With under a week to go before the game releases on the X-Box 360 and PS3 platforms I thought it would be nice to do a little preview of the title. Considering it's probably the number one game I'm anticipating this year I've been giving it a lot of play on the blog. What can I say, I'm a sucker for Rockstar Games because they continue to put out quality products that appeal to the mature gaming audience. Rockstar is mainly known for their huge, open world sandbox games which became popular with Grand Theft Auto 3 on the PS2. Their unique blend of freedom, story, and game play created a juggernaut of a franchise with the follow ups to GTA3. They would also branch out this generation with Red Dead Redemption, which some people thought would simple be Grand Theft Auto with horses but it proved itself to be much more than that.
With L.A. Noire they seem to have an entirely different beast on their hands. Gone are the fictional towns of the old west and Liberty City. Instead Team Bondi has taken on the task of recreating Los Angeles of the 1940s while researching the various real life crimes and unsolved murders of the era. This is where L.A. Noire seems to take a bit of a turn from what Rockstar is known for. In Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption the player takes control of some fairly rugged individuals. John Marston was a reformed outlaw while Niko Bellic was more a former soldier trying to make a new start. In both cases the characters were trying to leave their old ways behind and live upstanding lives, however over the course of the story they were led into situations which required them to set their morals aside. L.A. Noire's Cole Phelps is vastly different from the start though. Phelps is a World War II veteran who returns home to Los Angeles where joins the police department. From the get go you're going to be upholding the law instead of breaking it.
