L.A. Noire
L.A. Noire is a game both shrouded in, and primarily about, mystery. Very little of the game was shown prior to its release, the usual hyperbole that precedes a new blockbuster was absent, and in its place a certain insecurity on the part of Rockstar, an unwillingness to reveal any concrete information about the title before launch.
This same insecurity pervades the experience of L.A. Noire, and stops it from being quite as great as it perhaps ought to have been. Its premise is wonderfully realised; you play the part of Cole Phelps, a detective in 1940’s L.A., and the central mechanics let you inhabit the part convincingly.
You’ll scour crime scenes for clues, collecting evidence and a list of potential leads, then you’ll follow up on said leads, interrogating suspects using what is possibly the finest dialogue system seen in games so far. Team Bondi’s incredible face-capture technology goes a long way to making your interviews with the citizens of L.A. tense and affecting. L.A. Noire takes concepts from games like Mass Effect and Phoenix Wright and takes them further to create a level of character immersion that surpasses most anything in the medium. You’re not playing a detective, you are a detective.
The meticulously re-created open world of 40’s L.A. is not the sandbox players may expect from a Rockstar title. It’s a stage on which the game’s drama takes place. Excluding optional street crimes and collectible automobiles, neither of which adds much to the experience, the city exists for the purpose of closing your case. It’s the canvas upon which Cole Phelps paints his rise through the ranks of detectives, and as such it’s the perfect backdrop, offering that authentic atmosphere that Rockstar are so good at delivering without detracting from the narrative of the case at hand.
But then the game shows its insecurities. As a game primarily about methodical investigation and impactful interrogation, it seems perpetually worried that players will get bored, and doggedly sticks to tired videogame tropes in a bid to please an audience unused to such a measure pace.
The number of car chases that occur throughout Cole Phelps’ career becomes almost comical. As do the number and scale of its gunfights. Did detectives ever take down entire armed gangs single-handedly? They certainly do in L.A. Noire, many times over. Even more absurd are the various set-pieces Phelps must suffer through; a rickety film set collapsing around him, a timed jump from a falling chandelier, and a bizarre jaunt across a tar pit.
It’s these points, at which L.A. Noire is stubbornly determined to be a videogame, that it’s at its weakest. Certainly a change of pace from investigating and interviewing is welcome, but these action-based diversions feel sloppily tacked on, a desperate appeal to the type of gamer that L.A. Noire simply isn’t aimed at, and they detract a little from its masterful sense of place. The fact that these action sections are skippable smacks further of insecurity, as if the developers knew these sections were weak, but still felt that their inclusion was necessary. The resulting trade-off caters to no one in particular, leaving the player waiting for the game to pick up its stride again.
But when the game finds its stride, and it does more often than not, it is captivating in a way games very rarely are. Owing far more to the classic adventure games of the LucasArts era than to Grand Theft Auto or any of the free-roaming blockbusters that imitate it, L.A. Noire both a triumph of visual technology and narrative scene-setting. It sucks you into the role of a detective and asks the player to make decisions that, thanks to some great performances from the cast, feel real and meaningful. Only a strange narrative turn in the game’s final few hours dampens the drive of the story, and while this does somewhat undermine the player’s actions and choices, it’s not enough to de-rail an otherwise excellent detective story.
This is L.A. Noire’s greatest triumph. It’s at once a great thriller, and a demonstration that prioritising investigative thought and conversation absolutely can work in a modern videogame. As a proof-of-concept, it’s superb, and I truly hope that other developers take note and attempt to imitate and expand on this design. It is a game that is only let down by its insecurities, its stubborn reliance on traditional videogame elements that it truly could have been better without.
