L.A. Noire... Rockstar Style

L.A. Noire (XBOX 360)

Having already told you all about my love of detective novels, tv shows and movies, I recently finished playing L.A. Noire. From the moment you start playing video games (I started back in the early nineties) you look for realism in the characters and the world around you. You understood as you played the games that with the technology of those days it was impossible to make characters that looked identical to their human counterparts. You still praised the developers for trying their hardest. With this game, Team Bondi and publisher Rockstar Games have finally done what we all thought was impossible. Anyways, on with the review.

Graphics

This is one of the most important aspects of the game. Now, I've always been of the philosophy that gameplay should always come first and that a game doesn't necessarily have to be beautiful in order to be good. When you try to make a game as this one, where the developer wants the player to be so completely immersed in the game, it must do its best to make the characters and the world around the main characters as believable as possible. The technology used in this game is far superior to much of what is out there. The characters in the game look exactly like the actors that portray them (except Elsa Lichtmann who kinda looked weird sometimes). Cole Phelps and Jack Kelso look exactly like the actors that portray them (Aaron Staton and Gil McKinney, respectively).

Fringe's John Noble as villain Leland Monroe.

As you can see from the pictures and from what everyone is saying, the faces look amazing and they do in order to make a key part of the gameplay work. Everything else also looks good. The city, as big a character as Phelps or Kelso, also looks amazing. There are landmarks all over the city to find and while I have never been to Los Angeles, from what I have seen in the movies and shows, it looks the part. I especially love the feeling you get from the graphics. It has it in the name of the game and the feeling of 'noir' is helped immensely by the look and feel of the characters and the city.

The cars in the game also add to the noir feel. And with 95 of them, the streets are full of old school cars.

I had no idea it was possible, but I just read somewhere that there is an option to play the game in black and white and that would probably enhance the feeling of watching something akin to The Maltese Falcon.

A+

Story

The story revolves around Cole Phelps. A Unites States Marine Liutenant who fought in the Pacific theater and is now returning to work in the Los Angeles Police Department. The stories that are told about the LAPD are of corruption and unrest in the populace of Los Angeles. This one is a little harder to describe, because there are different smaller sub plots dealing with serial murderers and drugs on the streets. What can be said is that these stories are told in three main ways. Each case could be a self contained story or it could be part of something bigger within that "desk" (I'll explain this soon). In the second way, parts of the story are revealed are newspapers you find around crime scenes or places of interest. Once a newspaper is found, you will get a clip that will explain a little more of the plot. The problem with this is that while you may be just dealing with self contained cases, they are giving you pieces of a jigsaw puzzle without you knowing much of what is going on. The third way has you watching flashbacks of Phelps' days in the war. At first you don't really get it, but it eventually begins to unravel a bit.

The characters in these flashbacks will eventually have some effect on the story in general

I have to say that I thought the self contained stories were interesting but the story as a whole was lacking. For example, the whole Phelps and Elsa Lichtmann (a singer) affair thing was sort of bleh.

C+

Gameplay

What about the meat and bones of the game? The gameplay is also divided into different parts. I describe it as Investigation, Interrogation, and All the Action in Between. With this concept, you go through the different desks and the different cases. You go from a simple patrolman to Homicide, Ad-Vice, Arson, etc.

Investigation would be the first phase of the gameplay. After you are given the basic information of the case, you go to the crime scene and look for clues. You check the body, the blood, the car and everything else that you can find that will help you solve the case. It's an interesting aspect of the game that I thought was pretty well done. I suggest taking out the vibration when you are near a clue in order to make it more believable.

After you investigate the crime scene and find the clues, the next big part of the game unfolds. This is also the most interesting and innovative aspect of the game. The interrogations are where the visual aspect of the game either shines or crashes. Once you begin interrogating a suspect or a witness, you will get different strings of conversations. After asking them about something, the person will answer you. This is where you have to decide whether that person is telling the truth or lying. The facial expressions aren't really hard to miss (which really irks me) so it isn't hard to tell when a person is lying or telling the truth. The developers added another option and this is mostly where you will have problems. It's hard deciding between Doubt and Lie and what differentiates them is that you have to give evidence (which you found at the crime scene or through other interrogations) when you think someone is lying. I think this needs a little bit of tweaking before it can become an important piece gameplay design.

Heroes' Greg Grunberg is a suspect in the murder of his wife.

All the action in between is pretty self explanatory. You get to chase suspects across roofs and movie sets, you shoot bad guys in stand alone side quests, there are car chases, you can explore the city and find landmarks among other things. I especially liked chases where the suspect grabs an innocent bystander and you must kill the guy before he kills the bystander. This being a Rockstar game, I expected a little bit more open endedness when it came to exploration, and while you can explore, it is always in the middle of a case and that threw me off. When I'm on a case I want to work on a case. Maybe having some time off for Cole between cases would have helped (this is just me though...). You eventually get to use another character but there really is no difference between the two in terms of the gameplay.

There is something that really irks me about the driving around. Unlike other Rockstar games, where you can basically kill the people you see running around (because you are usually a criminal) in this one, you are a detective and can't run people over. This means that you drag the standing bystander for a little bit and some text pops up telling you that you shouldn't be harming civilians or whatever. Truth is, this really looks awful and hurts the game. Maybe they should find another way to punish players who harm civilians instead of some text on screen.

Anyways, rant over, this is an interesting first attempt at this kind of gameplay and I would definitely give it a second shot in a sequel or something.

B+

Music and Sounds

The music in the game goes along perfectly with the era and the immersion of the player in the game. Whether it be the songs that Elsa Lichtmann sings in the club or the music while you search for clues or hear in the different establishments, the music is fantastic. I absolutely love the main theme music and most of the music in the game just fits perfectly. There are actually two soundtracks for this game. The game score (which is pretty awesome) and another album with songs of the era featuring artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Evelyn Knight, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, among others. Both are worth a look. All the game sounds are well done, the shots, the cars crashing, and everything in between.

A+

Love this theme music.


The Real Tuesday Weld featuring Claudia Brücken

Conclusion

In the end, Team Bondi and Rockstar made a game with fantastic atmosphere, fantastic music, amazing visuals and gameplay that while innovative, needs some tweaking. I have to admit that I really liked playing through the game and would definitely get a sequel, should there ever be one. Give it a shot. You can probably find it used for less than twenty bucks.

7.5 out of 10