I really couldn't wait to get back and share my thoughts on L.A. Noire. So much so that I did some impressions the day after its release just to share some thoughts on how much I was enjoying it. Little did I know that what I had experienced was just the tip of the iceberg. This game is deep, thoughtful, and ridiculously awesome. What Team Bondi has delivered into the hands of gamers might be the first step in a new wave of interactive media and quite frankly I welcome it with open arms. While some of the concepts might not be entirely new, the interface and material are presented in such a way that L.A. Noire is very much creating its own special genre. It is perfect by no means but the high spots definitely outshine the flaws and makes L.A. Noire Rockstar's finest game to date. That statement is one I found hard to make at first considering how much I loved 2010's Red Dead Redemption, but after spending enough time with this game it became an accurate statement.
The thing about L.A. Noire is that at some points it almost borders on being a straight up detective simulator. This is something that not many games have allowed players to experience. Most of the time we're on the other side of the law as some amoral thug who deep down has a heart of gold. That routine was becoming a bit cliche for Rockstar and very quickly people labeled Noire as Grand Theft Auto set in the 1940s. That couldn't be farther from the truth though. Rockstar allowed Team Bondi to craft something different entirely. Sure the fact that you play a cop isn't a new thing in games. Titles such as True Crime and Stranglehold allowed you to do the same thing, except the entire time you were still driving recklessly and mowing down countless enemies. In L.A. Noire you can't even draw your gun unless you are engaging a suspect who has pulled a gun on you. Basically you only use extreme force when necessary. I'm getting ahead of myself here though. Lets break this game down to give you a good idea of what you would be getting into.
Story
I'm going to do my best to keep this spoiler free because I know there are a lot of people out there who have not played the game yet or are unsure of even trying it. The story revolves a World War II veteran and now a police officer for the L.A.P.D, Cole Phelps. Taking control of Phelps, the player is first tasked with being a simple patrol officer. As you complete your cases, your progress is marked and evaluated to give you a rating at the end of each case. While the rating has no real bearing on your progress it does note things that could have been handled differently. Regardless you will advance through the ranks of the police department from patrol officer to traffic cop, later to homicide, to vice, and lastly to arson. Peppered throughout the cases are various cut-scenes that fill you in on the inner workings of the city as well as an overarching plot that runs deeply throughout the game.
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| L.A. Noire's protagonist, Cole Phelps |
There are threads that tie the separate cases together and while they might not be apparent at first, a keen eye will be able to pick up on subtle hints throughout the game. Surprisingly, at later points in the game the story takes a weird turn. This is something I knew before playing the game as IGN's review called attention to the situation (but not the details.) While somewhat odd at first from a story standpoint, as you progress through these later portions you'll find how everything connects. In the end the story is a well woven tale of corruption in the City of Angels that seems almost common place given the time period the game is set in. But as you play as the city's white knight, it is up to you to unravel the various conspiracies surrounding drugs flooding the streets and the unfortunate demise of returning war vets. All the while you'll learn more about Phelps' service in the war while following his rise through the ranks and then some.
Game-Play
Going into L.A. Noire we all knew that the game play would be somewhat different from traditional Rockstar games. As I've stated many times before, most of Rockstar's titles have you playing some outlaw with no regard for pedestrians or the law. L.A. Noire is very different in this way because technically you are the law now. It is up to you to go out and protect the upstanding citizens of Los Angeles by keeping the riff-raff off the streets and making sure the bad guys are behind bars. To do this it will take incredible amounts of careful investigation and rousing interrogations to find the culprits behind murders and arson cases and make sure justice is served. Playing most of this game will be very familiar territory. The interface is very similar to that of Grand Theft and Red Dead. Cover mechanics are provided for shoot outs and the driving is all too familiar. This isn't a bad thing though because those games had very good control schemes that provided a high amount of ease for new players to slip into.
The difference is not just the circumstances of who you're playing but the style in which you play. Each case starts with a briefing in the police station from your commanding officer following a cut scene of the crime itself. From here your and your partner visit the scene of the crime and investigate. First you will have to gather clues and evidence surrounding the crime scene while also consulting with the coroner on the scene. Any information you gather will then be transferred to your notepad for easy access throughout the case.More often than not there will be a witness at the scene who will provide added information for your case. Sometimes this will even lead to mini-interrogations of the witness and that is where L.A. Noire shines its brightest. The interrogation system is Noire's ace in the hole thanks to the advanced motion capture technology that transcribes an actor's whole performance rather than just their voice and a few visual cues that are later touched up by an animator.
This level of realism requires you to carefully scour your case notes when you interrogate a witness or suspect. At the same time you must watch the witness/suspect as they respond to your questions because it is then up to you to decide whether they are telling the truth. If you don't believe they are telling the truth you can accuse them of lying but you will need evidence in your case notes to back up this claim and get them to spill the beans. If you believe that they're not being completely truthful and may just be holding back on you a bit you can select the option to doubt their testimony. There are audio cues letting you know if you have selected correctly and the person of interest will give up more information to help your case. In my experience I had varying success in determining whether someone was being truthful or if they were flat out lying to me. Incorrect interpretations of testimony can cut off tracks in your investigation, leading you to do more legwork than necessary. So if you are completely terrible at reading people you'll still be able to progress through the game. However this can lead to you putting the wrong person behind bars every now and then. It's not truly detrimental to your specific case or career, but on occasion you may just feel bad.
That is why the investigation phase of each case is very important. Leave no nook and cranny untouched because if you don't have any evidence you will have to rely on your wits just that much more when you go in for an interrogation. And that is the aspect of L.A. Noire that I think is most intriguing. A game that doesn't push you forward with action sequences and big set pieces. The pacing is slow and the action is only there when necessary. This game is based more on intuition and wit rather than the game just tossing things out at you. Very rarely does a game put that much faith in a player to figure these sorts of things out and I applaud Team Bondi and Rockstar for believing that we're very capable of doing this. That isn't to say that they don't offer ways of giving us a little help. There is a option to turn on controller vibration during a case and the controller will vibrate when you are close to a clue.
Also included are several musical cues to let you know when you've gotten a interrogation assumption correct or incorrect as well as a separate musical cue to let you know all the clues in a vicinity have been found. And before I forget, there are intuition points you gain from advancing through the game's separate ranking system. For every rank you receive an intuition point which can be used during a case to eliminate an answer from the choices of Truth, Doubt, or Lie. You can also spend that point to scour the internet servers to see what the popular choice of the gaming community was or if you're stumped for clues you can use the point to reveal all clues in the area. As you can see there is a lot of help if you need it but for the most part they try to leave you to your gut feelings and what you find on your own. I should also mention though that investigations and interrogations are not the only part of the game. There are street crimes that you and your partner can take part in by answering distress calls over the dispatch radio, providing another layer of depth to the game. These crimes can range from suicidal jumpers to bank robberies and everything in between.
Graphics
Team Bondi set out to create a certain aesthetic when they made this game. Drawing from classic film noir influences, they crafted a game that embodies the style perfectly. To be fair the game is in color but there is also an option to play it in black and white if you want to go the extra mile. Still it is not just the style of the game that jumps out at you. Unlike other Rockstar games, this is not set in a fictional city. The game and the crimes themselves are based on Los Angeles in the 1940s. Because of this Team Bondi went to great lengths to recreate the city in all its glory from that time period. The result of their hours of research and planning results in an incredible interpretation of 1940s Los Angeles; a city teeming with life and burgeoning style on the surface but with a seedy underbelly. And while the recreation of the city itself is stunning, just as much credit needs to be given to the team for their studious attention to detail in designing the clothing and vehicles of the time period.
Of course Los Angeles is a huge place so things aren't exactly to scale but for an in game map there is definitely a lot of ground to cover between the towns of Wilshire and Hollywood. Along the way you'll come across 30 different landmarks and there are over 90 different vehicles to discover. As you explore the map you'll even come across several garages that house hidden vehicles for you to discover so you should keep an eye out for marked doors. The graphical presentation of this game isn't solely based on the environment though, as good as it is. And believe me, Team Bondi deserves a large amount of credit for what they did with the environment. The presentation of the characters deserved to be heralded as well though.
I have been singing the praises of Depth Analysis' MotionScan technology for a while on the blog. Depth Analysis, by the way, happens to be Team Bondi's sister company and the ones that created the most advanced motion capture technology the industry has ever seen specifically for L.A. Noire. This technology is already being used by other studios as well as studios in the film industry. Needless to say it is becoming a big deal and this game clearly proves why. L.A. Noire's intricate interrogation system just simply would not have been possible if animators had to take voice over work and then had to sync flapping lips to the dialogue. This is a pitfall that effects many games and during cut-scenes can actually be sort of distracting. In Noire it is pivotal to the interrogation system to be able to read subtle facial expressions and eye movements in order to tell just what your suspect is thinking. Normal animation techniques just wouldn't allow the level of detail Team Bondi needed. The result? Simple amazing, due in part to a great cast who made some very strong performances. Frankly that was necessary for a game that is more of a study in character than anything else. While it's not chock full of recognizable faces and voices, there are certain character performance that just leap out at you and become instantly memorable. If we're lucky this technology will catch on in the coming years, eliminating dull eyes and out of sync flapping lips and replacing them with top notch performances.
Sound
Oddly enough I think I covered part of the sound in the prior portions of this review. Ambient sounds and musical cues add to effective help when you're investigating a crime scene while the swell of the dramatic score accompanies your interrogation as you gain the upper hand over your suspect. The actor performances are fantastic and are transcribed with incredible feeling and care, bringing the cast of L.A. Noire to life with incredible realism. As far as sound effects go, Rockstar has never been one to disappoint in this area. From the sounds of gunshots to the crunch of metal when cars collide, they're all delivered with crystal clear clarity in Dolby digital.
As for the soundtrack, like the rest of the game it's true to the spirit of the era. Over the course of the game there is a club that Cole Phelps will visit from time to time, leaving one of his partners to comment on the rise of jazz in Los Angeles. Some of this can clearly be heard over the car radio as you cruise the streets of L.A. to the sounds of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. Accompanying these songs is an original score very much in the same jazzy vein; created by the same composer who handled the soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Andrew Hale. The tunes are pretty catchy and honestly I found myself humming along with them as I traveled to each new location in a case. More often than not I even found myself taking non-police cars as my mode of transportation so that I could listen to the soundtrack as opposed to the music being interrupted by the dispatch radio.
Closing Remarks
I was very wary of this game. In recent days some reviews had tempered my level of hype for Rockstar's latest effort. The game had long been in development, much like last year's Red Dead Redemption. Regardless I still bought it. It was a bit of a risk but I made the decision based on Rockstar's track record, Team Bondi's prior work on the Getaway series in the PlayStation 2 era, and the new tech that powered the game. It was a risk that I think payed off immensely. What was delivered to me and every other gamer was an experience unlike any other game on the market. While some games have you mindlessly plod through immense set pieces simply blowing away every enemy in sight, L.A. Noire takes games to a more mature level. The game makes you use your own wits and cunning to progress. In the event that you're wrong it's not game over though, you still move on. In fact there's no real way to fail a case unless you get into a shoot out and die. Much like in life, a poor investigation can lead to collaring the wrong guy and doing so just means you're back working the beat for a while. This is more for story flow than a real demotion but quite frankly tossing the wrong guy into the slammer has a certain kind of effect on the way you handle your next case.
As far as cons go there's a few. The game has it's fair share of glitches that range from graphical problems to sound glitches. There was a few instances in the game where the audio cut out during bits of dialogue. Also there was one cut-scene where not only was the dialogue cut out but seemingly an entire character appeared to be missing. I thought perhaps this was some sort of element of mystery in the story but since it never came up later in the story I figured it for a glitch. As of this writing there has already been a title update from Team Bondi and Rockstar to cover some of the glitches. Hopefully those has been covered. For note, the game is out for the PS3 and X-Box 360 but it's been noted that the PS3 was the lead platform for the development team.
Because of this it fills an entire Blu-Ray disc while spanning across three separate DVDs for the 360. The 21 cases are split between the discs and it seems either disc can be played in the Streets of L.A. free roam to collect cars, landmarks, and do street cases. And while I can't speak for its performance on the PS3, there are times during my play through on the 360 that the game began to chug because there was simply too much going on. Noire is very resource intensive and it clearly shows. The city scape is massive and the graphical details are some of the best ever seen in a game without dipping into the uncanny valley so I can understand it being very taxing on either system. There have even been some reports of the game causing PS3s and 360s to overheat. I haven't experienced any of this myself and I've played the game for some pretty lengthy amounts of time (some cases can take an hour or longer to complete). Fortunately Rockstar is aware of the issue and I believe they're doing their best to rectify the situation. I personally haven't downloaded the update yet but I plan to and play through the game again to see if it corrects the graphical glitches I mentioned above.
So in the end I think the gamble paid off in big ways for Rockstar and Team Bondi. They put together a strong story and some of the best performances ever seen in this form of media. Not only this but they have introduced a mechanic that made this less of a normal video game and more of an interactive drama. In an age where gamers are growing up and the demographic skews towards young adults who actually have income to purchase these games, it's great to see a studio that is crafting an experience to appeal to that more mature audience. With this release, Rockstar continues their streak of delivering some of this generation's best games. I can't wait to see what they, and Team Bondi, collaborate on next.
Final Score
9,0/10
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