This review contains spoilers
This review will contain minor story spoilers
L.A Noire is yet another example of Rockstar making exceptional games that do not fall under the GTA umbrella. A fantastic depiction of 1940's Hollywood, playing as a straight edge detective trying not to be compromised by the corruption around him.
To go over the characters/general narrative first, you play as Cole Phelps who is a WW2 vet who begins to rise up the ranks of the LAPD. Cole is an interesting protagonist, his background in the war gives a lot of depth to his character and helps connect him with some of the cases later on in the game. He never exactly has any great character moments and as far as Rockstar protagonists go he is fairly underdeveloped due to the game not really giving moments where we can learn a lot about him. He is an outwardly good person who is tormented by what he saw/did during the war.
The game lacks an overall narrative for the first half of the game until you start the vice desk. The main point of this is that Cole is caught having an affair with a German singer named Elsa and has his name trashed by the corrupt high ups of the LAPD. Next lets look at each desk individually
To start off, i played this game in two sittings, i started it back in August and played through the Traffic desk and Homicide desk before getting burned out at the start of the Vice desk. Recently i came back to it and finished up the Vice desk and Arson desk. I will detail my thoughts of each.
The traffic desk from what i can remember of it was pretty enjoyable, Cole's partner Stefan Bekowsky is probably my favourite of the partners. By the end of the traffic desk him and Cole seemed like friends and they definitely had the best dynamic.
The homicide desk was by far my favourite. The murder investigation is very intriguing and I had the most fun going through these missions. Your partner Rusty Calloway is pretty good, he starts out as the stereotypical drunk asshole detective but he comes around eventually. The mystery in this set of missions makes it a highlight.
The Vice desk in my opinion is the weakest of the bunch. I wasn't really interested in the drug storyline and your partner Roy Earle is an asshole, which isn't bad because he is kinda one of the main antagonists. This desk ends with Cole being demoted after having his affair outed. Which is a good way to keep the pace flowing with some story beats that aren't to do with any case.
The arson desk is pretty good, i found that it switched up the gameplay loop a lot and dropped the almost episodic cases that the previous desks had. The arson desk is all connected and at points even has you playing as a different character. Your partner Biggs on this desk is probably my second favourite because he doesn't do the thing that all the other partners do where they start out an asshole and treat Cole like shit but then by the time the desk ends they end up liking him. Cole and Biggs are amicable with each other from the start which i was glad to see because i was getting tired of the repetition.
To go on to the gameplay, the crime scene sections are really fun with hunting around for all the clues and having to decipher puzzles. The interrogation sections are really fun to but can be difficult due to the faces of the characters being quite hard to read.
Visual wise this game was a marvel for its time, making massive advances in motion capture and the way faces are recorded. It gives an uncanny valley feeling seeing really fluid facial animations on videogame characters. No complaints on this front.
A couple complaints i have are the previously mentioned repetitiveness of the partners, I kinda wish that maybe there was only two partners so that they could be more unique in character. Also I wish that they put more emphasis on the overall story from the start, instead of having it all come out in the latter half. They spend the first two desks setting up the fact that Cole is having an affair with the singer and wait until late into the game to do anything with it. Gameplay wise i think the pacing can be a bit of a problem especially with checkpoints, i wish that there was a restart from checkpoint option because if you screw up an interview or miss a clue you either need to close and reload the game or play the entire case again which is annoying.
While I do not think that LA Noire is in need of a sequel or even a remake, I would love to see more detective games that can take a lot of what LA Noire put out there with crime scene sections and interviews. This is a Rockstar Classic that everyone should play. Highly Recommended
L.A Noire is yet another example of Rockstar making exceptional games that do not fall under the GTA umbrella. A fantastic depiction of 1940's Hollywood, playing as a straight edge detective trying not to be compromised by the corruption around him.
To go over the characters/general narrative first, you play as Cole Phelps who is a WW2 vet who begins to rise up the ranks of the LAPD. Cole is an interesting protagonist, his background in the war gives a lot of depth to his character and helps connect him with some of the cases later on in the game. He never exactly has any great character moments and as far as Rockstar protagonists go he is fairly underdeveloped due to the game not really giving moments where we can learn a lot about him. He is an outwardly good person who is tormented by what he saw/did during the war.
The game lacks an overall narrative for the first half of the game until you start the vice desk. The main point of this is that Cole is caught having an affair with a German singer named Elsa and has his name trashed by the corrupt high ups of the LAPD. Next lets look at each desk individually
To start off, i played this game in two sittings, i started it back in August and played through the Traffic desk and Homicide desk before getting burned out at the start of the Vice desk. Recently i came back to it and finished up the Vice desk and Arson desk. I will detail my thoughts of each.
The traffic desk from what i can remember of it was pretty enjoyable, Cole's partner Stefan Bekowsky is probably my favourite of the partners. By the end of the traffic desk him and Cole seemed like friends and they definitely had the best dynamic.
The homicide desk was by far my favourite. The murder investigation is very intriguing and I had the most fun going through these missions. Your partner Rusty Calloway is pretty good, he starts out as the stereotypical drunk asshole detective but he comes around eventually. The mystery in this set of missions makes it a highlight.
The Vice desk in my opinion is the weakest of the bunch. I wasn't really interested in the drug storyline and your partner Roy Earle is an asshole, which isn't bad because he is kinda one of the main antagonists. This desk ends with Cole being demoted after having his affair outed. Which is a good way to keep the pace flowing with some story beats that aren't to do with any case.
The arson desk is pretty good, i found that it switched up the gameplay loop a lot and dropped the almost episodic cases that the previous desks had. The arson desk is all connected and at points even has you playing as a different character. Your partner Biggs on this desk is probably my second favourite because he doesn't do the thing that all the other partners do where they start out an asshole and treat Cole like shit but then by the time the desk ends they end up liking him. Cole and Biggs are amicable with each other from the start which i was glad to see because i was getting tired of the repetition.
To go on to the gameplay, the crime scene sections are really fun with hunting around for all the clues and having to decipher puzzles. The interrogation sections are really fun to but can be difficult due to the faces of the characters being quite hard to read.
Visual wise this game was a marvel for its time, making massive advances in motion capture and the way faces are recorded. It gives an uncanny valley feeling seeing really fluid facial animations on videogame characters. No complaints on this front.
A couple complaints i have are the previously mentioned repetitiveness of the partners, I kinda wish that maybe there was only two partners so that they could be more unique in character. Also I wish that they put more emphasis on the overall story from the start, instead of having it all come out in the latter half. They spend the first two desks setting up the fact that Cole is having an affair with the singer and wait until late into the game to do anything with it. Gameplay wise i think the pacing can be a bit of a problem especially with checkpoints, i wish that there was a restart from checkpoint option because if you screw up an interview or miss a clue you either need to close and reload the game or play the entire case again which is annoying.
While I do not think that LA Noire is in need of a sequel or even a remake, I would love to see more detective games that can take a lot of what LA Noire put out there with crime scene sections and interviews. This is a Rockstar Classic that everyone should play. Highly Recommended