L.A. Noire é um game que eu amava jogar no meu finado Xbox 360. Eu amo a temática, amo a ambientação, amo a trilha sonora, os carros antigos, a estética de filme noir dos anos 40/50. Os personagens são carismáticos, as expressões faciais continuam surpreendentes, ainda mais pra época, embora outros aspectos, como os cabelos, por exemplo, tenham envelhecido um pouquinho mal.

A história é extremamente bem escrita e tem um dos finais mais amargos que eu já vi nos videogames. Toda a gameplay baseada na leitura facial pra deduzir se as pessoas estão mentindo ou não é muito gostosa, a investigação também é bem legal e os casos são tão bem feitos que cada um poderia render um filme diferente.

Tive um bugzinho aqui e outro ali mas nada que prejudicasse a gameplay. O maior defeito de L.A. pra mim continua sendo o fato de que o game não te pune por erros. Tu pode perder estrelas se bater o carro, quebrar propriedade pública, se tu errar perguntas nos interrogatórios e tal. Mas isso não influencia em nada, o game meio que te força a seguir a história independente de tu estar fazendo certo ou não. E isso eu acho muito errado.

Ainda assim, L.A. Noire é um jogo que envelheceu muito bem. Divertido, envolvente e cativante. Poderia ficar horas andando pelas ruas de Los Angeles da década de 40. Não sei o que rolou com a Team Bondi depois de toda a treta envolvendo a produção desse game, mas eu queria muito que a Rockstar pegasse as rédeas e desenvolvesse uma sequência. L.A. merecia uma sequência na geração atual, só de imaginar toda a ambientação e os personagens com aquela expressão facial realista com os gráficos da geração atual, fico babando.

Detalhe, eu finalizei esse game ano passado, mas como só fiz a Platina agora, foi que decidi cadastrar. Deixei ele no drop por muitos meses. Fica aqui o meu vá tomar no cu pra quem teve a ideia de fazer aqueles dois troféus malditos de achar 95 carros e 50 rolos de filme.

12 years ago, I LOVED this game.
12 years later, as I anxiously revisit this detective-adventure game, I struggle badly to pinpoint anything positive about the game, because story- and gameplaywise, it aged very, very poorly.

You play as Cole Phelps a Marine Corps lieutenant, just returning from the Second World War, so we are in the late 40s, a time-frame very rarely picked. Our goal is to climb up the career ladder at the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) starting at the patrol service. Even if this environment is already suggesting another Hero’s Journey, this premise COULD have led to an interesting story. But it just did not deliver.

L.A. Noire is a power fantasy through and through. You speak the language of violence and war, screaming at suspects, pointing a gun at them or even shooting them in the back as they are running away from you. The developers at Rockstar are not well known for very sensitive or self-reflexive characters or stories, but with L.A. Noire they reached their pinnacle of ignorance. This game is dripping of problematic tropes: It is full of antisemitism, racism, sexism and unconcealed patriotism. And it is not only the „bad“ guys, who embody this way of thinking, it is you and the structure of police, that is based on violence, discrimination and corruption. It hurts to the bone to get to a crime scene over and over again, to see another femicide, or a raped body or a beaten up immigrant. Most of the cases are build like that. Yes, I can imagine the streets of L.A. in the late 40s, were not the safest place for liberal women or people of color, but to use this „historical truth“, to rebuild and reenact this brutal way of interacting is just not my type.

The L.A. we drive through is a vivid place, atmospherical and you can really feel the will to „build something“, but besides the feel of it, the glimpse, you just can’t do anything in this world - besides a bit of sightseeing. You are limited to your duty, driving from crime scene to crime scene, cutting blocks and avoid another car crash, due to the whacky car controls. The intention is clear, that Rockstar did not want to create another open-world gangster-adventure but quite the opposite. And this would be understandable, IF the gameplay of being a cop thriving for justice and recognition would be interesting and thrilling. But it simply isn’t.

The gameplay loop is boring and hilariously linear. You arrive at a crime scene, investigating it, searching for clues or evidence, waiting for the fulfilling melody to signal you the completion of the scene. Sidenote: This melody is the only thing in the game, that led to a warm nostalgic feeling in my playthrough. After that, you interrogate a witness and this part was sold as the main attraction back in the day with ground-breaking facial motion capture, making it easy to immediately recognize a liar. But this gimmick is just dated and the expressions are not that clearly readable, leading to frustration or the feel of a multiple-choice test. Because the other two options besides accusing someone, are to play the „good cop“ or the the „bad cop“. This means either calmly assume someone is lying or openly yelling or threating them, how they will rod in jail, if they are not cooperating. Then you drive to the next location, either searching for clues, repeating the next inhuman interrogation or chasing a suspect either by foot or by car.

The investigation part is the „best“ as you just shut up and try to do your job for a moment, like you should. But this promising mechanic is just torn down, by the incomprehensible need for action, spectacle and heroism, which leads to a dumb, rail-roaded and tedious experience.

In some cases, you will find newspapers, reporting about the psychologist Dr. Harlan Fontaine, a shady man willing to cure all men from their post-war traumata, a story told in little cut-scenes. The same happens to the backstory of Cole, as we experience little flashbacks of his time in war. These parts are the most promising and intriguing, as we get a glimpse of this collective trauma a war can cause. But the result of this trauma is displayed exclusively in beating your wife, becoming a murderer, an alcoholic or being abused by a narcissistic psychologist.

After replaying eleven cases, I have heard and seen enough. A part of me is sad about the failed replay of one of my favorite games. As a teen, I played this with my sister and I remember, that we enjoyed it. But I grew up and the game did not. And that is why the other part of me is grateful to went through this again. To realize that this type of game and especially the content and values it transfers, does not represent my understanding of the world nor a compelling character, I want to embody. And that does not imply, I only want to play as successful, soft and sensitive characters, which try to „make the world a better place“. Take Disco Elysium as a great example of a game that did it just right: A struggling cop, unable to remember his own name, known as a loser, a tramp, an asshole, but someone who is trying, or to be more accurate: a character thrown into a game that gives you freedom of choice and a feel of consequences and not only the outdated repetition of the binary idea of good and evil.

I adored this game the first time I played it, coincidentally the same year this version of the game released, having played the original port on the PS3. Revisiting it now though, the flaws are a lot more glaring.

The story is quite interesting, the individual cases at least. The overarching plot not so much. It lacks something, like a big twist. The ending is still very rushed and anti-climatic and some character motivations don't make much sense at all. The WW2 flashbacks are very corny and a lot of those characters (specifically Courtney Sheldon) leave a lot to be desired in terms of actually caring about them. The pacing can be pretty awful at times, mainly the latter half of Homicide and most of Vice/Arson. Everything before that was paced well.

Story grievances aside, the mechanics itself make-up for it. Cases are very fun and a lot more fun when you know what you're doing. Thankfully this time around I did, racking up 5 star cases is such a good feeling. Whoever was responsible for the NPC AI in this game though I assume was let off because it is pretty fucking awful... by my understanding, you need to cause zero vehicle damage and refrain from injuring civilians to achieve most 5 star rankings on a case. It doesn't help that a lot of civilian AI literally walk right in front of your vehicle at the most inconvenient of times, some even make a habit of running straight for you... and you're penalised for it. You'd think that the siren would be your best friend, but for some reason people in this city don't feel the need to get the fuck out of the way and some will literally either turn right into you or just not move at all, very harrowing experience to say the least.

It's a good game with very obvious issues, deserve a lot more recognition but with a pretty low sense of replayability. I would not be opposed to a sequel though and I think Jack Kelso could be the perfect candidate for that.

the street crimes portion of this game is a lot of fun, just running around L.A. and taking down dumb robbers. it nails the '40s aesthetic pretty well especially within the specificity of Los Angeles. it's a shame the actual story is too half-baked and one-dimensional to carry concepts that on their own are pretty interesting from a gameplay perspective but are so fundamentally underdeveloped in the grand scheme of things. in the words of Mad Men's Vincent Kartheiser (who, funnily enough, has a cameo in this)...not great, Bob!

I can only describe this game as lovingly opulent. L.A. Noire is overstuffed and buckles under its own ambition, but also shows focus and restraint uncommon for productions of this scope. It gives so much, and unlike other games that feel incomplete, I have the inkling that with enough time, they might have been able to pull everything off.

L.A. Noire is a detective game centered around reading faces as a game mechanic. The models may not have aged gracefully, but the mo-cap, acting, and animation are spectacular. The phrase “no small parts, only small actors” fully applies, and made me realize again how few games, (even in the modern age!), are even trying. Secretaries and post men delivered their single lines with such authenticity, personality, and impact as to continually blindside me in the way only interacting with the public can. These were not performances of comfortable and familiar acting styles, but recreations of people I’ve met in real life. Vocal inflections at once familiar when spoken, but so mundane as to have never been remembered or imagined. Gestures and glances so natural and specific the TV felt like a one-way mirror. If the only means of gameplay in L.A. Noire had been multiple choice selections during detective interviews, the quality of acting would have been worth the price of admission alone. But for L.A. Noire, that’s only the foundation.

I absolutely adored the first desk of cases after finishing the tutorial sequence. So rarely has a game so consistently dropped my jaw open with excitement and possibility. There was a real tension in realizing how I would have to un-learn so many habits from playing other games with different goals to succeed in this one. As a human who wants to be a good person, in games I’m inclined to pick pleasant dialog options when talking to NPCs. In L.A. Noire, sometimes in order to get good information from good people, you have to press them in a way that makes everyone uncomfortable. And sometimes you have to put on a polite face when dealing with assholes. L.A. Noire wanted me to navigate human motivations to arrive at the truth at the expense of decorum, and its dedication to this perspective impressed me.

But equally impressive was the immense flexibility the game had for my spectacular miscalculations and failures. In an early case, I missed the murder weapon, a gun that had been thrown out in a garbage can right next to where I assumed control of the detective, and the game still let me progress through the entire case without ever having to go back and find it! In another, I missed so much evidence that the motivation of the perpetrator made no sense. Playing through the case again with a guide, I learned not only was he reacting to another man’s unwanted sexual advances, but the dialog of other characters describing the situation had been just subtle enough to work with or without that subtext.

Here is where I explain why L.A. Noire is bounteous while being restrained. As a detective, you look for evidence in 3D spaces. You drive around. There are tailing missions. You chase after suspects, up ladders and across rooftops, in encounters that can end with a first fight or a shoot-out. You break up illegal street races and run from the mafia. And you can skip absolutely all of it, without even affecting your score! The only thing the game cares about, and forces you to do yourself, is collect evidence, conduct interviews, and press charges. Everything else is treated as set dressing.

Which blows my mind, because the level of detail is astounding. There are a half dozen guns with different rates of fire, clip sizes, and accuracy ranges. There are 95 models of cars, each of which control differently, with different top speeds and turning radii. Each where you can shoot out individual headlights. Each of which you can crash spectacularly. Multiple times did I get in a wreck, only to step out and watch an individual car tire roll down a city block or two. Buildings took an astounding variety of cosmetic damage depending on how hard cars crashed into them. It was all so consistent it was difficult to notice, because the moment to moment action flowed so naturally.

All of this effort, and you can choose to have your partner detective drive you everywhere automatically!

If there is one element of the game that brings down the mood, it is the game’s overarching plot. Early cases have a light and fun “case of the day” type feel that makes it easy to replay for the joy of detective work. Later cases delve more into the player character’s personal life and drama, which become interconnected and less fun. It is obvious not as much time was available to develop the space and pacing necessary for the later developments to feel natural. (And the tone becomes more self-serious and somber, which disappointed me after the domestic absurdity of the opening.) I respect the ambition, and the foundations of what I can see on paper look solid. In execution, Cole Phelp's story rips the focus away from the game’s strengths as an adventure game, as player choice can no longer matter as it did when the stakes were lower.

In my rating system, 2 stars represents an average, C rank game, and L.A. Noire is definitely an A+ rank game. It’s so generous, so conscientious, so luxurious, so extra that I heartily recommend it even with its obvious flaws. For how rich and rewarding replaying cases can be, it is an absolute war crime that the console version of this game does not have a “skip cutscene” button. The convoluted saving system can make it difficult to drop in and out of a case within a single session, but most are doable within a movie length amount of time.

More subjectively, there are some elements that I could see turning someone away. I would have been perfectly happy if the entire game had taken place on the Traffic desk, catching fraudsters and tracking down stolen cars. Unfortunately, a good portion of the game is with Homicide and Arson cases. Depending on one’s squeamishness level, you do see dead bodies, awful wounds, and burnt corpses. There is more than one naked dead woman in this game, and the callousness of the depiction walked the line between feeling realistic or tasteless.

While the player character Cole Phelps is framed as better matching the sensibilities of the modern player, the culture of the time has been uncomfortably recreated with period-accurate flavors of misogyny and racism. On the one hand, I understand the desire to depict the reality of the city in a vibrant and believable way, while on the other, I wish the game could have fudged in the favor of a fun time.

Overall, excellent, fantastic, the best open world game of all time, because it lets you opt out of playing an open world game at any moment.

I've got mixed feelings on this game. There's a lot of tedium to it, having to scour the area to make sure you don't miss a hint leads to you picking up a bunch of useless items most of the time and that's not ideal. There's...far too much uncomfortable content for my tastes, don't think we need an unapologetic pedophile once every three cases, for example. And at no point in the game do they ever develop Cole Phelps in a way that makes me care about him at all. Some of the cases are also very unforgiving with expecting perfection or else you're locked out of the correct ending.

But I had fun driving and seeing all the crashes I cause and how my partner yells at me for it. Shootouts are satisfying to win. The story and how it slowly unravels as you go is interesting.

I like some parts of it and don't like others.

Returning to the slick, seedy criminal underbelly of 1947 Los Angeles as rookie detective Cole Phelps has been a great ride. This homage to noir detective thrillers of old passes the smell test with flying colors as it also manages to be a great noir story in its own right.

This darkly bleak and honest, and at times darkly comic, look into the criminal underworld and high-level government corruption of the city of angels juggles many themes and poses countless moral questions with a level of maturity and introspection not commonly found in game narratives.

The protagonist of Cole Phelps himself is a deeply flawed individual constantly running from a past he'd much rather forget and finding himself drawn into webs of conspiracy that he's frequently ill-equipped to handle. It's really compelling stuff, and is a truly bold creative choice to put the players' in the shoes of a troubled and in many respects unlikable protagonist, but to also let the players themselves come to their own conclusions by the story's end.

The technical prowess on display here is truly a sight to behold, even today. There are definitely some gaps in the sleek presentation, namely that the body capture doesn't always match well with the facial capture, but nevertheless it's immersive enough to draw you in 9 times out of 10.

The core gameplay loop is simplistic, consisting of interrogations, gunfights, foot and car chases. However, even in its most tedious moments, these segments of gameplay are short and sweet enough to hold your attention while not necessarily depriving you of your time and energy.

Playing in black and white also helped add a lot to the experience, even if it largely is just a simple filter and nothing more. However, it almost felt wrong not to be playing it like that, given the context of the story and setting. It also helped to smooth out the graphics nicely and prevent it from showing its age too much.

A truly great yet troubled game with an equally great yet troubled hero from a great yet ultimately troubled studio.

9/10

Recomendo não jogarem esse jogo esperando uma experiência padrão Rockstar. Não é isso que ele é, não é o que ele propõe fazer, e não é nem desenvolvido diretamente por eles.

Aborde L.A. Noire com a mente limpa; aceitando-o pelo que é; um mergulho no submundo de uma Los Angeles pós segunda guerra mundial, através dos olhos de um detetive eternamente manchado pelas sombras desse terrível conflito. É uma história pessoal ao mesmo tempo que é profissional e abrangente, e mesmo que tropeçando, é uma jornada que vale ser experienciada, principalmente aos fascinados por comportamentos humanos; de certas formas, é um dos jogos mais reais em que já encostei.

There's a lot to like about LA Noire. The recreation of 1940s Los Angeles is really cool, the cases are written well, and you really get to engage in the detective work of being a police officer. I really enjoyed the first half of the game, but the second half slowly deflated and I started to lose interest in the game in a number of places. (Spoilers ahead) The most interesting part of the game, not surprisingly, is the Homicide desk, which ends at the halfway point of the game. After this point, I didn't really find any of the actual crimes very interesting, and I think the developers knew it as the number of conspiracies and gunfights dramatically increase from here on out. I'm pretty sure you shoot more people in one case of Vice than you do in all of Homicide. Even Homicide isn't innocent though, it turns out that (again spoilers) all of the cases are connected and caused by the same serial killer. I get the appeal, but it ends up that all of these cases have exactly the same type of victim - middle aged washed up drunk women who hate their husbands and get killed coming home from a bar. This means you spend every case going to visit their shitty husbands and visiting the shitty bars and following the same steps. Even so, I very much liked Homicide the best, as it felt like it had the best cases and arc. Though your partners continue to tell you "no way man, you've been doing this for like 3 days, you know how crazy it would be if literally every case you ever did was connected?", it turns out no, he's right, every single case you do is in fact connected. The part that really lost me was your character's "fall from grace", which came out of nowhere. They really just needed something to make you look like a piece of shit, but it didn't fit with your character... at the time. Even though you're a goody two-shoes for the first 75% of the game, suddenly you're an adulterous, angry war criminal by the end. It didn't do anything for me at all. Also, my PS4 crashed and corrupted my save so I had to finish it on PC, so that'll bump it down a few grade levels.