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You can check out plenty more photos of the trip at facebook. View the photo gallery here.
On the 11 hour flight over to LAX Airport I watched 'The Way Back' on the plane along with an episode of the US Office (not as good as the original UK version) and Smithy's Comic Relief.
I also read a bit of Bear Grylls' book and listened to a few hours of Ricky Gervais' podcasts which never get old. Eventually I arrived in LA but had to wait over an hour to get through passport control, get my bags then for some stupid reason, go through passport control again to get out of the airport.I got picked up by one of Rockstar's drivers. Traffic was pretty bad though because it was around rush hour so he took me through the streets rather than along the freeway. Eventually got to the hotel and met the main Rockstar guys responsible for the trip. I went to my room and got settled. It was a really nice room with a packed mini-bar, an HDTV on the wall and a balcony overlooking the pool. At least according to the girl at reception. In reality the view was nearly completely blocked by trees but never mind. I had a shower and met the Rockstar guys at the pool with fansite guys Adam and Jevon from GTANet. We had a few drinks by the pool then went out for some food. I had a big cheese burger with lettuce which was nice. After the food we went for a walk around and checked out the mall nearby but we were all tired from travelling and the time difference so went to bed at 10:30 PM ish local time.
Once we got back to the hotel I got showered and changed and we went to the hotel restaurant for food. Rockstar had a custom menu with random starters and a few choices for the main course. I got the chicken which was pretty good. Later we had a few drinks then I went back to the room and played LA Noire for another couple of hours before I fell asleep.
We went back to the hotel and hung by the pool chilling out with a few drinks as more groups of random people started arriving to party. A few of us stayed out pretty late chatting to the other guys and drinking at the party by the pool which got pretty busy. We got chatting to a guy who claimed to be a music video producer from Canada, although whether you can believe a word anyone says in Hollywood is another matter. I ended up going to bed at around 3 AM to play LA Noire but paused the game and fell asleep instantly.
Once we got back to the hotel the US and Canadian fansite guys were starting to leave so we said goodbye then got our bags packed. Rockstar gave us some LA Noire t-shirts, then we hung out by the pool while they got all their stuff packed. Myself and the other UK fansite guys went to In-N-Out Burger for some lunch which was awesome. One of the nicest burgers I've ever had. Once that was done we went back to the hotel and sat by the pool while we waited to be driven to the airport and eventually checked in and boarded the flight.
The flight from LA to London Heathrow wasn't too bad. I think I slept for most of it, but I recall repositioning myself at least 30 times trying to get comfortable so I probably didn't sleep that much. All I did was listen to the Ricky Gervais podcasts all the way back and attempt to eat the horrible aeroplane food. From there it was a quick flight from London to Newcastle and then home to empty my suitcase of all the stuff I grabbed from the mini-bar!
I'm very impressed with LA Noire. Although I can't claim to know much about Los Angeles in 1947, the game does feel like it's set in that time period and a number of the cases are inspired by real life cases from the time, particularly the Black Dahlia murder which we got to learn more about on the bus tour.
The graphics are more or less similar to GTA4 and Red Dead Redemption, possibly with minor tweaks but the engine looks and feels the same as those games. I must stress however, that LA Noire is NOT a GTA game set in the 1940's. It's a totally different genre and a number of the features you'd expect to see in GTA aren't available. For a start, you can't just whip out a gun when walking down the street and shoot innocent people. The game is set up in such a way that weapons are only available when they're required in a mission, for example when you come under fire. You can hit people with your car, but hitting too many can cause you to fail a case, which brings me onto another point. The game is not free-roam mission based like GTA. You don't choose which mission you want to do or who you want to work for. The game starts you off on your first case, and as you complete them, you move instantly onto the next case. While working on a case you're free to go off and do free roaming however you want, but because you're still on a case and you're playing as a cop/detective, you need to be careful. I think this is good because the whole aim of the game is to solve crimes, not cause them and I'd find it hard to see how anyone could dislike the game for that reason.Another good feature which I used a lot is the ability to let your partner drive. You'll regularly need to head back and forth across town in order to collect evidence and question people, so the ability to skip the trip via your partner is very useful and can speed up the game. You are of course free to drive yourself and can take part in solving street crimes which are side missions whenever you hear an announcement on the radio - if you want. The game also autosaves very regularly and you won't have to replay big parts of missions if you fail.
Searching for evidence is quite fun and I spent a lot of time trying to make sure I picked up and examined every object within a few hundred yards of the crime scene. Not a great idea though because it's pretty time consuming, but worth it for the additional questions you'll unlock which can help to solve the case in a quicker and more professional manner. Questioning witnesses or suspects is also fun and actually quite difficult to tell what they're thinking. Even if their facial expressions show they're lying, if you don't have the evidence to back it up, your accusations are as good as nothing.Overall I think LA Noire is a great game with a lot of replay value. It doesn't feature any multiplayer, but it's the kind of game a group of people could sit around and shout out at the one who's playing telling them to check different areas for clues, or giving their own opinions on whether a suspect is lying. It's definitely something different, but it's something that's extremely enjoyable to play and each case can go down a number of different routes depending on the evidence you find, the questions you ask and the reponses you give and receive. GTA fans won't be disappointed and I'm pretty confident a lot of new Rockstar gamers will be brought in with this game. In fact I know of three very close people to myself who are all looking forward to this game as much as I am, and all 3 of those were never big on GTA because of the crime and violence you caused. This time you're a good guy and I think a lot of people will like being on this side of the tracks.
Rockstar were kind enough to send us an exclusive screenshot of LA Noire - find it below.
I'd just like to thank Rockstar Games for their amazing event once again. This is the fourth year we've had the opportunity to get together and there aren't many friendlier guys than those from Rockstar Games. I'd even go as far to say this was possibly the best event we've attended so far and it was a shame we all had to leave so soon but the time we got to spend with the game was incredible and the sights around LA which we got to experience will not be easily forgotten, neither will the individuals we were lucky enough to meet. Specifically I'd like to thank;
Jordan, Mike, Bill, Katherine, Mario and Scotty and Brian from (or associated with) Rockstar Games.
Also a shout out to the other webmasters at the event;
GTANet:
Adam
Jevon
Blair
Andy
RockstarNetwork:
Drew
LANoireGaming:
Kyle
GTAWarehouse:
Gerald
LANoireDB:
Zeeshan
IGN:
Jesse