L.A. Noire Review

Hello everyone, I hope you've been enjoying my reviews and I'm here to review one of my personal favorites. L.A. Noire.

L.A. Noire by Rockstar Games, developed by Team Bondi is a very unique open-world game. L.A. Noire is the total opposite of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series, this time you play to bring law to L.A.

Let's jump right into L.A. Noire.

Story

It's the late 1940s' in Los Angeles, historically recorded as the most violent time in LA history. You play as Cole Phelps a "war hero" of WWII and returns to L.A. and still wants to continue to fight the good fight by joining the L.A.P.D. you come in when Cole starts to take the initiative on his duties, he starts off as a regular patrol officer then quickly starts to be known as the L.A.P.D.'s golden boy and quickly becomes an L.A.P.D. detective.

The story is told out through the cases you play on when you reach certain police desks in the game, each police desk has it's own story, each case will be linked in a very specific way. The story is also told through flashbacks of when Cole was in the army, every case you play and the flashbacks are all connected in some way which leads to a very well told story. If you are a story gamer than L.A. Noire will have your interest all the way to the end.

Presentation

L.A. Noire is gorgeous, 1940s L.A. looks amazing and truly immerses you into the world around you, you truly feel like you're in 1940s L.A. The city is huge and is very colorful, L.A. Noire looks sharp and clean.

Another thing to note is the character animations, L.A. Noire features a unique motion capture animation style where 32 cameras are set up and capture every little movement the actors and actresses do, remember when I said "acting" rather than voice acting? No one you see in this game is randomized and drawn onto a piece of paper, every character you see is an actual person moving and speaking. It's not a recording of someone it is an actual performance, and every one in L.A. Noire does a terrific job, there is never a dull performance nor is there a hint of bad acting.

L.A. Noire is more of a movie than it is a video game when it comes down to it.

Gameplay

L.A. Noire is a thinking man's game, anyone jumping into this game thinking all you will have to do is run around L.A. shooting down robbers has made a poor choice, L.A. Noire is a detective game, when you reach crime scenes you look for clues and evidence to piece what happened and how it happened, the way you do that is through interrogation.

What happens in an interrogation is you must pay attention to the way the character you are questioning  speaks, moves and examine his expression, remember these are actors and they are told to give a specific performance, either strong or weak. Both performance strengths could actually throw you off the right direction.

You have three options, either believe the characters statement, doubt his statement to discover there is more to what the character is saying, or claim the character is lying with a clue or evidence you have.

Your most valuable tool in this is your notebook which keeps record of objectives, people questioned, suspects and clues you have found throughout the case.

Each piece of evidence will have notes about it that will help you determine when a person is telling the truth, lying or not telling the whole story. It's very valuable and can be accessed at any time during an interrogation.

It is very important for you to get the questions right, if you get even one or two questions wrong it could ruin the rest of the case, you may have missed an important clue that can throw the case of into the wrong direction. It is very tough on players that do not pay attention to what is going around them, which I like. In most games the game will hold your hand to the right direction, making it too easy, so the challenge of getting all the questions right while paying attention to the whole story really helps the game give a more immersive quality to the gameplay.

It's these aspects of the game that add to the immersion factor and makes the experience all the more enjoyable, when you know that just by observing everything around you, you got all the questions in the case right and found all the clues without any help.

The Verdict

L.A. Noire is unique, there truly has never been a game like this before. The story, the presentation and the gameplay is fantastic, players will be immersed deeply into L.A. Noire's story and take down some of the most down right dirty criminals they have ever met.

It's very realistic in how cases work out and how easily they can be ruined by a player getting a question wrong or missing a piece of evidence. It's very rewarding when a player does get each question right and finds every piece of evidence in a case and is fun all the way to the end.

I do however recommend you play this game in short bursts, either one case every time you put the disc in or at least half-an-hour, the game will seem to drag on if you play the game for an extended period of time.

L.A. Noire gets a 9/10