Maybe last week turned out to be a bit of a bust, but this week, we’ve got a sure fire shot out of Rockstar Games. What could possibly go wrong!
Remember. Release dates are quite literally made at the whims of the publisher. The following are subject to change without any warning.
Releases To Watch For This Week
For the last time, detectives, I'm NOT Shia LaBeouf
L.A. Noire (Xbox 360, PS3)
Tuesday May 117, 2011
Ever feel like those chumps in CSI gets it all wrong? Think you can do better? Well, here’s your chance to prove it. L.A. Noire puts you in the shoes of Cole Phelps, a Los Angeles Police Detective in the 40’s. Phelps will have to solve murders and various other crimes through good ol’ fashion detective work like investigating crime scenes and interrogating suspects.
Unlike most other games where you have to rely on pure logic and deductive skills to see through a person’s lie, you’re going to have to read your suspect’s body language to see if they’re telling the truth. The developers uses a new facial recording technology, called MotionScan that can render an actor’s every facial movement digitally. The faces you see in the game perfectly represent the professional actor’s face at the time they’re actually saying the lines. Theoretically speaking, if you’re a natural human lie detector, L.A. Noire should be cakewalk.
Seeing through a suspect’s lie won’t be enough to solve the case though. You still have to do some investigations for clues and evidence to solve the case. You’ll have to comb through the scene of the crime for evidence and visit other locales in the realistically recreated, albeit slightly modified for scale, city of angels to hunt for more clues. In some cases, you may have to rely on your gun to keep you alive on the mean streets of L.A. These shootouts won’t be a focus of L.A. Noire. You’re playing as a police detective who is sworn to uphold the law and order after all. You’ll also occasionally have to chase down suspects on foot or behind the wheel.
Rockstar’s games have mostly dealt with the wrong side of the law. It will be interesting to see how well they represent this side of the law in video games now that you can’t just go around hijacking cars for kicks and giggles anymore. Moreover, L.A. Noire seems to be aiming for a more adventure game vibe instead of the open world games that has been the trademark of Rockstar’s past games. Let’s see how Rockstar fans take to these changes.
Coming This Week
Tuesday May 17, 2011
ExerBeat (Wii)
If you ever feel the need for your exercise “games” to include We Cheer style arrows telling you when to swing your arms and whatnot, ExerBeat has you covered. Utilizing both the Wii Balance Board and the MotionPlus accessory, ExerBeat aims to make you lose weight while closely monitoring your movements as much as possible without a camera. For added fun, your workout results are converted into an equivalent distance walked around the globe, so you know just how far you’ve walked around the world had you actually been walking instead of sitting in front of a TV pretending to exercise. Neat.
Cake Mania: Main Street (DS)
Why do publishers think that porting cheap, downloadable computer games unto expensive DS cartridges for over twice the price is a good idea? This waiter/short order cook simulator has been available on the Internet for 7 bucks for a while now. But, if you must help Jill save her hometown by sprucing up Main Street with her kick ass waitressing and short order cooking skills, I guess you can’t go wrong with Cake Mania: Main Street.
Murder in Venice (DS)
From the looks of the trailer, this adventure game involving a murder in Venice (Duh!) doesn’t use the Hidden Object gameplay the entire time. Sometimes you have to solve logical puzzles, and sometimes you have to play Bejeweled. You read that right. Bejeweled. Of course, even the slightest hint of the Hidden Object mechanic turns me off of this game completely and utterly.
Late to the Party
- Reader Rabbit Preschool, Reader Rabbit 1st Grade, Reader Rabbit 2nd Grade, Reader Rabbit Kindergarten (Wii) 5/17/2011
- Spongebob SquigglePants (3DS) 5/17/2011
Don’t get me wrong. L.A. Noire looks conceptually, physically, and spiritually awesome, but the whole 40’s L.A. thing is just not my scene. I’m sure most of you just can’t wait for it. You guys go on ahead and enjoy it with all my blessings. I’ll work on my backlog or something.
If you enjoy this article, please visit our website at www.rrbgames.com. This feature is released every Monday.
