L.A. Noire
Review
Bringing a new level of quality
by Ben Lelievre
reviewed on PS3
Forget Everything You Know…(cont)
Since L.A Noire is set in 1947, there is no DNA analysis, no fingerprints (at least not in the game, I don’t know how historically accurate this is) and not much use of science in general. The two tools of your trade are your guts and your gun, and you will spend most of the time with your weapon holstered. The groundbreaking technology utilized in L.A. Noire called MotionScan allows you to see the details of a character’s face like no other game has before. As you will be spending a lot of your time interrogating people, this new technology is put into surprisingly good use. The main appeal of L.A. Noire is using your own instinct to try and decipher if a character is telling the truth.
There are only three possible options: Truth, Doubt or Lie and the first few cases make it easy to read the suspects. As you would expect, while the game progresses you will meet characters who know how to handle themselves and make it very difficult to know if they’re telling the truth or not. Cole Phelps asks them questions from his notebook and depending whether or not you found certain clues, you can confront the suspect’s answers with the evidence you found. If you know Rockstar Games like I do, you know they make it very rewarding to wipe the scum off the street. On top of this, the writing is top notch and unlike their other titles, it is an integral part of the action.
A Little More Conversation, A Little Less…
This brings me to the action sequences. I can see two reasons why they were included in L.A Noire. First, to make the experience of being a policeman feel more real and change the tempo. Second, to try and make it at least resemble a more typical open-world game. So do these sections fit in with L.A Noire’s singular purpose? The answer might disappoint a few of you - not really.
Rockstar Games have become the leaders in open-world game design; they know how to get things done. With this latest effort, I am not too sure what they wanted to achieve. Players are literally getting babied through the action sequences. Jumping fences, climbing ladders and poles, all of that is handled for the player automatically. The only thing you have to do is to keep track of your suspect and decide whether or not you will fire a warning shot. It makes for cleaner work sometimes, but when the case is over it makes little difference.
But I digress, you have got twenty one cases to work on (plus the downloadable content), forty street crimes (with nifty animations included) that more closely resemble the Grand Theft Auto model, some very fun car chases (which I thought to be the coolest thing in the game), arcade-ish controls and there is also a mysterious parallel storyline you can follow through the local newspapers. The game contains enough content to keep most of us busy and will be a hit amongst the “completist” types.
L.A. Noire is not a game for everybody, but it is a one-of-a-kind challenge that deserves at least a try. It has an incredible layered story and in places, it manages take gamers to a level of quality they have never encountered before. Rockstar Games is venturing into uncharted grounds and despite the wobbles, the game still retains their seal of quality.
8.6
fun score
Pros
Ultra-dynamic storytelling. As good as any renowned crime novels. Interviews and MotionScan give gamers a different challenge
Cons
Way too streamlined at times
