L.A. Noire

Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 3 is one of my favorite games of all-time. It pioneered the entire genre of open-world gaming and left an indelible mark on tons of video games that came after it- for better or for worse (think the awful open world of No More Heroes). The ability to do whatever you want, and actually have more fun just tooling around and not bothering to play the main campaign was something I really hadn't seen before. Rather than speed from mission to mission, I spent countless hours plowing through pedestrians, attempting daredevil car jumps, and killing myself in creative ways. But since then, aside from the inspired DS game GTA: Chinatown Wars I haven't spent much time on any other games from that series. Frankly I think the problem is that Rockstar got too big for its britches. They started making games gigantic, with no sense of pacing, and filled them with repetitive crap rather than interesting mini-games. Tons of people kept eating it up, but I remained unimpressed by GTA: San Andreas and GTA IV. Then Rockstar came out with Red Dead Redemption, which I still haven't played, but I've seen glowing reviews online yet mixed reviews from friends of mine who have played it. I'll eventually get to Red Dead, but for now I was content to play the newest Rockstar-developed game: L.A. Noire. And while I wasn't as big a fan as my roommate Ryan, I still found L.A. Noire a solid gaming experience throughout. The first thing to talk about is the graphics. They're good. Like, reeeeally good. Scary good graphics. There was some sort of hullabaloo over the face capturing technology that got used, and it doesn't disappoint. When so much of the game comes down to reading people's faces, it's important that they look natural and fit in with the feel of the rest of the game. And they do. We have a few famous faces here as well- or at least familar ones. Everyone knows that Mad Men's Ken Cosgrove (no idea what the actor's name is) is the main character, Cole Phelps. But in addition I counted at least 4 other Mad Men actors present. It's not quite pulling Martin Sheen in Mass Effect 2, but L.A. Noire has an excellent cast of acting talent. Second, the gameplay. As I said before, I lamented the fact that Rockstar had gone for such a "bigger is better" mentality with their recent games, and was worried about the fact that a sizable chunk of Los Angeles was supposed to be recreated here. Well, my fears were unfounded. The gameplay here doesn't stress "ooh"-ing and "aah"-ing over the landscape they worked so hard on, but on the mysteries themselves. After the first few cases I found myself fast-travelling everywhere, and it really helped keep my interest during some of the longer cases. Solving mysteries can unfortunately be a little simplistic- as long as you can get from one point to the next, there's no real way to lose. Finger the wrong bad guy? There's no noticable penalty. Miss an essential clue? It's ok, it didn't matter much in the first place. The only "game over" screens come from specific action sequences where you might lose a fleeing suspect, or be spotted by someone you're trying to secretly tail. Even these can be skipped if you mess up a few times in a row. So there's not too much at stake during your average case. A few of the cases themselves are duds, but for the most part they make up some interesting multi-case storylines- you might find yourself trying to end a drug war on the vice squad, on the hunt for a serial killer, or during the climactic finale unravelling a huge (and satisfying) government conspiracy based on a few housefires. A few times my interest waned, mostly during a series of murder investigations that all ended up pretty similar, but the ending to each set of cases makes up for it all. Overall the game has its ups and downs- the downs are never too bad, and the ups are especially high. While I don't think this will be a game of the year for 2011, it certainly seems to be one of the better ones, and anyone looking for some high-quality sleuthing should give it a shot.