L. A. Noire

Hi!

Even though L.A. Noire has gotten a lot of praise in the review department, and I recognize it as a very good game, it's interesting that there are far less points to talk about in it, compared to Duke Nukem Forever. The controversy surrounding all the negative reviews gives you a lot to talk about and discuss when it comes to DNF, whereas L.A. Noire is "just another game".

The game borrows much from the motion picture L. A. Confidential, one of my absolute favorites. That movie also happens to be based on a book written by my favorite author: James Ellroy. So you can imagine I was stoked about getting to play this game.

The graphics are really nice and detailed, much like the GTA games that use the same engine. The most interesting part is of course the hyped "motion captured" faces, that express more than any other game has done before. This is crucial because the core of the gameplay is trying to guess whether people you are interrogating are lying or not. To me it feels like Team Bondi, the developers of the game, put a little too much faith into their new fangled toy. Because, even though it looks awesome, it's still really hard to tell whether an animated character in a video game is lying or not. That is unless of course you can figure it out by logic and prove that they are lying with a clue that you've found. As mentioned, this guessing game is the core of the game which proves a bit problematic since it's just too damned hard. Of course, you can't really fail a case, you will progress further even though you end up killing an innocent person, and you can even restart the cases to try again. Since you already know at least one wrong answer, trying again just seems like a chore of coming up with the right answer by trial and error. Another problem with failing to guess the correct answer, is that once you do you will get less clues which turns into a downward spiral of failure. Except for the interrogations, there is nothing to complain about when it comes to gameplay. Searching for clues and trying to figure out whodunit is a nice relaxing exercise, and for once you actually have to think while playing a game which is nice.

The story is everything you would want from a game like this, ridden with clichés/genre conventions - whatever you want to call them. A highly recommended game if you are a fan of noire/crime fiction in general.

Later!