L.A. Noire -- All-In-One.

L. A. Noire was developed by Team Bondi and published by Rockstar Games. L. A. Noire puts you in the shoes of W. W. II veteran Cole Phelps as he rises through the ranks from beat cop to detective in 1947 Los Angeles. L. A. Noire was one of my most anticipated games of the year and in the end might make my most disappointing game of the year. Is it a terrible game? Not really as some of the aspects of the game are really well done. What's good about it? The graphics for one as the game just looks great. The character models and the world itself are wonderfully detailed. The facial animation is a true step above. They used numerous high definition cameras to capture the faces of the actors while they were giving their performances. They went through so much trouble because the majority of the gameplay hinges on reading the faces of characters as you interview and interrogate them. They wanted to employ subtleties that had been previously unavailable in facial animation in video games and for the most part they've succeeded. It's probably unfair of me to say that they spent so much time on facial tech that they neglected other aspects of the game but it does feel that way. Almost every other aspect of the game feels average. The handling of the cars is competent at best but the NPC vehicle AI is annoying and that really comes into play as you have to do a lot of driving in the game. The gunplay and cover mechanic are both rather clunky. Getting into cover is fine but moving around corners or getting out of cover just doesn't work very well. The well realized world is massive but it's also extremely empty. They've tried to fill out the world with random crimes, and both cars and film reels to collect. The bulk of the game is of course working the cases and it's there that the game performs best. But unfortunately here too the game is flawed. The cases are fun. You'll be dispatched to a crime scene. You'll investigate the scene gathering evidence and you'll interview witnesses and the like. The facial animation really comes into play when you're interviewing witnesses and suspects. You'll ask them questions and after their responses you're able to choose between truth, doubt, and lie. Essentially truth means you believe them, doubt means you think they're lying but can't prove it, and lie provides you with the opportunity to prove they're lying with gathered evidence or statements. Once you see how the facial animation and interview systems work the story becomes mostly irrelevant. It really is like rock, paper, scissors. Are they having any facial reaction beyond looking you straight in the eye? Then they're lying. Now, can you prove it? If so, pick lie. If no, pick doubt. You'll be able to get through the cases flawlessly as long as you're thorough in collecting clues so you can call them on their lies. The game has an issue between overarching story and the cases. It's like they had to hammer the square pegs of the cases into the round holes of the overarching story for a couple of cases. And that really hurts the game in the homicide desk. It would have helped a lot if they had just left the Black Dahlia alone. The overarching story is actually pretty good and it's too bad they've seemingly forced the cases to deal with it. It has a lot of smart connections to the era. The problem comes in being so tied to the story. You can't go off the rails in the slightest. Another issue is the repetition. There is too much repetition in the cases and in the random crimes. L. A Noire is a flawed but fun first step in spite of itself. Team Bondi has the potential to turn this into a great series if they address the issues present in L. A. Noire. A little freedom in the cases. More to do in the large and detailed world. More variety in the cases. The player needs to not feel like they're on such a short leash to the story's needs. I'm giving L. A. Noire a 7.

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation -- All-In-One.

It took me sixty-five hours to run through Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation for the Nintendo DS. The game was developed by ArtePiazza. Square-Enix published Dragon Quest IV and V for the Nintendo DS and based on their performances it looked like we weren't going to actually get Dragon Quest VI but thankfully Nintendo stepped up as publisher. Dragon Quest V and VI were once among the holy grail titles that seemed destined to remain in Japan forever. But with the release of Dragon Quest VI in North America we've finally gotten the complete published mainline series. Was it worth the sixteen year wait? Yes. Is it the best Dragon Quest title ever made? No. Dragon Quest VI shares the same graphic style employed by the previous two remakes for the Nintendo DS. What that means is the game is graphically clean and well detailed and features some good battle animations. The game employs the series' lightning fast battle engine and returns to and updates the class system first used in Dragon Quest III. As with most Dragon Quest systems this means you can do as much or as little of it as you'd want. You don't need to focus a tremendous amount of effort to leveling up your character's job. The system is also as forgiving as possible as you retain all your learned skills and experience throughout every job. It's made even easier by a universal equipment system so you don't have to equip each character every time you change a job. The music is classic Sugiyama Dragon Quest score. You know it, you love it. Unless you're one of those who hate it. This score won't change your opinion either way. Surprisingly I found the story to be this entry's weakest element. It's a complex tale, and it remains a tad too confusing for too long. It's a case of wondering what the hell is going on for most of the game. It also suffers from Dragon Quest's VII's flaw in that past a certain point in the game it's rarely clear where to go or what to do next and it's compounded by the fact that there are dual worlds with shared locations to explore. And the game's hint system isn't as helpful as it should be. The characters are the typical Dragon Quest variety, colorful and interesting. The series party chat really shines here. Getting party commentary on every single NPC statement in the game is truly impressive. If you're a fan of the series then this entry is a must and it's been a treat to finally get the missing piece to the puzzle all these years later. I wouldn't suggest you use Dragon Quest VI as an entry point into the series however. I'm giving Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation a 7.5.

Mortal Kombat -- All-In-One.

After the daunting task of completing Yakuza 4 to 100% completion I was in that post large game state of being spent so I really didn't play anything for a few days. I messed around with Pilot Wings Resort on the 3DS. The game was more a tech demo than a full fledged game. It showed off the 3D effects well enough. They work great when the system is in the sweet spot. But the game also showed off how incredibly small that sweet spot actually is. After that I didn't play anything for a few days still sort of feeling numb off Yakuza 4. That led me to check out demos and I stumbled upon Mortal Kombat on the PSN. I was there for the original Mortal Kombat in the arcades and the ensuing fervor regarding its console release. I picked up the Genesis version of course. I was there for Mortal Kombat 2, this time getting the SNES version. I even bought Mortal Kombat 2 on the 32X. Mortal Kombat 3 hit the arcades and the love affair soon ended. I rented Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for the Saturn and never considered the series again. So it was sort of for a laugh that I downloaded the Mortal Kombat demo. To my great surprise I found a game that essentially took all the elements of Mortal Kombat 1-3 and blended them together seamlessly in a game that plays very much like Mortal Kombat 2. I ended up buying Mortal Kombat for the Xbox 360. This Mortal Kombat is the ninth game in the series proper. The game was developed by NetherRealm Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Much like Street Fighter 4 before it, Mortal Kombat essentially is a reboot of the series and features 3D characters locked on a 2D plane. By returning to its roots the game has sparked larger interest than another standard entry probably would have enjoyed. Graphically the game looks good featuring large and detailed characters. The graphically updated versions of the classic stages feature more animation. The fatalities return to their comically gory origins. The gameplay remains frenetic. The game is loaded with great options. The story itself is presented more as movie you play through than the standard fighting game story which tend to have a general reason for the characters to be there and a what if ending scenario should each character win. The story will hopefully be a revolution in fighting games as most games should adopt this style. The arcade mode is there if you just want to fight through a string of opponents culminating in the bosses without the story. This mode even includes the what if ending scenarios. The game also features a challenge mode that features three hundred tasks that need to be completed. The tasks come in a wide variety from the challenging to the silly. The first half of the challenge mode is a cleverly disguised training mode. Near the end you'll find some true challenges. The game also features the standard online modes. One that's rather decent is entitled King of the Hill. You're able to have eight players in a room. Six players will be watching the fight and the winner will defend against the first person in line and the loser goes to the end of the line. The avatars of the people watching the fight are in the foreground and they're able to comment on the action by way of avatar animations. They're also able to award the winner respect points on a scale of zero to ten. Mortal Kombat comes off as an earnest reboot of the series. You can tell they really put forth a real effort here. It's graphically pleasing, but not actually impressive. It's clean and solid without a wow factor. The sounds of combat are classic Mortal Kombat. In all honesty the music is just there, low in the background. The controls work well enough on the standard Xbox 360 controller and I'd imagine they'd be very responsive with a stick. The game does have some faults though. The design choice of having the bosses being randomly invincible during attacks is a cheap. I don't care if the supposed reasoning is that the original Mortal Kombat bosses were cheap and these needed to retain that feeling. It's cheap regardless of the reasoning. Other than that though the game is a solid and fun time. I'm not suddenly in love with the series again. This game will satiate my Mortal Kombat needs for the next decade or so. I'm giving Mortal Kombat an 8.