When comparing L.A. Noire vs Hitman (2016), the Slant community recommends Hitman (2016) for most people. In the question“What are the best open world games on Steam?” Hitman (2016) is ranked 7th while L.A. Noire is ranked 32nd. The most important reason people chose Hitman (2016) is:
The game's six levels are all big sandboxes that allow players to complete their tasks in any way they see fit. This allows players a great deal of freedom in experimentation and the customization of play style. One of the earliest assassinations in the game can be achieved through the manipulation of a chess board, sabotaging the ejection seat of a fighter jet, or faking a radio call, among other things. Hitman provides a strong context for the player's actions, but there is no wrong way to play, so long as you get the target.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Incredibly realistic facial expressions
Every single character in the game looks true-to-life because of how their faces look and move. The developers used some neat motion scanning technology to capture the voice actors' faces as they gave their lines. You get to see every wrinkle, every shift of their jaw lines, and every twitch of their mouths as they speak and emote. There's so much attention to detail that it looks like you're watching a movie with real people. It's really stunning and stands out as a great example of advancing technology in video games.
Pro Great story set in 1940s Los Angeles
The detective drama in L.A. Noire is creative and intriguing. Playing as an honest cop named Cole, you get to see the magnitude of crime and racial tension in Los Angeles in the years after World War II, told through the stories of the authentic cast of characters you meet.
As a cop, you solve crimes and nail crooks, moving up the ladder in the police department. Each of your investigations take you all around the great rendition of the city in the 1940s, rich with the styles of cars, fashion, and music from the time period. It's a unique experience and setting that not many other games explore.
Pro Detailed crime investigation gameplay
Investigating crime scenes is great because of the attention to detail in each mission. Looking over murder victims for patterns in their wounds, for example, gives you an idea of how or why they might have died, which you then jot down in your handy notebook that keeps track of all the information you collect. Observing tire tracks, bloody murder weapons, business cards, and even picking through trash cans leads you to new clues to find and paths to follow. It's up to you to pick out which details may or may not be important, keeping you in control of where each investigation leads.
Pro Interrogating witnesses and suspects is a fun challenge
During investigations, you interrogate suspects in a cool, interactive way. After collecting clues, you use your notebook to decide which questions to ask witnesses and suspects. You read their facial expressions, body language, and their tone of voice to judge if they're telling the truth or not. Using your instincts to guess correctly gets the person to open up more, giving you the information you need. If you get it wrong, they shut you down and you're out of luck. The technology used for facial expressions gives you a lot of leeway to truly spot the shifty-eyed or nervous liars just like in real life.
Pro Tons of choice
The game's six levels are all big sandboxes that allow players to complete their tasks in any way they see fit. This allows players a great deal of freedom in experimentation and the customization of play style. One of the earliest assassinations in the game can be achieved through the manipulation of a chess board, sabotaging the ejection seat of a fighter jet, or faking a radio call, among other things. Hitman provides a strong context for the player's actions, but there is no wrong way to play, so long as you get the target.
Pro Hiding in plain sight is intuitive
The game allows for players to easily hide in plain sight through a disguise system, like dressing up as a model at a fashion show, which gives the player access to anywhere they might want to go. This is expanded upon by having a helpful hint system for those who are unfamiliar with its intricacies.
Pro Replayability through escalations, contracts, challenges, and masteries
Once the main level and objective is complete, players can move on to escalation missions or player-created contracts. Escalation missions remix the maps, giving players new targets to complete in the same maps. Paris features 17 escalations, Sapienza has 9, and the other missions have some as well. More are being added all the time. Escalations are unusual in that they feature specific constraints, such as specific uniforms that must be worn, or specific methods of assassination. This increases the difficulty, but it's a great to expand each episode. The player contracts are similar, but this game mode allows the player to choose who their target is and what constraints to put in place, making for an endless list of possibilities in a particular level. Each level also features 20 'Mastery' levels, which unlock tools and insertion locations that expand the way the level can be played. Hitman is a game built to be replayed.
Pro Interactive environments
More so than previous games in the series, Hitman has many objects that can be tampered or interacted with. Nearly any problem the player faces can be solved by using the game's many interactive objects. For players unsure where to start, the challenge system offers a wide variety of hints. For instance, the optional challenges for the first training level include one where the player must disguise himself as a special character who is scheduled to meet the target and another where the target can be given rat poison at the bar.
Cons
Con No real consequences for failing to solve cases
Even if you continually mess up with the cases, you still get promoted in the police force. You could be the worst cop ever, making terrible decisions and getting yelled at by your superiors. But then in the next cutscene, your bosses tell you what a great job you did and that you're moving up to a more important department. It doesn't make any sense and gives you no reason to do your best during investigations.
Con The finale is bland
After all the excitement and gritty realism in the story, the final mission and the ending are a real drag in comparison. The momentum from the plot gets sucked out at the end as you play through an uninspired and predictable sequence of events. It looks too much like the developers phoned this part in for the sake of having an ending that wraps up everything nicely.
Con Not a lot to do in the big open world
L.A. Noire's open world in Los Angeles is huge, but there isn't much to do in it. There's a bunch of space that's just there for the sake of it. Sure, you can take on really short cases as side missions that you find around the map, like taking out bad guys that are about to rob a place, though that's about all you can do. Including period piece locations like jazzy clubs or laid-back diners to visit whenever could have been a lot of fun.
Con DRM issues
While playing single player, if the player loses connection to the game's servers (through their own internet going down or the servers going down) the game will boot the player back to the start screen, meaning any advancement made in the game will be lost. To see this happen in single-player is concerning, as there is no reason for the single-player experience to take place online.
The game features frequent online updates, limited-time event assassinations, and other features that benefit from an online connection, but players cannot opt out of these features if they simply wish to play the single-player campaign.
Con First chapter does not offer a ton of content
Much of the content in the first chapter are a bunch of training levels that are represented as being done on a set of some kind, giving a feeling of not being real. The problem here is that there is little in the way of giving a feeling of wanting to revisit these training levels, which drastically cuts down on the playable content in this chapter.