ruined everything. I think this game didn't need to be open world, it didn't need to be so mechanical, it didn't need as many cases as it has, it didn't need the shooting, the fighting, the car chases (as fun as it may be).

If it had focused on the investigations and interrogations, if it had tried to do the best it could with that, it'd be so much better. Because in the end that's the meat of the game.

You don't spend nearly as much time shooting, fighting and driving as you do investigating. When the action comes in, it feels gratuitous and pointless. You are constantly running after suspects, those on foot chases aren't ever fun. For me the only fun action are the car chases.

The other fun aspect is driving around town but this game doesn't really give you much space to do that, not while you're in the main campaign at least. You're always on the way to some place, and it breaks the pacing to stop and wander around.

Now imagine if all the effort and money they put into recreating this insanely detailed 1940s LA, the effort and money put into creating action scenes, imagine if all of it had been put into the investigative work.

For one I think they could do better than making you wander around the crime scene interacting with every designated object hoping it'll be relevant. Their idea of investigation is walking around a crime scene. Imagine if they had done something like Gone Home, a lot less directed. Similarly, had made less directed, constrained interrogations.

So I wouldn't be as generous, for me the game is good, not really great, and very flawed. What keeps me going is how interesting each encounter can be. It is nice to see a big budget game stepping out of the usual places they take you. How many games will get you engaged in a conversation with an elderly lady? Not many.