L.A. Noire

L.A. Noire is a strange beast to me. Made by Rockstar, the people behind Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, one goes into it expecting a certain type of gameplay. Even hearing reviews beforehand about just how different this game was from anything else out there, the graphics and underlying mechanics of GTA and Red Dead are still there and unfortunately set up some expectations about how this game's going to run. There's a weekly vidcast on g4tv.com called Feedback, and one of the panelists explained where Noire fits in Rockstar's canon perfectly. She said that essentially GTA is all about the action at the cost of story. Red Dead was a nice mixture of story and action, but still focused mostly on the action. Noire throws all of its weight behind the story, and while there's still action, it's highly de-emphasized. Does Noire suffer because of it? Yes and no.

The problem with Noire, is that it's much like Heavy Rain in that there is no other game you can really compare it to. The experience is entirely unique. You play as Cole Phelps, a hero returned from the war who starts as a beat cop in the LAPD. After making a name for yourself in some introductory cases, you start getting promoted up the ladder, taking on different desks in departments like traffic, homicide and vice. Most of your cases are unrelated to each other, or at least appear so at first, which gives the game an almost serialized feel, especially as each case has essentially the same underlying structure to it. You hear about a suspicious death from your captain, make your way to the crime scene, search the area for clues, use those clues to find and interrogate suspects, and based on what you find, close the case. It's odd, because I feel that in any other game, this repetitiveness would've been a major downside, but it Noire, it honestly never felt repetitive. Each case brought new clues, new suspicions, new suspects that taxed your lie detection skills in ever varying ways.

Yet it also leaves me feeling confused because while the cases themselves didn't feel repetitive, I couldn't help notice their repetitive nature due to Cole's overarching storyline being, as I felt, rather non-cohesive. Yes, it was there, and going back and replaying cases especially I can start to see how present it was, but I couldn't help but feel during the course of the game that I was just moving from one case to another without moving the more important story forward. In fact it almost felt like there were three or four different storylines that didn't mesh together all too well. There's the beginning, with Cole starting to shine and make a name for himself. Then there's the Black Dahlia cases. Then there's a mass conspiracy involving real estate. And through it all, something to do with morphine and Cole's old war buddies. It's a vast web of interconnections that's hard to keep track of, especially with how little focus it receives until the very end.

And maybe that's my problem. I'm so used to stories beating me over the head with exposition and explaining exactly what's going on, that when a story like this comes along that doesn't connect all the dots nicely for you and asks to do some thinking and connecting for yourself, I get a little lost. While the game is very forgiving and does some hand-holding if you mess up an interrogation or make some mistake along the way, it isn't afraid to drop that hand when it comes to actually piecing everything together. Whether that's a downside for the game, or just for my mental capacity I can't really tell.

As for the game itself and how it plays, that too is an entirely different animal. As I said with the formula, you get a case and are told to go investigate somewhere. You drive there, get briefed on the situation by the coroner or the first man on the scene, and then start hunting for clues. You do this by walking around the scene, looking very carefully for anything suspicious, or just walking randomly until your controller vibrates, telling you you've found something to investigate. Sometimes it's just a piece of junk you quickly discard, other times it's a clue you have to rotate in your hand until you see something important, and sometimes it's a dead body whose head you need to turn to get a better look at the rope marks around their neck. Investigation music plays until you've found everything important, at which time you go searching for suspects or question witnesses. And here's the most important part of L.A. Noire: the questioning.

You see, Rockstar spent years making this game, and it wouldn't have been possible without some astoundingly impressive motion capture tech that captures the performance of each and every actor with remarkable precision. Because, in these interrogations, you ask the suspect a question. They give a response. Then, based on their facial expressions, movements, tics, etc. you have to decide whether to believe them, doubt them, or call them out on a lie based on evidence you collected. These sessions are by far the most interesting, and often most difficult, parts of the game. Unfortunately, they're not always difficult in a good way. Most of the time it's fairly obvious when you should be doubting someone, when they're telling the truth, or if you have evidence that would contradict what they just said. And even if it's not, you gain special Intuition points throughout the game that allow you to remove one of the wrong responses to give, or to ask the community which answer you should choose. However, even with those, sometimes it is frustratingly difficult to try and tell which way the game is asking you to go, especially in determining whether to doubt someone or which piece of evidence you have would catch them in their lie. After letting someone get away with 0 questions answered correctly I had to look up why I had done so poorly, and found that at least one reason were sometimes the suspect would give an answer and I thought calling lie on them was trying to call them out on one thing, but if you actually pressed the button Cole would try to call him out on something else. It was always related, but not necessarily the same thing. I just have to harp on this because if you're going to make this, especially this, the number one important feature of your game, it better be damn near perfect. And while it was pretty solid for most of the game, those odd turnabouts in logic stood out all the more and removed me from the experience.

I suppose this is really where all my complaints come down to: the experience. I honestly think it rather unfortunate that this was a Rockstar game. Or at least, that its underpinnings are much like GTA and Red Dead, because it then invites comparison that it frankly can't live up to, or even simply chooses not to. The world of Noire is gigantic. It's recreated, as they say, 90% faithfully to the L.A. of 1947. But there is nothing to do in this world. There are landmarks to find, cars to unlock, and random street cases (essentially small action-oriented cases) to respond to, but none of them give any good reason to really explore or take an interest in this world that was so masterfully crafted. In GTA and Red Dead they used the space well, but here it feels like it goes to waste. The action in GTA and Red Dead is often intense, and quite fun, while the action in Noire feels short, recycled, a little boring and even simply out of place. And for a game that placed all its emphasis on story, I couldn't help but feel that while it handled its case by case stories better than any of the missions in GTA or Red Dead, Red Dead trounced Noire in the overarching story department. I have to say, without spoiling anything, the Noire let me down with its ending. I feel it didn't build to any worthwhile conclusion and left me wondering why the game wasn't still going in the same way Red Dead continued.

What I'm trying to say with all of this is that by having those constant points of reference, I was constantly being drawn out of the experience I believe Rockstar actually wanted me to have. When it hits its mark, L.A. Noire is easily one of the most interesting and completely engrossing games ever made. The actors are all wonderful, the music sets the tone perfectly, and you start to see the big picture unfolding in front of you and feel like it's a personal accomplishment, that you, master detective, were able to figure out what it all means. But then it reminds you that it's a game. You walk aimlessly around rooms pressing x whenever your controller vibrates instead of carefully searching for something that stands out. You soak up bullets and regenerate while two shots takes out practically any enemy. Every car you drive feels like you're steering an awkward turtle. On top of all that it's a game in a lineage of games that it really shouldn't have anything to do with yet can't help but invite comparison to for the features that it lacks.

Now, I know I've leveled a lot of criticism at this game, but only because it's received so much god-like praise everywhere else. Yes, this is by far one of the most innovative and interesting games ever made, and if you're a fan of film noir and detective stories then this game will have you salivating from the get go. You'll also likely enjoy it more if you haven't played Red Dead or GTA as it will be a completely new experience. Then again, you may like it more even if you have played them just for how different it is. If there's one thing I'm sure about with L.A. Noire, it's that some will love it, some will hate it, and some like myself will find themselves uncomfortably sandwiched in-between praising it for its genius and criticizing it for not having all the elements of a game we've come to expect and enjoy. By no means do I consider this a bad game, but I have to be honest about my personal experience with it and say that unlike others I don't consider it to be one of the best games ever made. As I've said before in other reviews, to me, it doesn't matter how original or interesting you are, if you don't have the gameplay to back it up then it doesn't matter. And while L.A. Noire is harder to judge on gameplay since there's nothing like it out there, I simply came away feeling that it could've been more.

L.A. Noire gets an 8.5/10.