Death and Vice in L.A.
L.A. Noire isn't your typical Rockstar game; it definitely isn't GTA in the 40's. You can't even aim your gun unless the story calls for it, you get penalized for running into civilians, and driving recklessly is also a detriment. Make no mistake, this is not GTA in the slightest bit. Team Bondi's L.A. Noire is an adventure game, through and through, you go crime scenes and find clues, you interrogate suspects, and you occasionally shoot some bad guys. The shooting takes a back seat for most of the game, so you spend most of your time solving the cases that are given to you by non-violent means. This creates a unique experience that is unlike any other game of its scope, and a game that everyone should play.
L.A. Noire takes place in 1947 Los Angeles, where corruption is everywhere, regardless of social standing, where everyone has something to hide. You play as newly minted LAPD detective Cole Phelps, a winner of the Silver Star and a stand-up good guy. As you learn through flashbacks, sprinkled throughout the story, Cole needs to atone for his sins that he committed during his time in Okinawa. He joins the LAPD as a naive detective, who insists on due process. Compared to the partners that Cole is matched up with, who are not so insistent on the rules, Cole creates a stark juxtaposition to the rest of L.A. You really get a sense of Cole growing as a person, and a cop, as the story continues, and you learn that Cole, who is made out to be a "perfect citizen", has secrets of his own.
It would be a disservice to the the wonderful story to spoil any of it, but it is great. The entire game is extremely well-written, the storytelling is superb, and there are plenty of real-life characters that are featured in the game (such as notorious gangster Mickey Cohen) that help ground the story in reality. However, I was disappointed in the lack of a strong emotional connection with the protagonist. The only thing that really hit emotionally were the flashbacks, when compared to Rockstar's other protagonists, namely John Marston and Niko Bellic, you don't learn much about Cole's personal life, which makes the ending a missed opportunity.
L.A. Noire's focus truly is the story, and the storytelling is really pushed over the top by the specifically developed Motion Scanning technology, which makes every conversation feel like a real one. You can see the crinkles of their forehead, the cocking of an eyebrow, and the pursing of lips with surprising detail. Motion Scanning actually uses real actors placed in studio, with around 30 cameras from every possible angle, and then the actors just say their lines. It makes the game almost feel like a movie, because it isn't just voice acting anymore, the actors are actually performing their lines for real now. One key component of the gameplay, the interrogations, would be rendered absolutely moot if the facial expressions were not as lifelike as they are. The Motion Scanning technology is a huge leap forward in the development of games, and is a true game changer.
As pointed out earlier, the gameplay mainly consists of interrogations and clue-finding, with shooting and chasing sprinkled in between. The writing of the interrogations are top-notch, and coupled with Motion Scanning Technology, the interrogations are often the best part of any case. In an interrogation, you have three choices to say to a suspect. You can take what just testified as true, you can doubt their statement, or if you have evidence, you can accuse them of lying. The feeling you get when you nail an interrogation is, quite honestly, one of the greatest feelings while playing a game. On the other hand, blowing an interrogation truly makes you feel lousy. But there is no need to fear, if you have a disastrous interrogation, each case unfolds dynamically, in its own special way. If you play through a case perfectly, finding all the clues and asking all the right questions, then you will get a high Case Rating after you finish. If you miss some clues and Falstaff accuse your witness, then you will not only get a lower case rating, you may have to go to a different location to pick up the clue that you did not extract from a previous interrogation. This means that even if you do terribly in an investigation, you can never get a game over screen (other than during an action scene).
The attention to detail that is present in the interrogations is also found in the clue finding. Cole Phelps see's a lot of crime scenes during his tenure as a detective, and each scene, as well as their accompanying clues, are designed and rendered with amazing detail. When you pick up a bloody tire iron, you can see the fine details of the tire iron itself, and the same goes for any documents you might pick up. Each clue feels real, feels tactile, and this gives the game a truly "lived-in" feel. Each house you visit actually looks and feels like a home.
However, the most memorable aspect of the crime scenes are the corpses you may encounter. During Cole's tenure on the Homicide Desk (one of the four desks Cole works on), the bodies of the murdered victims are straight up disturbing. While it sounds wrong to say so, the work that was put into making the corpses feel as disgusting as they are in real life, is astonishing.
When you aren't sleuthing through homes or drilling suspects for information, the game gives you a variety of different action sequences. Many of these are the expected shoot-outs, which work out exactly the same as Grand Theft Auto IV. Other than the somewhat unoriginal shoot-outs, there are car chases, as well as foot chases. Neither of them are particularly impressive, but all in all, the action sequences make solid bookends to the gameplay.
The Los Angeles that Team Bondi has developed is probably one of the most detailed and realistic open-world environments in any game; if you can call it an open world game. The game doesn't play like Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto, where you travel to a quest-giver to start the next mission, when you complete a case, it immediately begins the next one. It's much more linear than expected, but its not a bad thing at all. It strengthens the pacing, and if you so choose to, you can cruise around an amazing looking 1947 Los Angeles.
Other than the always amazing facial animations, the graphics are a mixed bag. The city, cars, and character models are solid, but there are still some problems in the graphics department. In the Xbox 360 version, there are some heinous frame rate drops and plenty of texture pop-in. However, the most disturbing part of the graphics are the hair on the character models. The hair just looks like a big pile of brown or yellow on top of a characters head. Its not bad, per-se, but when the rest of the character looks as good as it does, the contrast is at times, appalling. The sound in the game is likewise solid. The voice acting is some of the best in any game (as it features basically the entire cast of Mad Men) and the soundtrack is equally great, with a score that ranges from content to downright macabre.
Many people, including myself, expected this to be Grand Theft Auto in the 1940's, and I was pleasantly surprised. The game steps out of the comfort zone of the open-world genre and takes a huge leap forward. The macabre tone and uniqueness of the entire experience makes this a game that everyone with an interest in games or noire in general, should play.
Five stars out of five.
The attention to detail that is present in the interrogations is also found in the clue finding. Cole Phelps see's a lot of crime scenes during his tenure as a detective, and each scene, as well as their accompanying clues, are designed and rendered with amazing detail. When you pick up a bloody tire iron, you can see the fine details of the tire iron itself, and the same goes for any documents you might pick up. Each clue feels real, feels tactile, and this gives the game a truly "lived-in" feel. Each house you visit actually looks and feels like a home.
However, the most memorable aspect of the crime scenes are the corpses you may encounter. During Cole's tenure on the Homicide Desk (one of the four desks Cole works on), the bodies of the murdered victims are straight up disturbing. While it sounds wrong to say so, the work that was put into making the corpses feel as disgusting as they are in real life, is astonishing.
When you aren't sleuthing through homes or drilling suspects for information, the game gives you a variety of different action sequences. Many of these are the expected shoot-outs, which work out exactly the same as Grand Theft Auto IV. Other than the somewhat unoriginal shoot-outs, there are car chases, as well as foot chases. Neither of them are particularly impressive, but all in all, the action sequences make solid bookends to the gameplay.
The Los Angeles that Team Bondi has developed is probably one of the most detailed and realistic open-world environments in any game; if you can call it an open world game. The game doesn't play like Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto, where you travel to a quest-giver to start the next mission, when you complete a case, it immediately begins the next one. It's much more linear than expected, but its not a bad thing at all. It strengthens the pacing, and if you so choose to, you can cruise around an amazing looking 1947 Los Angeles.
Other than the always amazing facial animations, the graphics are a mixed bag. The city, cars, and character models are solid, but there are still some problems in the graphics department. In the Xbox 360 version, there are some heinous frame rate drops and plenty of texture pop-in. However, the most disturbing part of the graphics are the hair on the character models. The hair just looks like a big pile of brown or yellow on top of a characters head. Its not bad, per-se, but when the rest of the character looks as good as it does, the contrast is at times, appalling. The sound in the game is likewise solid. The voice acting is some of the best in any game (as it features basically the entire cast of Mad Men) and the soundtrack is equally great, with a score that ranges from content to downright macabre.
Many people, including myself, expected this to be Grand Theft Auto in the 1940's, and I was pleasantly surprised. The game steps out of the comfort zone of the open-world genre and takes a huge leap forward. The macabre tone and uniqueness of the entire experience makes this a game that everyone with an interest in games or noire in general, should play.
Five stars out of five.
