L.A. Noire was a game that initially didn't hold much interest for me when Rockstar first announced it, I only knew small tidbits about the game and wasn't particularly excited. However, after stumbling across a couple of in-game trailers, my interest rose; this looked to be quite a unique game, as more was revealed, so I grew more interested, this looked set to be either a very special game, or a tragic flop.
In L.A. Noire, you play as Cole Phelps, a World War II veteran fresh on the streets as a Police Officer looking to rise through the ranks as a Detective and clean up the dark and dangerous Los Angeles of 1947. It is your job to solve a variety of cases, such as Homicide and Arson, and catch the culprits, requiring investigation, interrogation and intuition.
The most immediately noticeable aspect of L.A. Noire is the graphics, the city of Los Angeles is a perfect recreation of the L.A. of the 1940s, it is indeed a striking city, with strong, bold visuals that highlight the classic noir themes present within films of the period. A rich and varied colour pallette certainly gives the city a sense of life, no street feels the same as the last, every turn feels like a step into something new.
The lighting and attention to detail really step up to the mark here, the lighting is created by real-time global illumination technology, it certainly is impressive, yet it is also the most subtle lighting I have seen within a game; day turns to night in such a subtle and ultra-realistic manner that it catches you off-guard. The detail within this game is astounding, from the labels on discarded bottles of beer to the sans-serif fonts of broadsheet newspapers, every little detail has been lovingly rendered.
The icing on the cake however, is exactly what Rockstar have been stirring up the hype for: MotionScan, the latest in facial capture technology that Rockstar quickly made sure was a main advertising factor for the game. It's rare that a game can live up to the enormity of the hype surrounding carefully put together trailers, but this actually does. The facial technology is crucial to questioning witnesses and interrogating suspects in L.A. Noire, as you can see every single movement on a character's face, a nervous gulp or flickering eyes, leaving you to deduce whether a character is telling you the truth of telling a tall tale. After being captivated by such life-like detail I find it difficult to imagine how the industry will go on without such technology, making L.A. Noire a step forward in the visuals department.
The core gameplay revolves around detective work, you'll be spending plenty of time examining crime scenes, searching for clues, sifting through evidence, chasing up leads and questioning people. Whilst you happen to be searching around a crime scene, light background music will play until you find what you need and a chime will sound to provide a helpful nudge, indicating you are near a clue, to be honest, while some may wish to turn these features off, they really help the game flow nicely, as trying to find clues without the little hints is incredibly difficult and can be fairly frustrating.
For those who are worried about tediousness, L.A. Noire does break up the gameplay into a nice bag of events, the biggest of these being dispatch calls over the police radio, which notify you of an ongoing crime whilst you may be in the area, if you fancy diving into a few of these, no problem, the case will still be waiting for you, even in these story focused missions there are a nice, even amount of car chases, pursuits, shootouts and fist fights to add a little spice to the mix.
For completionists, there are a number of landmarks to see and hidden vehicles to collect, as well as the option to replay cases to get the best ratings, so there is a nice amount of content to keep you busy for a while.
Do not be confused however, while L.A. Noire does throw in a free roam mode, it is far from a sandbox like Grand Theft Auto. In a similar fashion to Heavy Rain or Mafia II, the story provides most of the content within the game, luckily, it is a fairly beefy one, stretching a good 20 hours or so.
As befits a game set in the 1940s, the soundtrack is also composed of the same era. In place of the multiple radio stations of Liberty City comes a single radio station with a compilation of mostly classics and jazz. I found myself thoroughly enjoying the array of songs and tunes that so complimented the sense of immersion and heightened the stylings of the 1940s.
The voice acting (or should that just be acting?) is top notch with a wonderful cast of characters, all well fleshed out and individually interesting, I grew rather fond of one partner in the Homicide division, his rude, unsympathetic attitude highly amused me, as well as growing to intensely dislike a few really dodgy characters within the seedy criminal ranks. It reflects remarkably upon the film-like quality of the cast.
One of the most refreshing things about L.A. Noire is the incredibly mature attitude it takes in general, considering Rockstar weren't exactly popular for a number of years with their Grand Theft Auto titles, there are a lot of heavy adult themes within the game, obviously murder, drugs, violence, torture etc. They are well handled and taken seriously enough for me to appreciate them as beneficial to the plot and not thrown in for the sake of it.
L.A. Noire is without a doubt a unique game, it is almost a completely different genre within it's own right. The heavily inspired noir themes, the moody atmosphere and the elements of corruption, scandal and vice really fit well together to form a captivating overarching plot that seamlessly connects with all the smaller arcs.
Gameplay wise there can be a few frustrating moments, such as getting a question wrong, using wrong evidence and finding it difficult to actually find a little scrap of evidence. However these are heavily outweighed by the moments of satisfaction at getting a set of questions right and a thumbs up from the boss. The shooting and car mechanics can be considered a little basic or stripped down, however, these mechanics serve to aid the narrative, action sequences can even be skipped if you are looking for a purely plot based experienced.
Loading times were very reasonable and there were rarely any noticeable hiccups, there was occassionally a little pop-in here and there, but otherwise barely hurt the game.
Overall, L.A. Noire is a treat for gamers looking for something fresh to add to their collection, it's striking visuals, bountiful soundtracks, innovative gameplay and engrossing storyline makes it a must play and a very strong contender for Game Of The Year.
