L.A. Noire is the very first game from Australian game developer Team Bondi and was produced by Rockstar who we all know from GTA and Red Dead Redemption. So was Team Bondi able to hit a homerun there first time at bat or was it a swing and a miss?
L.A. Noire takes place in the late 1940s where you play Cole Phelps a Lieutenant in the army who after returning from battle in World War II joins the LAPD. The game takes you on a journey through multiple police desks each with their own unique case types and partners who will assist you. You’ll start as a patrol man where you’ll look around crime scenes and take witness statements. However since you’re eager to prove yourself you end up tracking down leads like a detective, which quickly gets you promoted to Traffic. Once there you get to take on bigger cases involving hit and runs and such.
The cases get bigger as you go through the game but at this point you see how all the mechanics will work. You get assigned a case from your Captain then you and your partner go to the crime to investigate. Once there you must search for clues which you can interact with by pressing A (360) or X (PS3). Not everything you can interact with is helpful which makes it more challenging to find all the right clues, which is a good thing because depending on what you find (or don’t find) you will have different avenues of investigation to explore. Once you have gathered all of the evidence there is a noise that indicates that you don’t need to search anymore and then the music will stop. Next you question witnesses and suspects but you must pay careful attention to what they say, as well as how they say it because you must determine whether you should believe them or not. There is a system when questioning people which consists of three different buttons assigned to Truth, Doubt and Lie. I found this system to be tricky for quite some time because when you press Truth it’s kind of like saying go on which confused me because when they would say something and they looked like they were holding something back I would press Doubt as in “I doubt that’s the whole truth” but Doubt means I don’t believe what they said not that there might be more to it so I should have pressed Truth. Then there is Lie which you only use if you have specific evidence that counters what they just said but it has to be definitive because while there are multiple pieces that could implicate them only one is the right answer which is difficult because like I said more than one piece of evidence will be applicable in many circumstances. Also when you press Lie Cole starts to talk and most of the time what the suspect/witness says in response to that changes what you have to use. For instance if he says that he has no knowledge of the victim and I press Lie, Cole will insist that he did know the victim and then the suspect will say that while that may be true I can’t put him at the crime scene. So when I think I have him because of evidence that connects him to the victim I now have to produce evidence that places him at the scene of the crime which I may not have. However while it can be frustrating when you get your choice wrong especially when it’s because you misunderstood your options, it is always interesting trying to make the case without all of the answers. The investigative aspects are all very enjoyable; it really gives you the feeling that you’re in a crime drama or detective novel. The shooting and close quarter mechanics on the other hand aren’t the best. Shooting is fine, it gets the job done and is pretty accurate but the cover system is incredibly frustrating and unresponsive. I’ll be standing behind a wall and want to quickly dart out and get to the next cover but I have to press the cover button and forward a couple of times before he transitions to the side of the wall instead of coming off of it and advancing. So I just get shot for doing what the screen keeps telling me to do. The hand to hand combat isn’t very good either you evade with one button punch with another and grab them with another; once you grab them it automatically does the same move every time so there isn’t much variety and it just isn’t very fun. The driving handles quite well which is good because Los Angeles is a huge city and while you can fast travel by holding down the enter vehicle button when you’re getting in you don’t want to do that most of the time because the city looks amazing and there are important conversations with your partner that you will miss. My only problem with driving everywhere aside from the time it takes is the amount of cars on the road. It makes sine but leads to a lot of accidents because they aren’t very good at avoiding you, for instance if you’re about to hit them when they are turning they stop most of the time even when most of their car has passed and if they just kept going they would have been fine. Damaging vehicles and property lowers your grade for the level so it ticks me off that they get me in so many accidents.
Like I said above the city looks amazing, the level of detail in all of the buildings, cars and people is really impressive. Also I’ve heard that it is almost an exact replica of what the city used to look like, in fact some of the buildings and shops are still standing today. Team Bondi obviously got a ton of help from Rockstar because I don’t see how an Austrian studio could have gotten such an accurate depiction of an American city. Even though they were able to utterly nail the feel and personalities of the people at the time, which to their credit really blew me away. Usually when a country bases its idea on another place stereotypes and biases slip through which wrecks the experience but I would have no trouble believing that L.A. Noire was made in L.A. by people who were born and raised there because of all the love and attention that was put into it. Rockstar also assisted Bondi with the facial capture which captures all of the subtle movements on the actor’s faces and puts them into the game which is integral to the gameplay because it allows you to read their faces in addition to their voices to see how honest they are being. Speaking of the faces in L.A. Noire, it has to be the most star-studded cast ever in a video game. Every case has at least one new character that I recognize from TV. Now they aren’t huge actors that are household names or anything but lots of them have been killers, suspects and witnesses on crime dramas that I remember seeing. It really makes me wonder if those smaller actors always looking for new gigs often turn to video games but no one ever pays attention. However while the game does look amazing in all aspects I did experience a number of times where the game would have technical issues. When I get into my car if the street was crowed sometimes it starts to hiccup and the frame rate slows down. There was also a time in a cut scene at the beginning of a case where you’re supposed to see a man in the shadows with a hat and a weapon but all that loaded was the hat and weapon, no man. I played the game on the 360 which might have been the issue or it could have just been my copy because my friend played it on the PS3 and said that he didn’t remember any issues like that.
L.A. Noire is a great game that is unlike anything else on the market. The closest example to this game is Heavy Rain since they are both story focused games where the gameplay is used as a way to further immerse you in the experience. Also like with Heavy Rain I think this is the type of game that people who aren’t good at and don’t like games could appreciate and maybe even enjoy. If you’re looking for a deep and unique experience with a great story and are a fan of crime dramas/novels this game is the one for you. I also think that everyone else should consider giving this game a try because there isn’t anything else like it and gamers should appreciate this accomplishment.
Score: 4/5
Protip: The most efficient means of discovering clues is to run around the crime scene like a maniac until your controller vibrates or you hear the sound cue. All the greatest detectives throughout history have used this technique. Nero Wolfe did it, Sam Spade did it, and now you can do it.
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