We’re ten paces and a twirl from our 100th show, but you’re going to have to settle for #99 right now. This week we’re talking Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, Orcs Must Die, Keyboard Drumset F#%&ing Werewolf, duels, and dream games.

In this very special Independence Day episode of Fall Damage, Adam and Niki ride a tandem bike of awesome and talk about F.3.A.R., Uncharted 3, Ms. Splosion Man, Niki’s new 3DS, the growing gulf between Call of Duty and Battlefield, inFamous 2, and Typhoid Mary.

I spent the majority of yesterday thinking about the shiny new copy of L.A. Noire that was stowed away in my backpack.  I had picked up my pre-ordered copy during my lunch break, held it in my hands, and felt the weight of the three disc game as it slid from my grasp and into my bag.  The final six hours of my shift crept by at a torturous pace and I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve.  Needless to say, I was freakin’ excited to play the game that had been on my radar for nearly a year.  As the game loaded on my Xbox 360 I found myself saying a little prayer to the gaming gods that this highly anticipated game would not disappoint me like other games have recently (*cough*Brink*cough*), and let me tell you, it hasn’t.

The opening scene introduces the city of L.A., which, in my opinion, is as much a character in the plot as the leading man, Officer Cole Phelps.  Only in 1940′s L.A. would a player find starlets, aspiring actresses, directors, mobsters, and of course your run of the mill housewives turned murderers.  Rockstar has done what they do best in this game; putting together a cast of memorable characters in a true to period, living environment and highlighting the memorable areas and history of the city.  Do not get me wrong here, this game is not your typical Rockstar game.  The similarities of past games stop at the setup of the city and the map exploring mechanics.  Rockstar has gone a more serious route, playing to classic 40′s crime drama movies flawlessly, pulling the player into the storyline from the opening scenes.

Following Officer Phelps through his rise in ranks in the L.A. Police Department, from lowly patrolman to traffic detective and so on, the player is also fed Phelps’ back story of military officer training in a series of foggy flashbacks of Phelps’ memories.  The actual game play starts with two patrolmen, driving in an open world to a dispatch call, where Phelps and his partner are commissioned with the job of searching a crime scene.  The search and the subsequent events after, train the player in the fine arts of crime scene investigation, running the leads and speaking with people of interest, but the real star of the investigation process is the interrogation game play.  The developer has added a twist to the usually dull question and answer interactions of other games, using their new facial animation software to allow the player to actually “read” whether your suspect is telling the truth, lying, or holding out on you.  To take it a step further, if you misread the suspect, the game will use that misread to trick you into misreading again by using the expressions, stutters, or movements against you.  As with any suspect in real life, some are terrible liars, and reading them was easy.  But as I progress in the game, the suspect’s personalities, vocal patterns and of course facial ticks are becoming more and more complex and difficult to read, especially the women (but isn’t that how life is?).  This amazing little feature really sets up a lot of potential for the next generation of games.

The game itself is not without flaws, as with any title with this much content.  Their are some mild issues with graphics and frame rates dropping, as well as my own game freezing once so far.  As for game play components that missed the mark, the side missions have so far been very simple dispatch calls, consisting of a quick chase and stand off with a gunmen that always ends with the gunman dead after holding a hostage or a quick climb to the top of a bell tower to stop a jumper, not really fun and very repetitive, but none of these problems are deal breakers in any way.

A compelling story, familiar movement and fight mechanics, beautiful graphics, memorable characters, and a whole new way to play a mystery/puzzle game leaves Rockstar deserving a huge high five and a thank you for putting in the work to develop a truly well made game.  I hope that the last 75% of this game is as entertaining as the first part and the cases keep getting more complex and challenging.  I for sure will be playing this one in its entirety and enjoying every minute of it.

We did it folks. We did it.

You play as a driller robot who can break blocks apart, pick them up, and reuse them. If you complete a line of blocks, the line gets destroyed a la Tetris.

Our intention is exactly the same than the one we had when we created Tuper Tario Tros. We want to create a unique game experience mixing games elements and mechanics.

The mash-up concept is a popular genre and that’s something we really like because it allows players to see how games that seem different at first can share the same DNA.

- Guillaume Martin and William David, founders of Swing Swing Submarine.

Blocks That Matter will be coming to Xbox LIVE Indie Games in April, followed by a PC/Mac/Linux release shortly thereafter. Expect pricing to be less than $5.