bought this back when it came out for the ps3 and got up to homicide before gradually losing grip on it as usually happens when i get really into a game for a hot minute. decided to come back to it last summer though and was immensely rewarded for that. while at times it is still incredibly frustrating due to the early tech being somewhat hard to read, and the updated button prompts during investigation still being somewhat obtuse as to what cole is actually going to say, once you get lost in it there’s very few experiences like it. the game creates such a richly detailed portrayal of the noir film genre, at times really playing like the game version of something like sunset boulevard, double indemnity, or the maltese falcon. as a film girl myself was such a wonder to see the lovingly recreated intolerance set and bombing down hollywood boulevard in these classic cars, hearing the jazzy score that feels ripped straight from the 1940s, it’s a remarkable vibe even if the world itself is maybe a little less developed than one would expect from rockstar.
what really pushes this over the edge and makes it a near masterpiece (other than the very novel detective work gameplay loop) is it’s characters and story. i don’t want to go too in depth as this is obviously a game that rests upon its mystery, but if you’ve seen noir films from the time period you’ll know somewhat what to expect. bad people committing heinous acts only to be stopped by slightly less bad people working for a corrupt system. it’s a game fundamentally about the loss of america’s innocence (if it even had one in the first place) after the second world war, tons of broken men coming back to a country completely different from the one they left, struggling to survive in a world just as harsh as the war zones they just left. it’s also got a ton of other ideas floating around, like the manipulation of the mental health industry, the corruption of institutions meant to protect the people, the systemic racism perpetrated by those institutions, and all framed by cole himself, a character that though being played by the player, has an interior life completely unknown to us, parcelled out piecemeal over the course of the game but for me remaining as mysterious as a cold case
what really pushes this over the edge and makes it a near masterpiece (other than the very novel detective work gameplay loop) is it’s characters and story. i don’t want to go too in depth as this is obviously a game that rests upon its mystery, but if you’ve seen noir films from the time period you’ll know somewhat what to expect. bad people committing heinous acts only to be stopped by slightly less bad people working for a corrupt system. it’s a game fundamentally about the loss of america’s innocence (if it even had one in the first place) after the second world war, tons of broken men coming back to a country completely different from the one they left, struggling to survive in a world just as harsh as the war zones they just left. it’s also got a ton of other ideas floating around, like the manipulation of the mental health industry, the corruption of institutions meant to protect the people, the systemic racism perpetrated by those institutions, and all framed by cole himself, a character that though being played by the player, has an interior life completely unknown to us, parcelled out piecemeal over the course of the game but for me remaining as mysterious as a cold case