What are your thoughts for people who have played the game?

i like it. It's one of those games that you should REALLY pay attention to. Detail is very important. Evidence collecting is important. anyways, i say you should give it a try.

I'm not done with it but yeah as of right now I love this game.

Doesn't arrive over here until tomorrow, I'll be picking it up in the morning. Sadly I have work until the evening, and then for the rest of the evening and the remainder of the weekend I'm on a film shoot so I won't be able to properly play it until my day off on Monday I suspect.

I'm going to check it out.

But you haven't played Mafia II yet, why waste your time?

In terms of graphical quality, its a new leap towards realism. The game has by far the best facial expressions ever because they simply are real faces. Id still hand it to heavy rain in best overall character graphics but the faces in this are fantastic. The game is all I expected in realism. Its hard to pull yourself away from being inside that world once you're in it.

In terms of Sound quality, sfx and soundtrack id say its just as good as previous Rockstar games. Im conflicted if I would have liked control over the radio though. That seems abit too close to GTA so I can see why they wouldnt include it. But at the same time, I think I would enjoy being able to flip through radio stations of that era. Although it is already on most of the time anyways and im sure we'd only get about 2-3 stations to choose from if we did. So its not that big a deal.

The gameplay while heavily similar to GTA, is all very responsible, realistic and unique. Interrogation plays a major role. Its fresh and the first of its kind. You're pretty much just going on instinct sometimes and making mistakes truely effects your outcome in the mission. ie you think a character is lying at somepoint early on in the story, you dont collect enough information and piece it together, someone can end up dead because of that. Its all very engrossing and I think it takes the Heavy Rain approach but makes it much more action oriented.
Driving is fun. I think they did a good job there. GTA IV's cars were kinda wild, these are more tame and controlable.

The city. It's really impressive.
As some of you know im from Southern California. Im from all over the southern state. Im pretty familiar with L.A and I think they did a great job. It's not to the point that I can say I recognize area's exactly, but overall I know the city abit, I know all the city streets and land marks. The layout is familiar. I can say they did a faithful recreation of it. It's a much different looking city these days but I can see now how it evolved into what it is today based on this game.

Im about 25% into the game now.
I can say what is lacking however are other things to do besides be on the main case. Maybe I havent gotten that far yet but so far all their is to do it be on the trail for the case at hand or drive around doing the small side missions which usually end up with you shooting some criminals or beating up a crazy person. Also you can find new hidden cars around the city. But so far thats it.
Now while this can sound bland, it's not really an issue when the main story and missions are so good that you want to keep pressing into them.
That kind of thing would be a problem for GTA or RDR, but this to me is a game much more focused on the story than those two, so its not that big a deal. Im almost glad they didnt go for the same approach in trying to make you do everything under the sun. That can also become monotonous and detract from the story.

Overall I give it a 4.1 out of 5 so far.

Easily a goty contender. But not winner.
Great for people who like Rockstar games, Shenmue, Heavy Rain and Mafia.

You could have just said, "Yama I want you to try it." I really see what you did there.

Well i completed the game about a hour ago. The ending was "ok", but none the less a good game with a excellent story.

Try it! You got the investigation and dialogue aspects of Heavy Rain. The detail of Shenmue and the world/everything else of Mafia.

Its a very classy game.

Should maybe put spoiler tag on that?

I played my first time thru without any aids like auto music turn off when all clue is found and vibrate when near a evidence.

It was a pain since i dunno if i got enough evidence or not, so i scavenge everywhere :P
still manage to 5 star most of the case.

Tho vice and one of the arson case was pretty hard due to