Rockstar provides an experience unlike any other
L.A. Noire is a strange game. It offers an incredibly guided experience that is shockingly different than the open world approach Rockstar has built its legacy on. By sacrificing flexibility, L.A. Noire is able to offer a more focused narrative that is mature, complex, and entirely captivating.
You play as Cole Phelps, a young man trying to make a name for himself in the Los Angeles Police Department. The year is 1947, and Phelps has just returned from World War II. He's strictly by the books, so much so that he gives off a cold and distant demeanor. The commitment Phelps has to the job is both commendable and frightening. He seems determined to clean up the City of Angels at any cost.
The narrative of the game is surprisingly restrained. L.A. Noire reveals its plot slowly and deliberately. Things don't tie together until you're close to finishing the game. Like a good book, it's the suspense of what will happen next that makes you keep going.
On the surface, L.A. Noire is a reimagining of the adventure game. Rather than focus on action, you spend most of your time talking and finding clues. The blend of dialogue, investigating, and action is almost perfectly mixed. It's hard to feel like you're spending too much time on any one thing.
It also helps that the game is incredibly convincing. L.A. Noire's portrayal of a 1947 Los Angeles is almost flawless. Everything from the architecture to the fashion is immaculately detailed. Merely driving through the game's numerous streets is a joy thanks to all of the technically and artistically impressive sights.
However, L.A. Noire's most fascinating feature is its interrogation system. Throughout the game you will regularly need to probe witnesses and suspects for leads and evidence that will help you solve your case. Depending on their answers to your questions, you will have to decide whether or not they're telling the truth.
What makes this process so interesting is the unbelievable facial animation technology that Team Bondi has developed for the game. It allows characters to elicit an incredible range of believable emotion. It's amazing how naturally a character's brow furrows, or how their lips tense up in such a subtle way. Somehow Team Bondi has done away with the stilted and awkward interactions normally found in video games, and has risen the bar for what's expected of facial animation in the future.
Unfortunately the game's lowest point takes away the player's sense of control. When interrogating someone, you're only given three options - truth, lie, or doubt. You should only directly accuse someone of lying if you have the evidence to back it up. If you're confident that they're not telling the truth, but don't have sufficient evidence, the appropriate option is doubt. The problem is that this system is so rigid, and only allows for one right answer. You may be able to rationally deduce that you have the evidence to prove someone is lying, only to have the game tell you that you're wrong, without ever really explaining why.
Trying to figure out the game's brand of logic can be frustrating, and it would hurt the experience more if you were punished you for it. No matter how badly you screw things up during an investigation, the game will continue. You may be chastised by the police captain and it may take you longer to close a case, but things will continue onward. You will still get to experience the key points of the story, and it's hard to ever feel like you're truly stuck. It keeps the game moving and engaging, rather than having it feel like an exercise in trial and error.
It also gives the game it's replay value. Things can play out differently depending on how you approach each case. For example, in one scene, you get a call that asks you to rush and investigate a disturbance at a woman's apartment. If you get there quickly, the men causing the disturbance will still be there and you have a chance to stop them. If you're too late, you'll arrive at the apartment with the thugs gone and everything in disarray.
L.A. Noire is a rare breed of a game. It's ambitious in a way that makes it not quite like anything else out there. Though it doesn't flawlessly succeed in its vision, it manages to provide a world that's totally enveloping. Even if it doesn't fit the traditional Rockstar mold, those who give it a chance will find it hard not getting lost in its seedy, corrupt world.
