The LA Noire Verdict

Another day in LA, another grizzly murder. Called on to the scene with my partner, we step over the tape and talk to the corener to get his opinion. Leaning over the poor victim's body and examine it for any distinguishing marks and important clues as to motive. After searching the area for anything else that could provide me with additonal clues, I get to the business of interviewing the witnesses. With all this in hand, we head off to crack the case.

This is LA Noire and how every case starts off. And why shouldn't it, you would expect my local bobbies to kick off a case by covering all this details. You'll repeat this same start point about 20 times and for some reason, each crime scene still feels as fresh as the first one.

This is all because of LA Noire's greatest trick- detail. So, let's get the much lauded facial motion capture technology out of the way. To sum it up very quickly, it's beautifully detailed, you can . If an interviewee is holding something back, so long as you pay attention to their movements and quirks before and after you ask your questions, you'll root out the wrong 'uns . Perhaps if more games use this tech, it could be a defining feature of this generation, as is the case with third person cover mechanics.

But it's not just the faces that have detail. LA itself has been meticiously crafted, assembled and put together ala '40s style, as we often now expect with games these days, but it is always good to appreciate and admire the level of work and attention to detail the blocks and buildings have. Internal locations also have significant levels of details, particularly with the clues that you find in them

The story itself is pretty standard. You play with the role of Cole Phelps, former lieutant in the US Army and LAPD beat officer who becomes a detective for the force after showing great potential and promise. You go around solving cases and stopping crime quicker than Scooby Doo. Phelps usually has a partner with him who accompanies him on cases. They all have their own personalities and can be fun to talk to but never so much that you miss them when they are replaced by your next partner. Same situation with Phelps unfortunately, he's not particularly well developed as a character and some of the plot points involving him aren't conveyed well, particularly in the game's final third.

It's a good thing then that the cases themselves remain the focal point of the game as they are incredibly interesting and highly addictive. Picking from one of the four desks; Traffic, Homicide, Vice and Arson, you got across LA picking up clues and interviewing suspects. There's no QTE rubbish here, if you pick up a ledger to search for a name, your damn sure going to have to find it yourself.

Each desk has it's own micro-plot that spans across all the cases, linking them together. Homicide is by far the most involved as it deals with LA's infamous Black Dahlia murder but Traffic has some of the more interesting cases, tackling some of the tough issues of the time, everything from anti-semitism and communism to paedophilia and fame.

However, herein lies the main problem that LA Noire has in that you don't ever feel that you're driving the story forward, that anything that you do actually creates a change in the direction of the story. After completing one case where I have to pick between two suspects: a neglected husband and a creepy paedophile. Either one could of done it so I send the creep to the gas chamber. Fast forward two cases later, the topic of the case comes up and it's made out that the husband was sent down and, for those keeping score, that wasn't my choice.

It feels more like your a back seat passenger in a car, yeah you can fiddle about in the back, wind the windows down and get told off for smearing chocolate all over the back seat, but it's not as though it affects the journey.

This quibble aside, definetly a worthwhile purchase, a throughly enjoyable ride from start to finish with plenty twists and turns to keep you guessing as to where it's all going. More downloadable cases please Rockstar.

Bringing it Back

It's been so long, nay, too long since I last blogged anything but starting right back up again. Hope I can get across some important views and make some interesting posts to make you think. I hope to be picking up LA Noire on Friday and playing it all weekend, so I hope to post some sort of a review of that. i'm also doing the Twitter thing these days so feel free to follow that too, you can link through to it via the blog.
That's all I got for you right now, hope I have some more interesting stuff to write about over the coming days/weeks/months that I manage to update and maintain this blog. Fingers crossed that I stick at it but who knows what the future holds.

~ N.D.

Edit Note: Let me know if there is anything you would like to see my blog about, else I'll just self indulge in games, sitcoms and films.