L.A. Noire Review

"A city on the verge of greatness. A new type of city based not on the man, but on the automobile: the car. The symbol of freedom and vitality. Where every man can own his own home, have room to breathe and not be overlooked by his neighbors. A city where a man's home is his castle, a quarter-acre of the dream made possible by victory. A city of opportunists. A city of dreams, where Hollywood will shape the thoughts and desires of the entire planet. A city of pioneers. A city of dreamers. A city of undercurrents where not everything is at it seems. A twentieth-century city that will become the model for the world. A city that has no boundaries that will stretch as far as the eye can see."

The narrator perfectly captures the essence of the post-war boom of Hollywood's Golden Age. The game takes place in 1947 Los Angeles, the worst year in crime the city has seen (Black Dahlia, Red Lipstick Murder, numerous arson cases etc). You play as Cole Phelps, a former member of the Marine Corps who returned as a war hero, joining the LAPD. He quickly rose through the ranks and became detective.

The game starts you off as a Patrol officer. Usually, patrol officers are not involved with investigations. They put barricades and perimeter lines surrounding crime scenes and quell onlookers, asking them to step back... but not Cole Phelps. He's driven. Someone who fights the good fight. Someone who's looking ahead. He's also wound up tight and considered a social outcast among his peers. Throughout the game, you gain bits and pieces of Phelps background and why his character is that way. As you increase in rank, you start doing Traffic, Homicide, Vice and Arson cases.

Investigating crime scenes

When faced with a case, you and your partner go to the scene of investgation. You go into investigation mode, prompted by an investigation music (which the game tells you). You find as many clues as possible and/or question suspects/witness present at the scene. A "finished investigation" music is played once you've collected all the necessary info and clues in the scene. The following dialogue with your partner nudges you to go to the next location for investigating the case.

Unlike Rockstar's infamous Grand Theft Auto series, you play as the good guy. You don't beat up people, unless they purposely fight you during the course of your investigations. You don't need to steal cars. As an officer of the LAPD, you politely tell drivers to step out of their cars to use it for police business. You can't run over pedestrian. You can try, but it will mark down your ratings in cases.

Grauman's Theater

Team Bondi recreated 1947 L.A. for gamers to roam freely during or in-between cases. They've included famous L.A. landmarks such as the Hall of Records, Chinatown, Grauman's Theater, Westlake Tar Pits and many others. All vehicles are from the era. The people populating the game are dressed accordingly and spoke as they did back then ("I'm gonna get good and tight tonight" means to get drunk). 

The game's most hyped-up feature is its new animation technology that captured every nuance of an actor's facial performance. And it did not disappoint. When you're interrogating witnesses and suspects, you decide on whether their response is the truth, doubtful, or a lie. This is where the technology shines. The suspect or the witness may say something truthful, but their facial expressions (blinking, looking down, nose crinkle, eye twitch, nervousness, etc) tells a different story. You dictate how the interrogation goes, fishing for info and getting more clues.

Aaron Staton (Mad Men) as Cole Phelps in L.A. Noire

Gameplay is pretty standard. You control characters in the third-person perspective. You get to drive around with almost all the vehicles parked or moving in the game. Fighting sequences are your basic dodge-punch combo with one or two finishing moves to end the fight. Shoot out sessions have some depth to it. You can hide or duck behind walls, vehicles and objects and peer over or the side to shoot the enemy. You can pick up downed guns when you're running low. There are stake out and chase sessions involving cars and on foot. Get to close and you'll be discovered. Be too far and you'll lose sight of the car or person of interest.

There are 5 DLC (downloadable content) cases that supplement the main storyline. They don't affect the story, but most of them (like many of the cases in the storyline) are based on real cases that happened in 1947 L.A.. Even without these DLCs, you're still tasked at completing the main story cases. The script for L.A. Noire is 2,200 pages long. That's longer than the average 120 pages for most movies. Literally, if Hollywood or any of the TV networks decided to adapt L.A. Noire as a TV show, they would have 2 seasons worth of material without fillers.

Personally, I like games with a nice story. L.A. Noire shines with its storytelling. If I didn't have to play it, I'd watch it. I bought this game back in 2011. I didn't pick up the pace until 3 months ago. Nice acting. Nice dialogues. Nice story. Intriguing plots. Unique gameplay. A true film noire in game form. The Complete Edition is now available for $20 for PC, XBOX360 and PS3. Get it. Borrow It. I recommend it.

UPDATE: You can watch it on YouTube. Some gamers have laboriously crafted the cutscenes and important parts of the game to make it watchable.

I'm done.