L.A. Noire opens with a hard boiled narration that you'd expect to find with a Noire style film. As the camera pans, the anonymous narrator talks about following orders, chains of command, and issues of trust. This immediately sets the scene and you go into the game wondering wether or not you're going to be back-stabbed or sold out at any moment. The camera then finds it way to Cole Phelps and his partner just out on patrol, before getting a radio call to something a little bit more interesting. Then that's it. That's the openning cutscene and that's how the game begins. You're now Cole Phelps and driving the car. Its a perfect opening to a mystery. Giving absolutely nothing more away then it needs to and the game follows the same path.
The rest of the games missions are laid out in the form of 'Cases'. All completely replayable at any time. You receive a short opening cutscene of some wrong doing, a car accident, someone tampering with a boiler, and then you're sent out to investigate. During each case you and your partner, who changes with each promotion you make, will drive from location to location. You'll question your suspects, and you'll chase down those that run. In the end its down to you to have all the necessary information and evidence to make a convincing and sealed case. A lot of the cases will seem completely separate to one and another and this may give the impression that the game is disjointed but theres actually an underlying mood that is constantly being built up through each case and character interaction. Every case gives you a better understanding of how the police work and whether they're quite all they seem to be. There's also cutscenes between the cases that show flash backs to Cole Phelps' life in 'Nam and its clear that its constantly going somewhere while never giving too much away. Cole is said to be a decorated war vetern with a silver star and the cutscenes will slowly feed you more information on that, along with how it ties into some of the more present day cases. This gives you insite into both the character and the story and its interesting to wonder where the main plot is going.
That said, the game can prove to be a little too slow at times. While each case in itself can be quite addicting and hard to put down, the main arching plot is sometimes giving so little away that you wont be hooked enough. Its a hard balance to get right, and its one that will certainly hook some while completely losing others. However, the deeper the story goes the more you'll be engaged and wanting to see where it leads. You'll be asking a lot of questions, and suspecting a lot of different things, and for some the sheer interest of this will be enough to keep you going.
What helps to keep the story engaging and interesting is the voice acting; or should we say the 'acting'. L.A. Noire boasts a new technology in the gaming industry; that of MotionScan. Here the actors of the piece don't simply voice their characters but are filmed by 32 cameras which capture every facial expression. Every actor is expertly cast and fits really well into their role. It's clear the technology is new, there are times where faces blur, or dip straight into Uncanny Valley, but most of the time it stands up stunningly. There are real moments where you sit back and just appreciate the acting, the dynamic facial expressions, and just how accurate it is. It helps to give all the characters a realistic feel and at times you'll believe its a film. Where the acting doesn't necessarily stand up is in the interrogation. Where it can be quite easy to tell if someone's lying simply by how overly-charactered and dramatic their expressions are. In truth it might be hard to do a bit more subtly, especially from an actors point of view, but it can still sometimes break the immersion and bring back the realisation that you're still just within a game.
L.A. Noire's gameplay is nothing like it's GTA predecessor, a fact that will throw a lot of Rockstar fans at the first hurdle. You still drive cars around a sand box city but the game is designed in a much more linear fashion. The game play itself has a lot more in common with adventure games, such as older Lucas Arts titles or current Tell Tale Game titles, but with the occasional car chase or gunfire scene. While anyone who is a fan of the mayhem and freedom of GTA IV is going to be at a loss with L.A. Noire, anyone who relishes a different kind of challenge, or just a nostalgic adventure game, will pick up and enjoy the game straight away. The questioning of the suspects and the collecting of evidence can really be a rewarding experience and those puzzles solvers out there will enjoy piecing everything together.
Te rest gameplay, however, doesn't offer enough variety throughout the course of the game. Every single case seems to play out in a similar fashion, with a crime scene, a few suspects, a gunfight or car chase, with an integration and finally an arrest. The only case that really stands out as being dramatically different is the final one, which is such a break from the norm that it just doesn't fit with the game at all. L.A. Noire can feel like you're taking the cases in your own direction, picking the suspects you think are lying, and hitting them with the evidence you think is hardest, but, as with many adventure games, there is always only one correct way of doing things, one correct answer. Sometimes something that seems to fit, or makes logical sense to the player, isn't what the story writers were looking for. While the game makes a point of still going, even with some suspects not giving you all the info you need, the conclusions you draw are always the same. You can never fail a case, and you can never go so wildly off the beaten track that your conclusions are wrong. Its this lack of freedom which is really apparent in the gameplay and the story. It would be far more interesting if there were more alternative routes and playstyles.
Rockstar usually break up the monotony with a fine selection of interesting side missions. There's usually a vast selection of things to do around the city, people to talk to, things to explore, but L.A. Noire simply doesn't put this forward. While you're driving on your cases there are radio calls signalling side missions, many of which take more time to actually get to then they do to complete considering the size of the city. These are almost always a shoot-out or a chase, and simply lack variety in themselves. Theres also no sense of emergency, why should your character break away from the clincher of a case to chase down a thief on the otherside of Las Angeles?
Couple this repetitive gameplay with the slowpaced story and its understandable how many gamers just wont have the patience for L.A. Noire, especially if they're entering the game expecting more of GTA or Red Dead Redemption. That being said, and issues aside, L.A. Noire is better than the sum of its parts. It's still an incredibly immersive game which can prove to be really addicting and have you hanging on. When you finally feel like you're getting somewhere with the main story, and everything is tying itself together, you'll be dying to finish it, and the acting and characters really do prove to be impressive throughout the whole journey.
Authors Comment: L.A. Noire is more like Heavy Rain then it is GTA, and the amount of effort Rockstar have gone into to create the city of Los Angeles is, in my opinion, simply lost by the fact you drive from one place to another with your eyes on your minimap. Theres no sense of exploration, and the repetitive nature sometimes made me want to quit playing. What I hated most was driving the great deal of distances, when chatter with your partner died down it was simply just an effort that I ended up skipping almost every time. All that aside I did really love L.A. Noire. When I first started playing I couldn't put it down, I had to actually force myself to get food or else I'd have just gone without all night. While it wouldn't be my title of 2011, as it simply had a few too many flaws, I'm still glad to have it in my collection and anticipate the DLC.
