Love the Noir style of this game, especially with the detective aspect when playing as Cole.
I do admit the game does get a bit repetitive when it comes to:
- Go to a location with your partner and hear witty or funny or normal dialogue between Cole and his assigned partner.
- Find evidence
- Interrogiate Witness or Suspect and make sure to respond correctly depending on how bad the motion capture actors face is acting (since they needed to make the game somewhat easy for people to tell when someone is lying)
- Go to different Points of Interest for the case finding more evidence and interrogating more people.
- Get into a shoot out at the end or go to the station and interrogate the main suspect and determine whether to pin the murders, arson, etc on them.
Overall the gameplays repetitive but does a fantastic job at nailing the overall NOIR estethic, but that's also do to the amazing writing Rockstar incorporated here.
The game doesn't treat the character of Cole Phleps like a hero, in fact Cole does things that are outside the players control that makes you question Cole's ethics, along with the LAPD.
The City of LA is full of life in terms of how if Rockstar really wanted to, it could create actual United States location for modern GTA instead of making caricatures of the states they present. (I know GTA is about making fun of how Americans and the States act in an over the top way, just saying that Rockstar can do that while also making the states accurate looking like they did here in LA NOIRE). The city itself visually is amazing, though lacking since you barely do anything for the most part, I mean if it's not going from point A to Point B during story missions, occassionally you'll do side missions that are usually either: shooting a bunch of dudes after a cutscene plays, or chasing after people in a car until you crash into them, or some timed event crashes into them prompting Cole to arrest them.
I do wish the game expanded on some characters more than others. I think a big thing that's missing is Cole's family not being present or important enough to actually show is just weird, considering what happens towards the climax of the game, I feel like they should've played a bigger part in terms of forming who Cole is.
I think the game did an awesome job when it makes you play as Kelso for a couple of segments during the final part of the game, just wish the game would've done it early, I understand it's Cole's story, just would've been nicer if it was an idea introduced earlier on in the game of switching between Cole and Kelso.
I think the biggest thing that Rockstar got right... and wrong is the ending. I think most people will say "for anything, an ending is really hard to make everyone happy," and while this statement is true, a way to midigate that is by having multiple endings so that it has avenues of satisfaction among all aspects, even if 1 might be the CANONICAL ending.
The ending in terms of the case is amazing and is based off a real life case that never got resolved. Rockstar esthetically got the ending write in terms of it being a somber and melancholic ending of... the Bad Guys winning.
And while the game is attempting to respect the painfulness of reality, I do wish in some way Rockstar had added a second ending if certain conditions were met that somehow led to a happy ending. While many would say "but it would ruin the point of the game being Noire and there are no happy endings in Noire," I feel like 1 big thing many agree on is that the game leaves the player disatisfied, especially with all the work you as the player put in....
But there is a genius of the ending sort of being a punishment to Cole and the player for just locking whoever up. As in the game there is a constant murder going on that takes a couple of cases to find out who really is the culprit... and you see how the L.A.P.D. even with Cole finding at best circumstancial evidence, but still resulting in innocent people (though some of them still awful monsters) being locked up because the L.A.P.D. can't be asked to actually do their job.
And when the real murder is found, because he's the son of a high ranking politician they decide to cover it all out, and let out the imprisoned innocents as if it's all water under the bridge.
In a way I see the genius of the ending, as Cole, while spouting things like "Justice and Honor" really just looked a things at face value and just did things as a puppet to the L.A.P.D. instead of seeking true justice, which in a way is sort of a self reflection.
I don't know maybe I'm thinking too much into it.
Still for what it's worth, it's a game I recommend you all experience once, since In my opinion it's a great 1-Time experience.
I do admit the game does get a bit repetitive when it comes to:
- Go to a location with your partner and hear witty or funny or normal dialogue between Cole and his assigned partner.
- Find evidence
- Interrogiate Witness or Suspect and make sure to respond correctly depending on how bad the motion capture actors face is acting (since they needed to make the game somewhat easy for people to tell when someone is lying)
- Go to different Points of Interest for the case finding more evidence and interrogating more people.
- Get into a shoot out at the end or go to the station and interrogate the main suspect and determine whether to pin the murders, arson, etc on them.
Overall the gameplays repetitive but does a fantastic job at nailing the overall NOIR estethic, but that's also do to the amazing writing Rockstar incorporated here.
The game doesn't treat the character of Cole Phleps like a hero, in fact Cole does things that are outside the players control that makes you question Cole's ethics, along with the LAPD.
The City of LA is full of life in terms of how if Rockstar really wanted to, it could create actual United States location for modern GTA instead of making caricatures of the states they present. (I know GTA is about making fun of how Americans and the States act in an over the top way, just saying that Rockstar can do that while also making the states accurate looking like they did here in LA NOIRE). The city itself visually is amazing, though lacking since you barely do anything for the most part, I mean if it's not going from point A to Point B during story missions, occassionally you'll do side missions that are usually either: shooting a bunch of dudes after a cutscene plays, or chasing after people in a car until you crash into them, or some timed event crashes into them prompting Cole to arrest them.
I do wish the game expanded on some characters more than others. I think a big thing that's missing is Cole's family not being present or important enough to actually show is just weird, considering what happens towards the climax of the game, I feel like they should've played a bigger part in terms of forming who Cole is.
I think the game did an awesome job when it makes you play as Kelso for a couple of segments during the final part of the game, just wish the game would've done it early, I understand it's Cole's story, just would've been nicer if it was an idea introduced earlier on in the game of switching between Cole and Kelso.
I think the biggest thing that Rockstar got right... and wrong is the ending. I think most people will say "for anything, an ending is really hard to make everyone happy," and while this statement is true, a way to midigate that is by having multiple endings so that it has avenues of satisfaction among all aspects, even if 1 might be the CANONICAL ending.
The ending in terms of the case is amazing and is based off a real life case that never got resolved. Rockstar esthetically got the ending write in terms of it being a somber and melancholic ending of... the Bad Guys winning.
And while the game is attempting to respect the painfulness of reality, I do wish in some way Rockstar had added a second ending if certain conditions were met that somehow led to a happy ending. While many would say "but it would ruin the point of the game being Noire and there are no happy endings in Noire," I feel like 1 big thing many agree on is that the game leaves the player disatisfied, especially with all the work you as the player put in....
But there is a genius of the ending sort of being a punishment to Cole and the player for just locking whoever up. As in the game there is a constant murder going on that takes a couple of cases to find out who really is the culprit... and you see how the L.A.P.D. even with Cole finding at best circumstancial evidence, but still resulting in innocent people (though some of them still awful monsters) being locked up because the L.A.P.D. can't be asked to actually do their job.
And when the real murder is found, because he's the son of a high ranking politician they decide to cover it all out, and let out the imprisoned innocents as if it's all water under the bridge.
In a way I see the genius of the ending, as Cole, while spouting things like "Justice and Honor" really just looked a things at face value and just did things as a puppet to the L.A.P.D. instead of seeking true justice, which in a way is sort of a self reflection.
I don't know maybe I'm thinking too much into it.
Still for what it's worth, it's a game I recommend you all experience once, since In my opinion it's a great 1-Time experience.