L.A. Noire

System: PS3, others
Release Year: 2011
IGN Score: 8.5


L.A. Noire is Rockstar's crime drama set in 1947 Los Angeles. First off, Rockstar did a terrific job of recreating L.A. in the 1940s. The city map is huge and is filled with authentic billboards and advertisements. Many famous landmarks exist in the city and can be explored, and there are all kinds of cool cars from the time like Lincolns and Buicks. One of my favorite landmarks is the famous Hollywood sign, which apparently said Hollywoodland when it was originally constructed. In addition, the soundtrack to the game is excellent. The music and talk shows on the radio are authentic to the time and the dialogue is terrific. Overall they did a great job of recreating an authentic dated city while at the same time making it an interesting and fun place to explore and play a game. You really felt as if you were in 1940s Los Angeles while playing.

You play as Cole Phelps, a war hero-turned LAPD police officer who is the new golden boy for the squad. You work in various departments of the police force from patrolman to homicide to narcotics to arson. While in each department you investigate numerous crimes, including a series of women who are murdered by possibly the man responsible for the Black Dahlia murder. Another memorable series of crimes involves bringing down prominent members of the city who are involved in insurance scams and narcotics trafficking. Each crime has you go to investigate a crime scene to put together clues so that you can interrogate suspects in order to charge someone with the crime. Everything I've explained about the game thus far has been great but here is where the game falls apart just a bit because the game play is pretty repetitive.

The game uses a third person view which I think was a mistake. It is sometimes difficult to see the clues because they are small. When you walk past a clue the controller vibrates and you press a button to explore the clue. Since the clues are often small I found myself frequently just wondering around aimlessly waiting for the controller to shake so I could press 'X'. They should have used a first person view to make clues easier to see.

After you get enough clues you find new places to investigate and people to interrogate until you charge someone with the crime. The interrogation scenes use awesome motion capture technology which requires you to "read" the facial expressions of the suspects in order to determine if they are telling the truth or lying. This game has some of the best facial graphics I have ever seen. With this being said, I find the technology is kind of a waste because it doesn't really matter how good you are with interrogation. Regardless if you make the right choices when questioning suspects the game moves on so after a while you kind of develop a "what's the point?" attitude. The game is never really all that challenging or difficult.

The game overall has a Grand Theft Auto feel. It has a huge map and open world feel. However you are the good guy this time and if you have desires to cause chaos or get your wanted level up you can forget about it. There are places to explore but the game limits when you can get your gun out. There are several points where you do gun battle with the bad guys and in general they are all pretty simple. However, they are still fun and you feel bad ass mowing down gangsters with your pistol so the lack of challenge here really doesn't bother me. There is one scene where you are chasing a criminal in the catacombs underneath a church which is particularly creepy.

I usually don't give games ratings but I feel compelled to do so here with L.A. Noire. Certain aspects of the game are great but the repetitive game play and lack of incentive to do well with interrogations bring the game down a bit. It could have been great but instead is just solid. I'm gonna give it a solid "B."