L.A. Noire

Are games art? A question which has been asked a fair amount during this generation yet we still don’t have an answer. Team Bondi and Rockstar have pulled out a title which is sure to add another feather to the bow of gaming as a form of art.

I made a conscious decision to not read any news stories or watch any trailers for L.A. Noire before I bought it, I wanted a pure experience which is hard to get these days due to internet usage and Americans getting this a couple of days earlier than I did on the shores of Blighty. I’d heard the much touted facial mapping and how good it was supposed to be but nothing prepared me for how good it actually IS. Heavy Rain on PS3 was the last time I played a game, sat back and went “Wow”. The lip syncing and emotion purveyed through the face and eyes are superb, sometimes it seems as though it’s real actors playing the roles.

Note that I said sometimes. As good as the facial features are, they’re let down by flat hair, not something I would usually moan about as it’s extremely picky, but in a game where the human head is such an important function some hair texturing on at least the main characters would be nice. A couple of times I’ve found myself interviewing women (who for some reason all sport the same hairstyle) and just finding the immersion ruined by , to be brutal, awful hair on the character models.

Whilst I’m having a moan I might as well continue and get all the gripes out. The engine isn’t fantastic, when I played Red Dead Redemption I saw Mexico laid out in front of me and it looked utterly fantastic, in my opinion it looks better than L.A. Noire’s sandbox. I’ve experienced so much pop up it’s disappointing, not just long distance pop up either, I’m talking about bench’s that have popped up out of nowhere while I’m walking passed empty space. I’ve also experienced a fair amount of quite heavy slowdown; it didn’t happen all the time but it was enough to become annoying. Something to note is that the slowdown seemed to occur during the (massively) scripted car chase scenes. Not something I expect to happen in a modern title, let alone a game with the Rockstar name attached to it.

I mentioned the car chase scenes, there are a few of them, and to begin with they’re fun...to begin with. My partner yells “Pull alongside him Cole, I can shoot his tyres out”, I hate to disappoint you partner, but all you’ve done is sit still in your seat whilst we were in the opportune position and then started shooting as the soon to be convict somehow pulls away (anyone know if nitrous oxide was widely used in 1947 vehicles?) On the couple of occasions my partner sorted out his hand eye coordination and shot the tyres out, the car flipped and looked pretty damn awesome I’ll be honest. My main criticism of the car sections is that they were far too obviously scripted, albeit still (most of the time anyway) fun.

I’m not sure if I would do this with many other developers but I’ve found myself making excuses for the (let’s call them) issues. The L.A. Noire universe is MUCH more detailed than either GTA IV or RDR and does something that both the aforementioned games couldn’t do; it feels alive. There’s a large amount of people just going about their business and according to the manual (yes I do still read them!) 90% of the signage and buildings in Central have been recreated faithfully, it’s a world which fully immerses the player from the get go. It’s as if the game is saying “Don’t pay attention to this, look at how good I do something else!”

Episode VI: Return of the Story

If I was to pick my favourite group of games, it would be ones which delivered a good narrative; games not only have to impress me but also my good lady friend as she is always there whilst I play. LA Noire is certainly one of the games which succeeded in entertaining us both, it felt like a mature game without hitting the same things that most “adult” games do (you know what I mean, jiggling bosoms and yelling gratuitous obscenities every second) importantly it has a believable plot, I went through the ups and downs with Cole Phelps till the end of the game. From the first case as a patrol officer to the final desk in Arson the game kept you in the bubble of their world, absolutely top draw. All of the main characters were believable (even if they weren’t all likable, Roy I’m looking at you here!) and the developers did a great job of creating an atmosphere which I imagine was quite accurate of what it was like to live in 1947 LA. Let’s just say that as a society we’ve moved on a hell of a lot, racism and sexism is aired with acceptance and is quite a shock to see it so openly used by police officers who are supposed to protect and serve everyone.

I suppose when you boil it all away this game is an evolution of the point and click genre (quite literally pointing if you were as useless as me at some points), and is certainly a title which can stand out from the crowd. It does have a lot of aspects from other genres, and other Rockstar games; the usual “drive to point A, shoot guys, chase stragglers to point B, finish them off with justice made of Lead” but these don’t detract from the main focus of the game which is a breath of fresh air in the console market this generation, the investigations.

Elementary my dear Bekowsky, elementary

Making up approximately 80% of the game is the investigations and interviews. On the whole they’re quite superb, they really do bring something new to the table and when you piece together a piece of evidence with a lie it does bring a smile to the face. They take on the format of a (very) brief introduction from the guy in charge of your department and you go look at the crime scene with the case unravelling from there. All of the cases demand a keen eye, as some clues can be very well hidden. This is where the music plays a key role, when you’re in an area that contains clues a little jingle is constantly playing in the background which stops when you’ve found all of the available clues in the area. It’s a great touch and lets you know you’re free to move on without interrupting the immersion of the game. As I don’t want to spoil anything it’s hard to mention much about the structure that the investigations follow, but you move along 5 different desks throughout the game; Patrolman, Traffic, Homicide, Vice and Arson. My favourite were certainly the homicide cases (not sure what that says about me), partly down to the fact that the homicide partner was my favourite out of them all, and partly because I like solving murder cases, who doesn’t! The low point of them all was vice for me, the cases just didn’t grip me as much as the others, but it’s an integral section for the story.

The investigations inevitably lead to questioning, which is where the game gets to stretch its muscles and the facial textures come into their own. When a probing question is asked by the player, the person who is being questioned looks like they’re genuinely flustered (unless they’re a good liar, and they are some of them!) The tell tale signals of lies are the eyes fluttering around or a lot of fidgeting, however the developers have been a little bit devilish and put innocent people in the line of questioning who are vulnerable and thus act as if they are lying. Oh Team Bondi you wily foxes.

The questioning sections are good, but can be frustrating if you aren’t great at them, every time I got a question wrong I couldn’t help but want to restart to see how important the scraps of information I’d missed were. Thankfully you can replay all the cases after completion to sate the completionist inside.

That’s all folks!

I enjoyed L.A. Noire, it’s a solid first entry into what is going to be no doubt a new franchise. It’s a refreshing change of pace from the twitch games like CoD which are littering the market at the moment. It certainly isn’t without its gripes but I consider it an essential purchase, you really owe it to Team Bondi and yourself to play this.

Score Breakdown:

Visuals: 7/10 – If it weren’t for the facial technology this would have been much lower, although without that technology perhaps the world would have looked much better.

Presentation: 9/10 – The game is brought across superbly, you feel as if you’re in 1947 and as a player you go through what Cole does, can’t compliment it enough!

Sounds: 8/10 – The music in the game is used very effectively, even if it isn’t the most memorable. My only complaint is that it is a bit loud in comparison to the vocals when in a car, I found I had to change the settings and turn it down, not something I like doing as I imagine the default is how the game is supposed to be experienced.

Gameplay: 9/10 – What L.A. Noire brings to the table is fresh and intuitive, a thoroughly enjoyable experience with replayability to get 5 star ratings in each case.

Overall: 8/10 – I would recommend this to everybody, it could take some getting used to, but that’s because it’s unique in the market at the moment and is in no way at detriment to the game. Case closed!

-Dave

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