THE HIGHS

Samuel Roberts: LA redux

I enjoyed reading Tim's piece on LA Noire's upcoming VR offshoot this week, not least because I can empathise with his sweaty chronicles of punching a man in the face using VR controllers. That aside, the way interacting with other characters works in this revamped game sounds effective, and it's nice to hear they've redone hundreds of objects to make the world feel more vivid. The original is starting to show its age, as nice as the faces look. 

LA Noire is one of those games that games journalists love to talk about: it has a rich historical setting, cinematic aspirations and is flawed in a bunch of interesting ways, despite reaching so high. I'm all for another way to experience it. 

Phil Savage: IO, IO, it's off to work they go

Right, yes, fine. With almost tedious inevitability, I am excited about the confirmation of new Hitman.

Seriously, though, while I've written about Hitman so much that I'm almost sick of my own opinions about it, it remains brilliant. And the fact that IO gets to make more of it as an indie studio is a rare and heartwarming thing. I look forward to seeing what they come up with, be it a new game or a second season of the existing one. (Although I might get someone else to review it.)

Joe Donnelly: Dressing room dressing down

I spoke about Football Manager 2018 in last week’s high column and here I am at it again. Why? Because I’ve not played anything else this week. In fact I’ve not really done anything in the last seven days, besides reviewing the latest game, chanting football songs at my monitor, and moaning about how my Celtic players don’t respect me as a manager. I’m a bit of a dick, I admit that, but these guys have a serious problem with authority. 

FM 2018’s Dynamics system is what's given my squad its newfound backbone—a new feature that forces you to manage 15+ bodies both on and off the pitch. Upsetting the most authoritative players (by dropping them from the first team, for example) often has knock-on effects and can spill onto the pitch. Despite my new disdain for some of my real life heroes, it’s a really cool addition that I’ve enjoying messing around with. 

Tyler Wilde: Rocket surfing

Goofiness has retreated from a lot of multiplayer games. We don't get to stand on the wings of flying planes in Battlefield anymore, or fill jeeps with C4. Weird, silly mods like Action Quake 2 are harder to find. The most popular game right now, PUBG, takes place in a grey military sadscape. So although I haven't played much of it yet, I'm excited to see the playfulness of Battlefield 1942 and Team Fortress 2 emerge in Fortnite Battle Royale, where players have been riding on pumpkin rockets and turning themselves into bushes. I want to do that.

Wes Fenlon: Hello Nioh

Hey, Nioh's out on PC! Cool. I haven't played it yet, and I know it's mostly a shameless combination of Dark Souls and a bloated loot system, but dangit, I love my Japanese action games. I'm especially glad to see it arrive on PC because Sony published Nioh on the PS4, which I had assumed meant a PC version was out of the question. I'm glad to be wrong, especially as I've been replaying Team Ninja's incredible Ninja Gaiden Black recently. There may be little left of the team that made that game a decade ago, but I want to believe the action pedigree still lives on in those halls.

Chris Livingston: Hats and dogs 

The Sims 4 has finally gotten pets, and they're fun. Dogs will jump in the pool with you, cats will lick their crotches while sitting on the kitchen counter and ignoring you (and ignoring everything else, including house fires) unless they want something, and you can design them, breed them, and dress them up in little outfits. You can even run a vet clinic, which I have been doing with some success, provided you don't spend too much time in the lobby which is covered with dog pee (and, this being The Sims, possibly some human pee as well).

Realistic? No. Cats will obediently climb onto the examination table without screeching, and taking their temperature involves scanning their ear with a laser instead of sticking a cold thermometer up their butts while they try to claw you to death. But who wants realism? I want to put a hat on my cat and have it stay there, instead of my cat shaking it off immediately and then hating me for the next 72 hours.

THE LOWS

Samuel Roberts: Pricey crystals

Who wants to buy £80/$100 worth of loot crate crystals? Not me. Obviously this is the big issue in blockbuster games right now, and I'm even a little bit tired of passing comment on it. But the idea of spending that amount of money on an in-game currency rather than buying, say, two full games at retail price is completely alien to me and probably always will be.

But hey, I'm sure they wouldn't list it as an option unless they believed someone was going to buy it. 

Phil Savage: Missed Call

I genuinely wish I cared about Call of Duty. Few other releases feel like such an event for the people who truly love them, and it's fun to join in on the Big New Thing. But it's been precisely 10 years since I last enjoyed a game in the series, and nothing I've read about WWII suggests it will be any different. That's a shame: the switch in setting had a chance to recall the heyday of military shooters—both the original Call of Duty games and Medal of Honor: Allied Assault.

Instead, CoD:WWII sounds as if it's more of what CoD's been doing for the last decade. Ultimately, though, it's fine. This is PC gaming, where even if the big new thing isn't to your taste, there'll always be something that is—even if you're looking for a fun World War II shooter.

Joe Donnelly: Nioh more

As Wes notes over the page, Nioh’s Complete Edition came to PC this week. And despite seemingly suffering a bit of a shoddy port, it’s another game that I really want to play. Which means I’ve now got it, Wolfenstein 2, Destiny 2, Divinity: Original Sin 2, the new South Park, and of course Football Manager 2018 on my plate at the moment and I don’t know where I’ll find the time to make a dent in any of them.

I’m normally a bit Scrooge in the run up to Christmas, but the festive period will work wonders on my pile of shame.   

Tyler Wilde: Repeated transactional engagement

Take-Two says it wants 'recurrent consumer spending opportunities' in every new game. Yay.

Wes Fenlon: Hollow Life

Hollow Knight, one of my favorite games of the year, has an absolutely incredible vinyl record soundtrack coming out, and it's not in my hands right now. Even worse, I'll have to pay up if I do want it in my hands next year. My wallet weeps, but my record player will be so happy.

Chris Livingston: Torchlife

I was pretty bummed to hear about Runic Games shutting down. During a very stressful time in my life, Torchlight was my go-to game for decompressing and destressing after long, shitty days. Every night I'd spend an hour hacking, slashing, and gathering colorful loot and wonderfully named weapons. For several months it was a near-daily escape. I sunk plenty of time into Torchlight 2 as well, and I've just begun playing Hob which, while quite different than the Torchlight games, still shows the Runic team's excellent world-crafting and animation skills. "You haven't heard the last of us," said Runic head Marsh Lefler, and I believe it.

Three years ago, with the commercial release of VR headsets looming on the horizon, it was possible to imagine that the world was about to change. And it was about to change, but not in the way that I had imagined. Virtual reality hasn’t had the impact I’d hoped, in other words. No one I know owns a headset, and it hasn’t even caused a moral panic in the mainstream press, which is the true indication that something has arrived.

I’m not cynical about the current state of VR or its software. I think we’re doing ok. I understand baby steps, I understand how risk averse most publishers and developers need to be, and how foolhardy it would be to pour millions into VR development this early in its life. It all makes sense, but that can’t snuff the disappointment I feel in VR’s general lack of presence, its seeming inability to make me forget that I’m wearing a headset, and the industry’s focus on bite-sized experiences that serve as gentle tourist-like excursions rather than, say, an alternate life visited.

L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files isn’t going to change much about that last point: it is, after all, a condensed version of the original game collecting seven missions (or case files) best suited to VR. And yet, it’s easily the most impressive, nay startling, VR experience I’ve had since playing Eve Valkyrie for the first time. It wasn’t because 1940s L.A. was especially impressive, nor was it because punching people in the face with Vive’s motion controllers was cathartic (though it was!). The reason The VR Case Files is amazing is because of the people. 

I played the mission Buyer Beware, which has uppity cop Cole Phelps investigating a murder at a shoe shop. Tim gives a blow-by-blow of how this mission plays out in VR, and it’s engaging enough to investigate the sidewalk murder. But everything changed, for me at least, when I entered the shoe shop to speak to Clovis Galletta, the seemingly shifty store clerk.

I felt like I was standing next to a person, whereas NPCs in VR can often seem either too small or too large, or else too wooden.

This was my first encounter with L.A. Noire’s revamped interrogation system, but whether I should act the bad cop or the good cop weren’t huge concerns for me. Instead, my first thought when listening to Galletta speak was this: am I standing too close to her? (If it was real life, I definitely was). Am I invading her personal space? I immediately stepped back and waited for her to react to my body language—an instinctual, barely registered action that we all probably carry out in real life occasionally. But Galletta didn’t respond of course, because she’s a character in a video game. 

As she spoke, it felt pertinent to monitor both her face and her body language, in the way we do with real people. And that’s the nugget of L.A. Noire’s interrogation system of course, but the fact that it worked so well startled me. I had momentarily behaved like I would in front of a human, and I’ve never done that in VR before. 

The reason it’s so effective in L.A. Noire is due to MotionScan, the motion capture tech used (exclusively, at this stage) in the original game. Galletta’s face was nuanced, her movements subtle and human-like, and most importantly: her dimensions, her height, her width, all felt right. I felt like I was standing next to a person, whereas NPCs in VR can often seem either too small or too large, or else too wooden. 

Maybe this is the kind of experience that VR should chase right now. Instead of virtual Pong or horde mode shooters or racing games, perhaps the element that will win people over are the subtle ones that make virtual worlds feel like real ones. VR software doesn’t need to be realistic, but I think most newcomers want to feel shaken. They want to feel as if they’ve stepped into another world. And what I learned from L.A. Noire is that perhaps the best way to do this is to focus on people, life, conversations. I'm usually one to race through dialogue in games: I like driving, and shooting. But in L.A. Noire, I longed for every human encounter. 

We all knew VR would need to establish its own styles and genres—that what we play on screens couldn’t possibly make a direct leap over—but how many studios are doing this? The VR Case Files arguably isn’t innovative, but it contains the kernel of something VR can do that, crucially, makes for an experience you can't get on a TV.

Of course, The VR Case Files is a game, and like most VR games it can’t hope to maintain this illusion of reality. Movement is great as far as VR games go, but overall, movement isn’t great in any VR game. Meanwhile, VR’s grainy resolution has a long way to go too, as do efforts to eradicate motion sickness. At the moment, the best we can hope for when donning a headset is that we’ll feel, at least occasionally, that dreamlike sensation of being somewhere else. And by leveraging tech designed to make humans more lifelike, The VR Case Files delivers one of the most effective examples of it yet.

Late last week I knocked a guy out in Los Angeles. Two in fact, and my girlfriend was watching, as were a couple of colleagues. I couldn't see their reactions, but I have to assume it was mostly embarrassment on my behalf, because I'm a man the wrong side of 40 and haven't thrown a punch in anger since high school. Still, I can confirm that despite my fire-engine red face and slightly strained shoulder, punching dudes feels good in VR. 

Going into my playtest of LA Noire: The VR Case Files, I assumed that Rockstar would've just stripped out all the action-y stuff and stuck with the interrogation scenes. Not quite so. There's driving, punching, and shooting (though I don't try the gun stuff) in this slimmed down Vive version, which is due out in December following a slight delay. It'll cost $30 via Steam, and there are a couple of new features to ease you into VR and make the interrogations flow a little more naturally. (Or at least how you'd expect an old timey detective grilling a perp to go.)

Throwing down works exactly as you'd expect, and I was able to land hooks, jabs and uppercuts, swaying backwards like a fat Neo to avoid his retaliatory blows.

We begin in the office of Cole Phelps, the cop played by Mad Men's Aaron Staton. This is a new space designed to acclimate you to the VR controls. With a Vive controller in each hand, you use the triggers underneath, or the buttons on the side, to grip objects. Squeezing the triggers also makes Phelps' fingers do a pinching motion. I was easily able to pass objects from one hand to the other, pick up a gun, answer the phone, and throw an ashtray around like my wife had just called to say she'd left me.

Actually, I say easily, but I much preferred using the triggers over the side buttons, and unfortunately once into the actual investigating the game really does want you to use the side buttons. Before hitting the bricks, I try on a couple of suits in front of the mirror. This is done by reaching out and popping on a different hat from one of several on a stand. And holy shit is it eerie staring at yourself and seeing Staton's looking back. Because LA Noire tracks your hand position, it's also possible to make yourself do some pretty weird Mr Tickle-style stuff with his arms. It's probably why Mrs Phelps left.

Having selected a jaunty waistcoat and hat combo, we set off for the patrol tutorial. Here Phelps and his partner chase down some misdemeanor-level wiseguy using one of three possible movement systems. You can either aim the reticle at a spot and beam yourself to it, highlight an object that glows in an obvious yellow and teleport there, or—brace yourself—actually sprint forwards by aiming in a direction and then swinging your arms madly back and forth. That's about as disorientating as it sounds, and I assume even dafter to look at, so I stuck with the yellow highlight option thereafter.

To the scene of the crime

The pursuit culminates in my first punch up. Throwing down works exactly as you'd expect, and I was able to land hooks, jabs and uppercuts, swaying backwards like a fat Neo to avoid his retaliatory blows. Judging the correct distance to swing from takes a little practice, and there's no feedback from the controller when fist meets face, (just as well, considering my baby soft, never-done-a-day's-real-work hands), but I found just whaling on a guy in a realistic 3D environment surprisingly realistic. It probably says something primal about pent-up white collar rage, or just the eternal allure of jamming knuckles into some chump's jaw. Either way: the punching is good.

Somewhat less convincing is the driving. Here you turn the ignition using your right hand, then grip the immaterial wheel as you lurch around the still immaculately recreated streets of 1940s LA. I initially panicked as it felt like the car almost whooshed out from under me (happily I had asked to be seated for this part, so didn't fall on my ass). There's a decent amount of traffic and sure enough I slewed straight into it. Gradually, I got to grips with the feel, and found that if I took the ride grandma-slow it actually felt pretty interesting. The dash-mounted minimap could do with it being a bit more prominent, though, as initially I had no idea what route to follow.

It's easy to forget just how astonishingly detailed the faces and expressions in the original LA Noire were

The good news is that even when grappling with the controls I never got nauseous. I think that's partly helped by the fact that if you look down you'll see your feet and legs, which helps anchor you in the world. Once we got into a case proper, the crazy fidelity of Rockstar's six-year old world strikes home. While of course you never truly forget you're in a game, it's still startling how real standing on these streets feels. The developer has up-rezzed 500 in-game objects to help enhance that feeling, and sure enough rummaging through a dead dude's coat for his ID is an uncanny experience.

The crime I'm investigating is a murder outside a jewellery store, and one of seven cases in the game, all of which are culled from the original. The meat of it takes place when I'm interviewing the clerk of the store. It's easy to forget just how astonishingly detailed the faces and expressions in the original LA Noire were, but nothing in the intervening years has come close to replicating the witchcraft that Team Bondi's MotionScan tech delivered. And little wonder, given what a ballache the performance capture was to do, making reshoots prohibitively expensive and impractical. But there's no arguing with the end result, which again is even more impressive when experienced in VR. 

Or to put it more plainly: when speaking to the clerk, much as you know it's not a real person standing in front of you, her height, her little facial tics—eyes darting this way and that, subtle mouth movements—all conspire to make your lizard brain react as if someone is right there. The idea of the uncanny valley is that we're hardwired to reject simulated people the closer they resemble but don't quite replicate reality, but that isn't what I found. I would say that I was fascinated by what I was seeing. So much so that I found it hard to concentrate on the specifics of the police work.

Hunt for the truth

In terms of how you progress these interviews, Rockstar has ditched the old 'Truth', 'Doubt', 'Lie' options on the basis that doubt was a pretty nebulous concept, and you couldn't be sure what Phelps would do if it was selected. Now you pick between 'Good cop', 'Bad cop' and 'Accuse' as the three possible lines of questioning. I still managed to mess up by being too much of a hardass on the poor clerk when she'd already ponied up all the information she had. But overall it seemed a little more intuitive. 

In this instance, there's no doubt. After finding the murder weapon in the trash outside, and taking a trip to a gun shop to trace the serial number, I'm soon confronting the clearly guilty suspect. Sure enough another chase sequence ensues, ending with more fisticuffs. "You can also punch him in the nuts," the Rockstar rep offers helpfully, and she's not wrong. In fact my only lingering disappointment is that your feet aren't tracked, so there's no putting the boot in. And that, ladies and gents, is how police brutality is born.

Shaun has more thoughts on LA Noire's face tech and the implications it has for VR which we'll be publishing soon, but for me this game has gone from something I wasn't sure needed to exist, to one I'll actually dust our Vive off to spend more time with. 

Initially slated for a November 14 release, LA Noire's new VR component will now launch in December, according to Take-Two's most recent earnings report. In case you didn't know, Take-Two is Rockstar's parent company.

After discussing the imminent release of new versions of the base game for PS4, Switch and Xbox One, the statement offers this:

"Following these in December, 2017, comes LA Noire: The VR Case Files, featuring seven select cases from the original game rebuilt specifically for a virtual reality experience on the HTC VIVE system."

A specific date for December wasn't given. But in other, less surprising, news from the earnings report, 2K has a new blockbuster game coming out next year: whether it'll be Bioshock or Borderlands or something entirely else, is yet to be seen.

In a surprise announcement, Rockstar has announced L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files—an incoming virtual reality game for the HTC Vive. 

Due November 14, The VR Case Files marks the Grand Theft Auto developer's "first steps into virtual reality" with seven "select" case from the original game. As you might expect, these have been rebuilt with VR in mind, however Rockstar doesn't detail the specifics in this news wire post. 

Here's Rockstar with the skinny:

"L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files for HTC Vive delivers seven of the original engrossing, self-contained cases from L.A. Noire rebuilt specifically for virtual reality, blending breathtaking action with true detective work to deliver an unprecedented interactive experience."

Alongside The VR Case Files, Rockstar has also revealed enhanced editions of the base game are en route to both Xbox One and PS4. These will come with all additional DLC inclusive, as well as a "range of technical enhancements for greater visual fidelity and authenticity, including enhanced lighting and clouds, new cinematic camera angles, high resolution textures and more." 

PS4 Pro and Xbox One X owners can look forward to 4K support—however there's no mention of anything beyond the HTC Vive exclusive starring on PC.

Every week, we ask our panel of PC Gamer writers a question about PC gaming. This week: what game would you recommend to a complete non-gamer? We also welcome your answers in the comments. 

Samuel Roberts: Rocket League

What if football, but with cars? Rocket League took off precisely because it's so easy to pick up and play, with fast matchmaking, intuitive controls and short matches. Within one game, any player of any skill will get it. 

And then the obsession begins. Cars fly overhead in your dreams. You wander through the streets imagining what would happen if that BMW over there did a backflip to score a goal. You haven't spoken to your parents in weeks because you're trying to climb the ladder in ranked. You started playing in January, but now it's August and you've played nothing else, and you've had Prey sat on your hard-drive for months. Maybe you should stop? "I think we should see other people," your partner says. "No problem." you reply. But did you say that, or were you merely selecting a quick chat option in yet another game of Rocket League? You're 80 years old and dead, and you only ever reached Gold II rank.  

Anyway, yeah, Rocket League. Great game, regardless of skill level. 

Phil Savage: Kerbal Space Program

Technically Kerbal Space Program is a very difficult game. Just ask the many Kerbals who are stuck endlessly orbiting the various moons and planets I have tried to visit. But, while hard, its difficulty isn't abstract. Kerbal Space Program is difficult because going to space is difficult. By basing itself on real-world, observable concepts, its challenge makes sense. That makes it an incredibly effective starter game. Also the fact that, if in doubt, you can usually just add more rockets.

It's also good because its success is scalable. In sandbox mode, you're never punished for failure. Instead, you're given an opportunity to learn, tweak and reassess. It's a great teacher, not just of the physics of rocket science, but also of how games can support experimentation and play on the path to a greater goal.

Andy Kelly: L.A. Noire

Basically prestige TV in game form. A compelling series of mysteries to solve, proper actors bringing the characters to life, and a larger narrative of corruption and scandal to get swept up in. You don't even have to drive anywhere: just get your partner to do it for you. And if you're having trouble with the action sequences—gunfights, car chases, and so on—the game lets you just skip them. It has some problems, sure, but if you don't 'get' games, L.A. Noire will immediately make sense. Everyone loves a good detective mystery, and Rockstar's game presents its varied, mostly well-constructed cases with the lavish feel of a US TV drama.

Tim Clark: Hearthstone

I know, I know, but probably Hearthstone. I've been teaching my nephew on holiday and they've done a ton of work to make the new player experience more friendly. Until you start getting serious about trying to climb ladder, it's also a free-to-play game that you can genuinely have fun goofing around in without having to drop dollars. Tavern Brawls, Arena Runs, even just administering kickings to the Innkeeper AI are all a fine way to spend a few hours on your PC when you're supposed to be working. I should know.

Tom Senior: Her Story

You don't need any knowledge of game genres or complicated control schemes to play through this fascinating mystery. If you can Google, you can play Her Story. The game is a database of videoclips showing police interviews with a woman—is she a suspect, a witness, a victim? You search for key phrases to bring up new clips containing fresh clues to search for. The format is surprisingly good at delivering twists, and the game is particularly fun if you have friends around to help put the pieces together.

Chris Livingston: Plants Vs Zombies

It's bright, it's colorful, it's amusing, and there's just about the most perfect learning curve in a game I can think of, where you're given just enough time to figure how to best use a new plant when a new zombie shows up, and you're just about on the brink of having your home invaded when the final zombie falls. There's also plenty of extra modes and activities that are fun to play around with. It's also addictive as hell, so even if it's their first game it won't be their last.

I ve been to Los Angeles, and I didn t like it much. It s hot, it s crowded, it s filthy, and you can t walk anywhere. But as a setting for a work of fiction, it s one of my favourite places. From Raymond Chandler s Philip Marlowe novels to Ridley Scott s Blade Runner, the City of Angels is a resonant setting for a story. A lot of games are set there, but only one captures the dark, romantic urban sprawl found in the best LA fiction: Rockstar s ambitious, flawed detective adventure L.A. Noire.

Compared to Grand Theft Auto V s dense parody of the city, L.A. Noire s setting doesn t look all that impressive, at least not technically. But what has endured is its almost perverse attention to detail. Developer Team Bondi s reported budget for the game was $50 million, and you can see it in every lovingly detailed street corner, costume, prop, and licensed, period-appropriate vehicle. Playing L.A. Noire is like time travel, and it makes me wish more developers would squander obscene amounts of money creating authentic historical settings like this.

There are dozens of famous landmarks to visit, from Grauman s Chinese Theatre to the Bradbury building, but the impressive detail in L.A. Noire goes much deeper. I spent a good ten minutes just studying a breakfast table in a suspect s house. There are two plates with the remnants of toast and maybe beans. A salt and pepper shaker. A coffee pot. Some unopened mail. I imagined someone at Team Bondi researching, modelling, and texturing this stuff, and realised just how much love was poured into these environments. This kind of absurd, granular realism will be missed by most players, but even if you don t notice it, it s what makes L.A. Noire s settings so convincing.

You visit a lot of people s houses in L.A. Noire, from crummy one-room apartments to the palatial homes of the rich and famous. Every item of furniture, kitchen appliance, and food wrapper has been painstakingly researched and replicated. The interiors are cluttered and lived-in, and environmental clues will often subtly hint at the truth behind a case. Those plates, for example. The woman in the house says she s been alone all morning, so why are there two recently-eaten breakfasts on the table? The game doesn t point this little detail out, but leaves you to discover it for yourself.

Nosing around these cluttered interiors is encouraged as you search for clues and details to grill suspects about. An insurance policy, a photo torn in half, a love letter. But in the city itself, the detail is just there, and you re never forced to look at it. You can even skip the driving sections, forcing your partner to drive between crime scenes. But it s driving around where you really get a feel for the game s vivid urban landscape: the architecture, the cars, the fashion, the light, the mood. You ll drive past a diner and see people inside, eating hamburgers and reading newspapers. Drive to the top end of the map and you ll see the old Hollywoodland sign perched in the hills that loom over the city.

The music only adds to the powerful feeling of stepping into history.

One of my favourite details is the music that leaks through the windows of passing cars. L.A. Noire s radio station, KTI, enforces the period setting, and there s some really great music playing on there: Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters Pistol Packin Mama , T-Bone Walker s Bobby Sox Blues , Hank Williams Move It On Over . Anyone who s finished the game will have these tracks permanently etched into their brains. Combined with the visuals—and other touches such as advertising billboards and radio commercials—the music only adds to the game s powerful feeling of stepping into history.

It s a shame L.A. Noire came out in 2011, because just imagine how its period city would look recreated by today s technology. I really doubt Rockstar will ever return to it, especially now that Team Bondi is no more, but I hope they do. Not only do I want to see a version of 1940s Los Angeles with the visual fidelity of GTA s Los Santos, but I feel that the detective elements could be fl eshed out more. L.A. Noire is an enjoyable police procedural, but it still feels to me like a proof of concept for something much grander. Reviews were mixed, and many people look back on the game as a failed experiment, but I ll always love it and its remarkable city. I won t be returning to the real place any time soon, though.

Midnight on the beat, and I could tell this city has an old heart. Homicide watch wasn't an exciting job—murder stopped becoming a punchline for me long ago—but it kept me on the streets, and that's where you go if you want both a lesson in personality and how to avoid a fender-bender when the garbage man's drunk again.

Me? I came from some spitball of a town further upstate. Figured I'd join the force. Make a difference. Honor, valor, and all that. Everyone I met then were total strangers. Funny—they still seem like strangers now.

This place runs and breathes on oil drills, both a paradise for a man with black blood in his veins and a curse for the schmuck with blood painted on his face. Things were a mess for the longest time. The outside world felt like it didn't exist sometimes, and the city's own problems almost drove the boys and girls down at city hall into a panic. I guess it got to me—I came here for the big-time life, not a tug of war with reality.

I remember a buddy of mine, Calvin Chan, telling me to just "slow it down and look closer to see the more beautiful things in life." It's been a good anchor during dark times. It's a city with warts, after all—but it's my city.

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More Amazon PC game downloads


Green Man Gaming   ► 25% off everything

There are a couple of new voucher codes at GMG. Ending Monday, use GMG25-1BW0K-K1A3G to get 25% off any PC game download or SDOGS-E1V8A-9R1HX for 30% off Sleeping Dogs specifically.

You can't stack them for 55% off Sleeping Dogs, but you could buy Stacking for 25% off. Actually, you can't. It isn't in GMG's catalog. It is 50% off at Amazon, but that doesn't stop my joke from being ruined.

GOG  ►  Point-and-Click Mix
Point your browser to GOG's adventure-themed weekend deals and click on games like Machinarium, Resonance, and Botanicula. Wow. Did I go too far that time?

50% off Machinarium: Collector's Edition - $4.99
50% off Resonance - $4.99
50% off Gemini Rue - $4.99
50% off Blackwell Bundle - $7.49
50% off The Whispered World - $7.49
50% off Botanicula - $4.99


Get Games  ►  Total War
Nothing huge to report from Get Games. Sleeping Dogs is back up to 25% off, and the perennially on sale Total War series is on sale.


25% off Sleeping Dogs - $37.49
50% off Borderlands - $9.99
75% off Empire: Total War - $4.99
75% off Napoleon: Total War - $4.99
75% off Total War Shogun 2 - $9.99
70% off Total War Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai - $8.99
More deals from Get Games


GameStop   ► Saints Row and Might & Magic
GameStop's silly long list of deals is largely populated by Saints Row The Third's expansive DLC library and Might & Magic.

GamersGate  ► A bin of bargains

Why can't I hold all these deals? At least GamersGate has gone from 10 pages of scattershot discounts to just two, but there's still a lot to cover. Here's the short version: it has same Trine bundle deal as Steam, 75% off Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY, and tons of kings, crusades, and iron hearts.

GameFly   ► Bulletstorm and Stronghold 3
GameFly is pretty light on sales this weekend, so I'll just use this space to think about the idea of a real bullet storm. It would be terrible. All those bullets plummeting from angry thunder-shots above. Clearly, we can never allow the gods to acquire firearms.

75% off Bulletstorm - $5.00
50% off Stronghold 3 Gold - $19.99


Let us know in the comments if you find any more great deals, and if you feel like sharing: what are you playing this weekend? I'll continue thieving in Guild Wars 2 on the Tarnished Coast server, though I am disappointed that the Thief class steals abilities instead of what I really want: money. I want to be the richest low-level scoundrel on the server, dammit.

Depending on who you talk to, LA Noire was either a compelling masterpiece or a grand folly. One thing’s for sure, though; its creator Brendan McNamara had an ambitious idea for a game and followed it through.

His next game seems to be taking a similar retro-tact to LA Noire. According to Kotaku, it’s “one of the great untold stories of the 20th century.” Oh yeah, it’s also called Whore of the Orient - but we’re not sure how long that name will stick before a concerned parent makes them change it to “Chinese Detective Story”.

As Kotaku points out, Whore of the Orient is the nickname for Shanghai, which could lead to a lot of sexist jokes we’re not even going to begin to make. Its huge population and dodgy quarters make it comparable to LA Noire’s vision of 1940s Los Angeles.

Of course, Brendan McNamara’s Team Bondi studios were controversially shut down after the release of LA Noire, but it seems McNamara’s got a new chum in the form of Mad Max director George Miller, whose KMM Studios are backing Whore of the Orient. It’s also more than likely that LA Noire’s groundbreaking MotionScan facial animation will return - McNamara owns Depth Analysis, the company behind it.