I can only describe this game as lovingly opulent. L.A. Noire is overstuffed and buckles under its own ambition, but also shows focus and restraint uncommon for productions of this scope. It gives so much, and unlike other games that feel incomplete, I have the inkling that with enough time, they might have been able to pull everything off.

L.A. Noire is a detective game centered around reading faces as a game mechanic. The models may not have aged gracefully, but the mo-cap, acting, and animation are spectacular. The phrase “no small parts, only small actors” fully applies, and made me realize again how few games, (even in the modern age!), are even trying. Secretaries and post men delivered their single lines with such authenticity, personality, and impact as to continually blindside me in the way only interacting with the public can. These were not performances of comfortable and familiar acting styles, but recreations of people I’ve met in real life. Vocal inflections at once familiar when spoken, but so mundane as to have never been remembered or imagined. Gestures and glances so natural and specific the TV felt like a one-way mirror. If the only means of gameplay in L.A. Noire had been multiple choice selections during detective interviews, the quality of acting would have been worth the price of admission alone. But for L.A. Noire, that’s only the foundation.

I absolutely adored the first desk of cases after finishing the tutorial sequence. So rarely has a game so consistently dropped my jaw open with excitement and possibility. There was a real tension in realizing how I would have to un-learn so many habits from playing other games with different goals to succeed in this one. As a human who wants to be a good person, in games I’m inclined to pick pleasant dialog options when talking to NPCs. In L.A. Noire, sometimes in order to get good information from good people, you have to press them in a way that makes everyone uncomfortable. And sometimes you have to put on a polite face when dealing with assholes. L.A. Noire wanted me to navigate human motivations to arrive at the truth at the expense of decorum, and its dedication to this perspective impressed me.

But equally impressive was the immense flexibility the game had for my spectacular miscalculations and failures. In an early case, I missed the murder weapon, a gun that had been thrown out in a garbage can right next to where I assumed control of the detective, and the game still let me progress through the entire case without ever having to go back and find it! In another, I missed so much evidence that the motivation of the perpetrator made no sense. Playing through the case again with a guide, I learned not only was he reacting to another man’s unwanted sexual advances, but the dialog of other characters describing the situation had been just subtle enough to work with or without that subtext.

Here is where I explain why L.A. Noire is bounteous while being restrained. As a detective, you look for evidence in 3D spaces. You drive around. There are tailing missions. You chase after suspects, up ladders and across rooftops, in encounters that can end with a first fight or a shoot-out. You break up illegal street races and run from the mafia. And you can skip absolutely all of it, without even affecting your score! The only thing the game cares about, and forces you to do yourself, is collect evidence, conduct interviews, and press charges. Everything else is treated as set dressing.

Which blows my mind, because the level of detail is astounding. There are a half dozen guns with different rates of fire, clip sizes, and accuracy ranges. There are 95 models of cars, each of which control differently, with different top speeds and turning radii. Each where you can shoot out individual headlights. Each of which you can crash spectacularly. Multiple times did I get in a wreck, only to step out and watch an individual car tire roll down a city block or two. Buildings took an astounding variety of cosmetic damage depending on how hard cars crashed into them. It was all so consistent it was difficult to notice, because the moment to moment action flowed so naturally.

All of this effort, and you can choose to have your partner detective drive you everywhere automatically!

If there is one element of the game that brings down the mood, it is the game’s overarching plot. Early cases have a light and fun “case of the day” type feel that makes it easy to replay for the joy of detective work. Later cases delve more into the player character’s personal life and drama, which become interconnected and less fun. It is obvious not as much time was available to develop the space and pacing necessary for the later developments to feel natural. (And the tone becomes more self-serious and somber, which disappointed me after the domestic absurdity of the opening.) I respect the ambition, and the foundations of what I can see on paper look solid. In execution, Cole Phelp's story rips the focus away from the game’s strengths as an adventure game, as player choice can no longer matter as it did when the stakes were lower.

In my rating system, 2 stars represents an average, C rank game, and L.A. Noire is definitely an A+ rank game. It’s so generous, so conscientious, so luxurious, so extra that I heartily recommend it even with its obvious flaws. For how rich and rewarding replaying cases can be, it is an absolute war crime that the console version of this game does not have a “skip cutscene” button. The convoluted saving system can make it difficult to drop in and out of a case within a single session, but most are doable within a movie length amount of time.

More subjectively, there are some elements that I could see turning someone away. I would have been perfectly happy if the entire game had taken place on the Traffic desk, catching fraudsters and tracking down stolen cars. Unfortunately, a good portion of the game is with Homicide and Arson cases. Depending on one’s squeamishness level, you do see dead bodies, awful wounds, and burnt corpses. There is more than one naked dead woman in this game, and the callousness of the depiction walked the line between feeling realistic or tasteless.

While the player character Cole Phelps is framed as better matching the sensibilities of the modern player, the culture of the time has been uncomfortably recreated with period-accurate flavors of misogyny and racism. On the one hand, I understand the desire to depict the reality of the city in a vibrant and believable way, while on the other, I wish the game could have fudged in the favor of a fun time.

Overall, excellent, fantastic, the best open world game of all time, because it lets you opt out of playing an open world game at any moment.

this is probably very obvious to most people, but if you liked breath of the wild or thought that it was flawed but a good jumping off point for a sequel, you will probably enjoy tears of the kingdom. however, if you thought breath of the wild was bad as a game and/or as a direction for the series, tears of the kingdom is not going to make you a fan.

the dungeons are better, but they're still formatted like in breath of the wild. the shrines are better, but they're still shrines. the bosses are much better, but they're still fought with the same combat system. the world is technically bigger, but it's built off of the same world as before. the story is definitely better, but it's still shown and told the same way. the construction gimmick gives you and arguably encourages more avenues to experiment with the game's systems, but they're still the same systems. there's still korok seeds, there's still bad swimming, and the enemy variety still leaves a lot to be desired. it's a game that does a good amount to polish the game that came before it, but it still is adamant about being it's own type of zelda and that won't be for everyone.

for me personally, i enjoy tears of the kingdom as a sequel to breath of the wild and that's how i've chosen to view the game because that's what it was trying to be. the traditional zelda aspects, while improved somewhat, haven't been improved nearly enough for me to see it as a good zelda in the same way i see other zelda games as good zeldas but it wasn't trying to be other zeldas and to some extent that's okay with me, but it won't be for everyone.

not at all worth $70 though (no game is)

I mean this in the best of ways: this game feels ripped straight from the PS2/Gamecube era. Such a unique experience that swings back and forth between very serene and laid back, and very hectic with the dire stakes and all the micro-management. The world, the characters, the creatures, everything in this game is loaded with personality, I always love reading the Piklopedia entries whenever I find something new. Yet there’s also these foreboding undertones, like this world and these creatures are a step above you, the final boss in particular is something I can’t help but fascinate over. The levels are fun to explore and interact with, the collectables are interesting to find, the bosses and enemies are all fun, the Pikmin are all well balanced, and you really feel bad when you lose them, that end of day cutscene is always sad to watch when a few of them are outside the circle. I really haven’t played another game quite like this, it’s something I’m sure to come back and play through again and again.

>Gets remaster of Wii U game I love for Christmas
>expects to play it casually throughout the next couple months as there are other new games I need to get to
>fucking binges it in a week, getting all fruits in story mode and getting Platinum medals in all the new Olimar missions
>mfw only Mission mode remains
>Pikmin 4 cannot come sooner
>still Peakmin 3

Pikmin 3 is one of my favorite video games ever and I can't believe it took me this long to get to its definitive version. While I was initially skeptical about how much the new side content would really add to a game I already played for years, I found myself not only continuing to be hooked by Pikmin's addictive gameplay premise as well as appreciating aspects of the original game even more than I did initially.

Pikmin 3 always got some flak for being short and while I can't say it's unfounded criticism, I can understand the value of a much more condensed yet ultimately more polished and replayable adventure compared to its predecessor. The world design in this game is just as beautiful as it was back on the Wii U with stunning environmental details and plenty of interwoven paths and shortcuts to open up for more clean exploration as your knowledge of the map grows. The maps used for the new side missions are all ripped from the main game, which sounds like it could be repetitive on paper, but it turns out scrambling the hazards and obstacles on each of the maps and even changing where you start out can drastically change how you approach each level. It keeps the polish and cohesion found in the game's already stellar level design and delivers new and interesting twists on each one to really squeeze the potential out of these areas. It's honestly the best way I believe they could have approached making new content for the game without having to commit an absurd amount of resources to making brand new assets and locations for what ultimately amount to bite-sized missions in the same vein as the original game's mission mode.

Just like with the new content, I found the main experience to be just as fresh and interesting as I remembered it. The charge move feels even better than it did before thanks go tweaks made to the move and allows for some of the cleanest kills in the series. While some may argue this move is a bit too good and can really neuter the challenge in some enemy encounters, I personally believe dealing with a sometimes unreliable reticle shouldn't be the main focus of challenge in Pikmin's combat system; rather it should be how you allocate your resources when multitasking and making attack decisions on a larger scale. This game's (main) bosses all have their own gimmicks and methods for defeat but are all fun and incredibly inventive with which they use the combat system. The last two in particular are still pretty difficult if you aren't prepared and are the two best bosses in the series because of it. My new adaptability to the dodge roll move that was in the original game but I never mastered was very helpful against these bosses, but there were still plenty of moments where one unexpected attack can throw you off and snowball into losing dozens of Pikmin. Boss fights are incredibly strategic but still keep you on your toes in order to keep your Pikmin from scattering and running into danger. And it's this dance of balancing control and frenzied surprises that keeps the Pikmin experience so fresh after playing each game so many times.

I'd still say that Pikmin 2 is my personal favorite in the series due to its replayability, dungeon content, and general greater sense of nonlinear exploration, but damn if Pikmin 3 isn't the highest the series has reached from a pure technical gameplay perspective. Deluxe only adds on top of that, but it turns out adding to a masterpiece still gets you a masterpiece at the end of the day.