Cops and robbers

L.A Noire Xbox 360 review


Rockstar games have certainly made a name for themselves when it comes to developing epic games with immersive stories and great characters.  Most famous for their massively popular GTA franchise, the developer's last outing, Red Dead Redemption, showed a level of maturity, and cinematic confidence that was staggeringly beautiful.  Now, having teamed up with Australian based Team Bondi, their latest tale of crime and intrigue surpasses all expectations.

 You play as Cole Phelps, war hero and fedora sporting over achiever who won the Silver Star during his stay in Okinawa.  You follow Phelps as he solves various cases and rises through the ranks of the LAPD.  Starting off as a beat cop on patrol, you'll tackle various department desks; Traffic, Homicide, Arson, and Vice, each containing about four or five cases to solve, and each offering the player a different perspective on the criminal element of Hollywood. 

As you progress through the ranks you’ll be assigned different partners as well, who will often help in finding clues and serves as an effective hint system. The story is brilliantly written, and flows at a fluid pace.  It’s a dark and violent crime thriller that has everything you’d expect, murder, drugs, sex, and corruption, all done with style.  There are also newspapers you collect throughout the game that shed light on some of the characters and show information that may, or may not be relevant to your case.  Black and white flashbacks of Cole’s time in Okinawa also do a good job of bringing him to light as a character.

The game is set in 1947 Los Angeles during Hollywood’s golden age, in a time before freeways, and a generous portion of L.A has been faithfully recreated for your pleasure.  Famous landmarks are beautifully presented with accurate details right down to the signage.  In fact, the amount of detail put in the streets of L.A is simply breathtaking, resulting in a city that truly feels alive.  Smoky back-alley bars, the crumbling ruins of an old movie set, the inside of an ice factory, and swamp-like tar pits are but a few of the varied environments waiting to be explored. 

 The game’s soundtrack is also noteworthy, with classic jazz tunes, and authentic vintage radio ads and shows, and of course the brilliantly brooding and dramatic original score immersing you in the bygone time’s atmosphere.   

The revolutionary facial animation technology employed in L.A Noire has been receiving a lot of hype, and rightfully so.  It is truly a game-changer, conveying a strong sense of emotional investment and believability and effectively blurring the line between movie and game beautifully.  Aaron Staton, who you might recognize from TV’s Madmen, convincingly voices Cole Phelps.  The voice acting in general is top-notch all around and it is clear that a lot of effort went into each and every performance.

 
The game play can be divided into three main categories; Investigation, Interrogation, and Action sequences.  While investigating a crime scene you move Phelps around and look for clues to aid in your investigation, these can be anything from a cigarette with a lipstick stain to a bloody tire iron, and you’ll frequently find yourself picking up deliberately placed red herrings. There are musical cues to help you find clues, and the controller can be set to vibrate when you’re near one, but even with these aids it can still be easy to overlook something.

All of your clues, people of interest, and known locations are listed in your notebook, a very effective and handy little menu. As you solve cases and discover landmarks you’ll get experience points that increase your rank, as your rank increases you unlock intuition point, hidden vehicles or even a new suit once in a while.  Intuition points are used kind of like the life-lines in a certain game-show; they can be used to remove one of the three answers during an interview, to see what the majority of players chose through Xbox live, or to show all the clues available at a crime scene.

Interrogation is probably the most talked about aspect of the game, this is where you have to read the person of interest’s face and judge whether or not they are telling the truth.  In the beginning phases of the game this is actually frustratingly easy but there are some cool cucumbers out there that are anything but easy to read.  While interrogating a suspect you have to choose either Truth, Doubt, or Lie.  When accusing someone of lying, you’ll have to be able to back up your accusation with evidence you found during your investigation.

Besides investigating crime scenes and interrogating suspects the game is peppered with action sequences.  This usually involves tailing a suspect while remaining incognito, chasing a suspect on foot, or in a car, a fist fight, or a shootout.  The action sequences are well implemented and are really enjoyable, with chase sequences and shootouts standing out. 

Driving around the city of fallen angels is both fun and simple, while driving around you’ll frequently receive call outs to respond to street crimes, which serves kind of like side-missions.  There are a lot of vintage cars available to discover, some of them very rare and all of them very detailed.  You can also niftily view all of the cars you’ve driven in through the main menu.

The loading screens are frequent and long, and installing the game to the hard-drive should probably be the first thing you should do.  A few visual glitches can also break the immersion, such as blocky shadows and pop in textures.  Cases can sometimes feel disjointed, for example your superior can be screaming your head off after you book the wrong guy the one moment, and then praise your fine police work the next.  These minor problems are too few to really be jarring though, except maybe the loading screens, which can become very annoying. 

Depending on how much time you invest in doing your own driving and completing street crimes, L.A Noire will take you anything between twelve and twenty hours to complete, and it’s worth noting that this is a game that requires at least one replay to experience all that its story has on offer.

Those expecting the rampant chaos and freedom of GTA should look elsewhere, this game stands out on its own and being a member of the LAPD comes with its own set of rules.  No killing random prostitutes here, only solving cases to imprison people who kill random prostitutes.  That’s just fine though, because L.A Noire is actually a breath of fresh air in the genre and feels unique right from the get-go, it’s hard to actually find fault with it. The game is authentically unique, feels polished and very stylish, and manages to really stand out from the crowd. 

The good

- Facial-animation is fantastic
- Great voice-acting
- Nice variety in gameplay
- Good replay value

The not so good

- Loading screens are frustratingly frequent and long
- Some cases feel disjointed

9.0