10 Overhyped Game Mechanics That Were A Complete Disappointment

10. Realistic Interrogations - L.A. Noire

L.A. Noire is one of the more ambitious Rockstar projects when it comes to innovation. The game’s goal was to create a realistic 1940’s detective experience by making the witnesses and suspects express the most subtle emotions on their faces with the latest motion-capture technologies.

Well, “latest” by the standards of 2011, which is probably why this revolutionary feature ended up looking more comical than immersive. Instead of serving as a window into the suspect's psyche, the expressions your character’s interviewees made were either stupidly easy to read or so grotesquely contorted that you had to double check if you were still talking to a human being and not some sort of malfunctioning shapeshifter.

You can’t deny L.A. Noire's ambition but its core mechanics simply aren’t as impressive as its developers anticipated, especially when you come back to the game nowadays. It makes for an entertaining spectacle in the vein of a circus show, but if you’re looking for a proper interrogator simulator, you unfortunately need to search for it elsewhere.

Well, at least Detective Phelps’ drawings looked really good.