As I have stated last week, PlayStation Network is still down in Asia and it continues to be down. It was mentioned before that Sony is planning to bring all of PSN’s features by the end of May, but I’m starting to feel like we may not even get PSN at all if this keeps up.

For those of you who had already pass the first phase of PSN restoration should look forward to the relaunch of the PlayStation Store. It was suppose to be up on 24 May, but PSN is under maintenance so nobody can access it. Wait just a little longer, and the Welcome Back program will be yours.

Here are new games/DLC we have played:

L.A. Noire

New Releases

• Dirt 3 (PS3 / X360 / PC)
• Kung Fu Panda 2 (PS3 / X360 / WII / DS)
• Dungeons & Dragon Daggerdale (XBLM)
• Sega Rally Online Arcade (XBLM)
• Dead or Alive: Dimensions (3DS)

L.A. Noire

Developer: Team Bondi / Rockstar Games
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Genre: Action-adventure
Release Date: 17 May 2011
Buy it now!

Guuzen: I have played through a couple of hours of L.A. Noire and there was never a moment when I am bored. I actually have the urge to see and hear and play everything in that world. Team Bondi has developed an awesome title that is worthy of entering the Rockstar catalogue. However, as much as I am praising it, I have to agree with a lot of people when I say that this game is still not something everyone will enjoy. If you don’t like slowly walking around and investigating crime scenes, collecting evidence, questioning people, or maybe just the 1940s setting, then you may want to either rent it or find something else to play.

If you are interested in this game, be prepared to be teleported into 1940s Los Angeles. Team Bondi did a great job reconstructing and making it a living and breathing world. You will be driving some sort of old looking car, going past some pop art billboard, newspaper boy shouting “extra extra!”, olden traffic light with signs saying go or stop flipping up and down, all of those and more while listening to 1940s music with your car radio. The menus are mimicking 1940s film with monochrome block letters slanting diagonally with a dark background.

You play as Cole Phelps, a married war hero who has retired from the army after WWII and now working as a patrol in the police department. As you play through the game’s missions, you will slowly uncover Cole’s war stories which will reveal his motive to join the police force. However it seems like the game is not paying any attention to his personal family life. Cole will “rise through the ranks” in the police department, so after patrol he will be promoted to traffic, homicide, vice, and arson. Different department will have their own set of street crimes so that is pretty interesting.

The main gameplay is detective work, finding clues an evidence in and around the crimes scenes. Finding all of them will greatly help interrogations and also give you a better rating. Finding clues and evidence is not as difficult as it sounds. All you have to do is walk around the crime scene and when your controller vibrates it means you are next to an object of interest. Not all of them will be relevant to the case but you can’t be too careful. After all the clues have been collected, a sound will be played and the background music will be turned off. After scavenging the crime scenes, you can then use those evidence you have collected to your advantage during suspect interrogations.

If you find yourself with a tough to crack suspect or a messy crime scene, you can use intuition points to assist you. These are earned by leveling up Cole and the amount of experience points earned depends on your performance during cases. If im correct, You are only allowed to store up to five intuition points and using them will not harm your case ratings in any way, so feel free to use them.

If you have not figured out, L.A. noire is a slow paced game with each case lasting from 20 mins to an hour plus. Also, it requires your full attention so if you are a multi-tasker you may find yourself lost during interrogations. The game does help you keep track of dialogues with the log system and you can always find out what you have collected for the case so far by pulling out your handy dandy notebook, but it really is a needless hassle if you have been focusing on the game.

Currently I am nearly 20 hours into the game and I am in the middle of the vice cases, so I am left with arson. I could have completed the main story by now, but I am just so eager to do those street crimes (random side missions) whenever they pop up on the map. You won’t encounter them if you ask your partner to drive, but don’t worry because You can always get back to them during free roam.

There are probably a lot more things to discover in L.A. Noire but that is what I have seen of the game so far. I’ve always enjoyed playing a quality singleplayer game and this definitely delivers.