There is one word that comes to mind when you’re playing through L.A. Noire: Ambition. It was ambitious for Brendan McNamara and Team Bondi to take the game’s main technical innovation — a new form of motion-capture performance that makes the population of Noire look vastly more “humanlike” than most digi-people — and turn it into a central aspect of the gameplay: You have to stare into the eyes of the game’s characters and decide if they are lying or telling the truth. But the true ambition of Noire only really becomes clear after you’ve been playing the game for awhile. When I spoke to McNamara a few months back, he professed a great love for the literature of Dashiell Hammett and James Ellroy, for vintage film noir like Out of the Past and Detour, and for the essential ’70s neo-noir Chinatown.
At first, L.A. Noire seems to largely capture the tone of those works without quite grasping their deeper meaning — sort of like when Electronic Arts turned the epic sweep of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies into a gorgeous-to-look-at, incredibly simple button-masher. The streets of Noire‘s ’40s Los Angeles look great, the dialogue has a pleasantly no-bull cynicism, and the gameplay has a nice diversity — hunt for clues, talk to witnesses, drive, shoot somebody, chase a perp, etc. But great noir is about more than just tough guys and boozy broads, and after a few hours of playing the game, I sort of felt like it was the videogame translation of Sin City: All the affections of noir with none of the soul.
And that’s okay. L.A. Noire has a pleasantly professional sheen. You could argue that there are entirely too many “chase the guy across the rooftop” scenes, that the action-movie gunplay feels awkwardly wedged in to keep the grade-schoolers in the audience happy, that it seems curious to create such a vibrant open-world and then populate it with nothing but missions and bystanders whose main topic of conversation appears to be “Hey, isn’t that the cop from the papers?” But I liked L.A. Noire — if nothing else, it was better than the miserable Mafia II, another period-piece crime thriller that bogged you down in miles of endless driving across an empty metropolis.
For me, the main drawback of the early hours of Noire was the central gameplay mechanic: Deciding whether characters are lying to you. The problem, I thought, was that all the characters were lying… because they were really actors. When one suspect stared hastily around the room while insisting he had nothing to do with the murder, it was a comic silent-film moment: “No, no, d’oi, I didn’t do it!” (The shifty-eyed dog from The Simpsons was more subtle.) But sometimes, the interrogations are incredibly difficult — and, I think, they’re difficult in a good way, the way that Super Mario 3 was difficult, back when videogames weren’t afraid to say “Game Over” and mean it.
The bigger problem, I thought, was the way the game reduced the gameplay to a simple binary “Lie/Truth” system. Real noir lives in ambiguity, and L.A. Noire seemed entirely too square. That’s especially true of the game’s hero. In the game, you control Cole Phelps, a straight-arrow cop played by Aaron Staton (Mad Men‘s Ken Cosgrove — and if you’re a Mad Men fan, get ready to play spot-the-supporting-actor.) Phelps seems, at first, almost unbelievably bland — as far from a world-weary Bogart or a cynical Nicholson as you can imagine. I couldn’t decide if it was the way the character was written, or if Staton had been told to act bland because that’s how most videogame protagonists are, or — and this is where Noire‘s technical innovations might backfire — if Staton was simply not giving a very good performance.
But, like a TV procedural that starts off rote and then finds its footing, L.A. Noire begins to get more incisive the further along you get. At first, Phelps is just a beat cop, but he slowly rises the ranks: First to a traffic desk, and then to homicide. And it’s when he becomes a homicide detective that, I think, the game really starts to get rolling. You begin to investigate a series of murders that all appear similar: Dead women, usually left naked, often with messages written across them in blood. The sight of the dead women is shocking, but it’s the rare videogame nudity that doesn’t feel remotely salacious. (You control Cole as he bends down to investigate the bodies, examining their cold dead faces and lifting up their hands — It’s one of the most weirdly intimate sights I’ve ever seen in a videogame.)
There are implications that these killings might be the work of the Black Dahlia, or perhaps a Black Dahlia wannabe, or that these are all separate crimes whose perpetrators all tried to blame it on the Dahlia. I’ve been through four of these missions so far, and without spoiling anything, I will say that the best part about all of them is that they all wind up incredibly, wonderfully unsatisfying. You build up a mountain of evidence against certain suspects, but even after you send them to prison, you still wonder if they really did the crime.
I just went through one mission that ended with me interrogating two suspects: One of them a lovesick kid who truly seemed half-insane, and the other an intelligent socialist with a history of beating women. I charged one of them with the crime, and my Captain told me I made a bad call; I restarted the mission, and charged the other one, and my Captain told me I made a good call. My roommate was watching me play — if nothing else, Noire makes for a fun viewing experience — and he was sure he knew who did it. I was equally sure. We disagreed. At my point of the game, there is a growing implication within the game that everyone you accuse is actually innocent.
I’m not sure how, exactly, L.A. Noire will turn out, and I’m also not entirely sure on what basis to critique it. It’s a game that I feel uncomfortable reviewing until I’ve played it in its entirety, just because my reactions to it have been so all over the map. The action elements of the game feel more tacked-on every hour… but the experience of watching people, real people, becomes more and more addictive. It feels, most of all, different from anything I can remember experiencing in games. The closest thing I can compare it to is Mass Effect, but with one big difference: The Mass Effect series turned the act of creating a character into gameplay. With every decision you made, every specific choice of dialogue, you added one more rung to your version of Commander Shephard. L.A. Noire, conversely, game-ifies the act of creating other characters: You choose whether you will look at the dead woman’s husband as a lousy homicidal maniac or a poor broken wrongfully accused man.
Gamers, are you playing L.A. Noire? What do you think about the interrogation gameplay? And, for people who are further in the game, do you feel like the overarching plotline is pleasing, or would you have preferred a more episodic game? Most of all, what would you fix in L.A. Noire for a potential sequel?
Follow Darren on Twitter: @EWDarrenFranich
Read more:
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‘L.A. Noire’: Watch the killer new trailer. Has gaming become as emotional as movies?
Hi Darren,
This is the first time I have read your work, but I have to say I am astounded at your statement “I feel uncomfortable reviewing until I’ve played it in its entirety.” You should not be reviewing any game that you have not played in its entirety. Anything wriiten about a game that you have not completed should be clearly delineated to be an editorial about the game and NOT a review. Additionally, it should be disclosed exactly how much of the unfinished game you have played in your piece. Perhaps you already do this – I was just taken aback by your verbiage.
That being said, LA Noire has turned out to be a big disappointment for me. While it is interesting and I certainly applaud Team Bondi and Rockstar for taking chances, the game is tremedously repetative, consisting of 1) gather evidence in a very well defined goegraphic space 2)interview people (don’t worry if you mess things up though, there is no REAL consequence to your interview skills), drive somewheree else and repeat. There is so much unrealised potential in this game it is remarkable. Side missions are irrelevant and also repetative. The interview mechanic is fundamentally flawed (the ‘Doubt’ nomenclature was very poorly chosen), and Cole Phelps is likely the most uninteresting lead character I have played n a long time. I could go on about poor body animations, a real lack of any sense of morality play, or the utterly dissappointing way in which the sense of noir that positively oozes over the title and menu screens violently evaporates as soon as your are thrust in to the actual game, driving through sunny L.A. listening to be-bop music on the radio. Just my two cents.
BTW – I have finished 14 of 21 missions in the game, just to give full disclosure.
DUDE! Like it was his choice! Haven’t YOU ever heard of a deadline?
Pull your head out please.
Game reviewers should complete their games’ main campaign for the same reason that movie reviewers should watch the entire film.
A reviewer is not required to finish a game to publish a review. In some cases, it just isn’t feasible (Ever hear of Demon’s Souls?). The reviewer should be obliged to disclose how much her or she played of the game – but finishing the game (though preferable) isn’t critical. As for the above article, I’d say it’s really more of a “first impression” piece than a review – note there’s no letter grade assigned as is typical with EW reviews.
A couple things I want to point out: the interrogation does start super simple – the actors are told to exaggerate their performance in the beginning cases – but will get harder and harder. You can also encounter places where you should accuse someone of lying but do not have the evidence and have to go back to look for it. Finally, there is a plot twist at the very end.
Entertainment Weekly – We’re supposed to read it, listen to it, watch it, and/or play it to completion before we review it?
Ever heard of a deadline?
What score did Darren assign?
Agree with Captain Obvious.
I’d like to reiterate – this is not a review. It reads like a “First Impressions” piece. Even if the author intended it as a review (which I don’t think he did), it’s simply not structured as such.
All I can say is THANK YOU Darren! It’s about time somebody said this: for a game that has the nerve to have “Noir(e)” in it’s title, “L.A. Noire” is far from the best film noir stories.
I have to say, most of the reviews I’ve come across focus on the gameplay and the mechanics but don’t focus on the story and the mythology (of noir). Your piece rightly does. I was so excited for this game, hoping that it would satisfy my cravings for a film noir video game. But sadly, “L.A. Noire” is far from it. The story itself, especially the homicides, is lacking. It could’ve gone into a direction that revealed some great noir themes: corruption, betrayal, lust, etc. But instead, it only hints at those themes. It plays it out pretty frustratingly…stringing the player along from case to case withholding the larger issue. It was infuriating to play through it when all I kept asking was why a certain question or issue wasn’t being asked, etc.
The second problem I had with the game was the whole interrogation process. Just as you said, there is no right and wrong in film noir. Things aren’t so well defined – THAT is what essentially defines film noir. So for the game to bring the player to repeated moments of choosing, essentially, a right and a wrong position is totally misleading. There is never a full truth or a full lie, nor is there really a completely guilty person and a completely innocent one.
The third issue I had was the other element Rockstar neglected: film noir’s visual style. Most importantly, film noir basks in the darkness of night. “L.A. Noire”, for roughly 80% of the game I’d say, is during the bright, cheerful daytime. There is no land of light and shadows in this game. This is no sense of style, just a bland (if well-researched) landscape. It was disappointing. For what it’s worth though, the scenes at night (those brief few) are thrilling.
I think the developers need to hit the books or the silver screen again. If there is an “L.A. Noire 2″, I pray they get it right. There is hope though, look how great Red Dead Redemption was as a sequel!
You do know there’s an option to change it to high contrast black and white, don’t you?
I had a good time with it and finished the story but there are some narrative problems.
One, there’s a very good reason why you’re left feeling uneasy after making those homicide charges. After the first couple of cases, I wanted an option to charge neither suspect but the game doesn’t give you that choice. It’s nonsense to get a “good” ending to a case by charging one suspect and a “bad” ending for charging the other when both suspects are, in fact, innocent.
Two, I agree that the Truth/Doubt/Lie thing doesn’t always add up. Mainly because there were several times when a suspect or witness WAS telling me the truth but holding something back so the correct answer was Doubt. I’ll grant that that could be explained away by saying “I ‘Doubt’ you’re telling me everything,” but there are other times when Truth is the correct response for these same situations. Also, there were a few times when Lie required one piece of evidence to be considered correct when another piece would logically serve just as well. That was annoying.
Three, and this is sort of a ***SPOILER*** (OH NOES!?!1!) but not really, the “Cole is cheating on his wife,” revelation didn’t hit me at all because you don’t actually meet Cole’s wife until after she finds out. I had no idea he was even married but I remember now that it was mentioned briefly in one of the car conversations with a partner. I had forgotten that but they should have actually shown something of Cole’s family life earlier so that the reveal could have some punch.
Finally, why can’t my partner drive while I shoot out the bad guy’s tires? That would have been cool. I also think having a first-person option in crime scenes would have made finding clues a little easier. (I turned the hand-holding options off.)
Couldn’t agree more with your comments about the Truth and Doubt game mechanic. The developers should’ve included a clearer way for players to get witnesses to elaborate their statements if it seemed like they might be holding back. As it is the system doesn’t always work.
Overall I really enjoyed the game but it’s not without its problems.
Namely I wish there was an option to expand the pool of suspects and collect more evidence. Unfortunately the game often forces the player to choose between two suspects that are pretty clearly not guilty. (Don’t worry, that’s not a spoiler, it’s just common sense. You’ll see.) Not only is this limited control not satisfying, but it makes the player wonder, “am I actually playing this game correctly?” One could argue that that’s intentional but the less said about that the better.
Also Cole doesn’t have a firm grasp on the concept of finesse. If he doubts somebody even when it’s obvious they’re innocent, he’ll become extremely irate and even accuse them of murder simply because they weren’t completely forthcoming.
In that regard the game should’ve offered the player more control over the tone Cole takes in his interviews. You know that old phrase “you get more bees with honey”? Well Cole sure doesn’t.
I agree. I found that I got better ratings when I stopped thinking of success in terms of “What makes the best sense for the *case*?” and switched to “What does the *story* want me to do?” Frankly, I think that’s the game’s biggest problem and the root of what holds it back from being really great. It’s good. No one reading this should think the game sucks. It doesn’t. It was a hell of a lot of fun but it’s just not the great world-beater I heard it was.
Yeah I had the same experience. It’s like the developers are saying, “I know the evidence is pointing in one direction, but we really want you to follow our story in another. In fact we’re going to make you”.
It certainly is a game worth checking out but there are a few elements to it that make it feel like the primer to a more solid sequel.
thats the point what makes sense for me and what makes sense for the newspaper/other cops/world all the time it should be this guy killed them to save his starving family this guy didn’t but stole millions from old ladys and i cant prove it who do i pin the murder on? thats waht i think it should be
I haven’t finished the game (on disc 2), but I do agree it’s very repetitive. After a while, you see that almost every case plays out the same (chase someone down, interrogate them and charge them. Case over). The action gameplay sequences are too short and feel tacked on, as do the street crime side-missions. The world in the game is so big, yet there’s only one type of side mission?
I will say though that I enjoy looking for clues and then asking people questions, but after a while, it does get tiresome. When it comes to interviews, I mostly expect people to lie, but also hide some truth, so I usually “doubt”, but it does get frustrating when someone was telling the truth and I get a question wrong. Finding clues is a lot of fun, but I sure do kick myself when I use “intuition” and see that I easily missed a clue. And I do agree that there should be more gameplay scenes at night, with shadows and rain. I wouldve also enjoyed, voice over (maybe, have the option to turn it on or off). The game is different and fun, and I know I haven’t finished it, but the repetitveness of solving the cases and the lack of anything else to do, other than the short street crime side-missions, is disappointing. I look forward to finishing the game, but I do hope that the sequel will have more variety and can have a better balance of the action and investigative scenarios. Right now, the action just isn’t as engaging and well thought out, as the crime-solving is. This game has potential.
Another thing I want to mention is that I wouldve liked to get know Cole, better and to also be more involved with the cases and people he interacts with. Maybe I interact with a witness and fall for them and the case changes? I wouldve also liked more choices, like Mass Effect or Fallout, of how I wanted the case to go. Shooting a suspect and getting “failed” and forced to start over, feels limiting. I understand they want you to play the game “right”, but for a game like this, I think the game should revolve around your choices more. Depending on your actions, the story\case should change. BTW, this game makes me wish they had a “noire” CSI-type show on TV, right now.
“The bigger problem, I thought, was the way the game reduced the gameplay to a simple binary “Lie/Truth” system. Real noir lives in ambiguity”
It still remains ambiguous, maybe you aren’t paying attention, but you rarely get the whole truth even if you guess correctly. That’s what retains that ambiguity.
Secondly, I don’t think the story is meant to compare to film other than as a homage, it’s more to compare to other games. In that respect it holds up excellently.
By the way, finish your games before reviewing.
I enjoyed it immensely. Is it perfect? No, but it is miles better than most run of the mill games which just regurgiatate the same experiences over and over.
Well, after reading these posts… I don’t know whether to get it or not. It sounds like, yes… but it definitely could have been more, and hopefully the sequel will be.
It’s a great game. I’m only halfway through, mind, but it’s an enjoyable experience. Is it perfect? Of course not. To expect perfection out of a game that costs sixty bucks (heck, I couldn’t expect it out of one that costs 600) is naive. It’s different from every other game I’ve played, however– it’s some hybrid of adventure games from the 80′s and GTA– and it actually works. Honestly, some of the things people suggest to make it more, uh, “noir” or whatever are next-to impossible. Me? I’ll be playing this one again after I’m done my first run. What more can you ask from a video game?
I thought the Black Dahlia was some dead chick. How can she be responsible for other women’s murders?