Clues? What clues?

So a friend of mine got the new L.A. Noire by Rockstar games, and we had an interesting few hours playing it.  I did a couple cases, and well, I had to put it down.  To be frank, it's not my kind of game.  I'm not sure who's kind of game it is, it must be some ones, but it most certainly isn't mine.

Game: L.A. Noire
Developer: Rockstar
Platforms: Xbox 360, Ps3

Rating: 5 Gumshoes are just on the wrong feet.

I'm going to start off by stating what is good about the game.  Graphically, it's decent.  Face mapping on characters is well drawn out making their mouth and eye movements as well as facial expressions flow quite well.  Physics engine is decent, not great, but decent.  For a detective game, the crimes do seem worth your time to look into.  Wiggling panties and hanging around the water-cooler were my favorite part of this game...

Now onto the bad.  The game is a rail (I'd say "rail shooter" but it lacks the "shooter" part that is customary follower to that phrase).  It is a sandbox game where they dumped out of all the sand, given you 1 toy, and eye you closely to make sure you play with it how they want you too.  In layman's terms, the game is very rigid.  There is 1 way to do things, and no room for deviation.  The game mechanic is this:  Your stuffed into an area.  Theres a person in front of you, you talk to them.  You can't talk to anyone else, but them and you can only say very few things.  Then your stuffed into another area to pick up trash like a janitor.  Once you have enough trash, you can talk to 1 other person.  You can't talk to anyone else, no one else cares about your trash.  Rinse and repeat.  Peppered into this one on one duality, they toss you a few bones of car chases and gun play, but to be honest, it's not really enough to keep my attention.   Cars, like in GTA 4, have a much wider turn radius than the narrow streets allow, leaving you crashing into buildings regardless of your "skill".  You can't slap witnesses or people your interrogating.  In fact, the cut scene NPC's lord the fact that they can slap whom-ever they please right in front of you.

What this game desperately needs, is player control.  At the moment, as the game is, It feels like the game is desperately trying to get rid of the player element all together.  As if being there, holding a controller, is some sort of burden for the game as it jumps from one cinema to the other.  3 things would have made this game epic:

1. Multiple story paths:  That is to say, that there should be more than 1 way to complete a crime case.  More than 1 person to talk too.  More than 1 area of clues.  If you walk around, you should be able to find more people involved.  Even civilians would know "something", sort of deal.
2. Bipolar character interface:  What I mean by this, is to have some sort of a meter for "good cop, bad cop".  If a player does bad things as a cop (like blackmail and orphanage), they get bad cop points.  If a player does good cop things (say buy the station a box of doughnuts), then they get good cop points.  The overall number of points gives the player character a "reputation" and outcomes, options, and dialogue become available depending on that score.  For instance, a bad cop might get the option to take a bribe, where a good cop might get a fruit basket on his desk.
3. More Crime:  As a detective, you are constantly in harms way.  I'm not talking about roving gangs on the street, I'm just saying that there are always TONS of conspiracy theory's that people hire detectives to look into.  I'm not talking about crack pot ideas like the sinister function of plastic shoe string tips, or the investigation of big foot, but I am talking about a wife who suspects her husband of cheating, or the girl scout with missing cookies.  The lack of trivial side quests, the journey to side quest island, and the return to side quest island leaves the game unfinished.

Integration of 2 out of the 3 of these would make the game a more player friendly experience.  My biggest issue with it, was the fact that whether you were there playing the game, or not, it didn't seem to matter at all.

That's that, case closed.