I already played a lot of the game on PS3 earlier this year, and you can put me in the camp of people that rather enjoyed it. Seeing it cheap on Steam during the most recent sales got me to double dip, and the hope of playing the game in 3D was part of the reason why I went for it.
L.A. Noire presents some points of interest worth delving into. It's unique way of combining video footage of real live actors with simple 3D animated faces worked great in 2D, but how do they work in 3D? How does playing the game in black and white effect our results?
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Does the game work in 3D at all? Well at first try that answer seemed to be no. The game crashed on loading with both TriDef and IZ3D which was disapointing to say the least. However, a little googling around and I stumbled on a beta version of Ignition that has been updated to support (amongst other things) L.A. Noire and you can find that beta here.
Although it takes a while to load, and although the intro videos (and all video based cutscenes) only display in the left eye using this new version definately works. Given that the game was not long out, and that the version of Ignition was a beta, I wasn't expecting much. I was expecting misaligned shadows all over the place, and screwed up animation on the faces.
Fortunately my expectations were way off. Firing up the game I was presented with pretty much perfect 3D. Lighting, shadows, fog, glare effects, you name it, it all displays perfectly. Aside from the video playback issues the only other problem I ran into was the common issue of a misaligned crosshair. Shooting isn't a big focus in L.A. Noire and if you don't want to use the laser sight offered in TriDef's drivers, I didn't find shooting particularly hampered by the crosshair problem.
I turned off the autofocus option, as I find it distracting and set the convergence to be on Detective Cole during normal gameplay. On my 3DTV this greatly reduced crosstalk, although it did make written clues a little hard to read. Everything else, cutscenes, the notebook, investigating items, all looked good.
Here's where we run into an interesting thing about L.A. Noire, that will likely make a big difference in how you may want to play it in 3D. Because the performances of the actors were only captured at 30 frames per second, the game is locked at 30 FPS. On a lot of 3D displays, espescially with PC games, running 720p is preferrable because with 3D when you run at 1080p you tend to be locked at 24 fps. At 720p you can enjoy a full 60 fps. The cinematic nature of L.A. Noire, and the fact that you're only giving up a little framerate, makes it look a lot better in 1080p 3D than it does in 720p, at least to my eyes. The added detail is more than worth 6 frames a second in this case.
Since the HMZ's have a native resolution of 720p, they can't run L.A. Noire in 1080p like my 3DTV can. Unlike a first person game, and partly due to L.A. Noire's cinematic feel, it doesn't espescially benefit from the added isolation of the HMZ's either. So that just leaves crosstalk, and this is where a lot of people's opinions are likely to diverge from my own.
I play L.A. Noire in black and white because for me at least, it evokes the time in which the game is set. The garish colours that the game displays when played normally have always seemed wrong for the gritty tone of the game. So why is this key for discussion of 3D? Well, since playing the game in black and white ensures that you only have contrast between light and dark, rather than between colours as well, it actually reduces crosstalk substantially. It doesn't eliminate it entirely, but it helps a lot. I was surprised to observe this at first, but it makes sense on reflection.
Usually brightly coloured things really pop in 3D. Dark games like Deus Ex lose a lot of 'wow' when played on my 3DTV, but L.A. Noire really flourishes. Perhaps it's the added detail of 1080p vs 720p. Whatever it is, L.A. Noire looks great running in 1080p on my 3DTV, and I'll be sticking to the 3DTV to play it rather than using the HMZs.
I'm pretty surprised as I didn't think any game would seem preferable on the 3DTV over the HMZs, but if you like the way L.A. Noire looks in black and white, you'll love the way it looks in 1080p on your 3DTV. Also, it's much easier to deal with the video cutscenes only playing in one eye as you can just lift up your glasses when one starts to play. The game isn't bad by any means on the HMZ, displaying with barely a flaw, it's just not the best way to play this one.
3DTV Experience: 4/5
HMZ Experience 3.5/5
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