The year is 1947, two years after the end of World War 2 and our main protagonist Cole Phelps, a decorated United States Marine Corps Veteran finds himself amidst tragedy after tragedy. The story of This game follows Phelps along his journey from being a patrol officer, to a detective, to working homicide, then vice, and by the end demoted to arson. This title was released in 2011 and had one thing that made it incredibly ahead of its time, the facial capture. With the interrogation feature being a key point in this game that the player needs to experience, the faces of each person interrogated need to look realistic, and readable. While this was achieved, and this game did have some intriguing moments, it also felt flat for me and lacked a solid identity with how many plotlines it has embedded within it.
A title ahead of its time:
Let’s cut to the chase, facial tracking is by far the biggest reason why anyone should experience this game. With that said the technology of facial capture was somewhat new to this degree, (even though the use of motion capture and facial tracking began in the 1980’s and 1990’s), it's still a major advancement in how it was used, and its purposes in the game. You need to keep track of how the character is moving their face in interrogation scenes to make an accurate decision on whether to play the good cop or bad cop or accuse them of a crime committed.
There were some graphical glitches in the facial tracking at points, it would look like someone slapped a picture of a person over top of the face, or like a picture of a face was printed on and it had a hard time capturing what the person was saying. Since this game isn’t new and came out in 2011, let's look at it in terms of the time that it came out. With older titles, we can’t hold them to the same expectations of games that are currently coming out. Now this game was ahead of its time not just because of the facial tracking, but how the narrative design was done in certain instances. This game’s story took place in 1947, the game showcased and represented the history in a way that came as close as possible to being accurate. L. A Noire showed the racism, misogyny, and corrupt nature of the police during that time, the game covered these difficult topics respectfully, and in a way that will (hopefully) educate people on them. Getting hit across the face with anti-Semitism when first going into the game took me off guard but then I reminded myself that this is a historically driven game that showcases what happened after World War 2. When a game accurately shows history, and what people went through I don’t mind the usage of racism and other concepts as themes, it’s when it’s inappropriately, or incorrectly used to spark rage.
Lacking an identity:
As I got through the game I noticed that the story was lacking an identity, there were concepts that each chapter built on not just one singular idea across the board. In chapter three, Homicide Desk, I went through all the murders of women it wasn’t until I got to the final chapter of Homicide Desk that I felt that there was a tangible story. The cut scenes in The Quarter Moon Murders were some of the best in the game. After that, L.A Noire just became repetitive and dull.
One minute this game is a horror title, the next it’s a murder mystery, then another minute it’s a war story with intense flashbacks. There was so much going on, and with each passing chapter, even the DLC entries I found a lot of them to have a vague idea that they ran with instead of one linear idea across the entirety of the game's story. Also, I’m not sure why, but the DLC chapters would randomly interrupt the main storyline, which took me out of whatever immersion I might have experienced. On top of that, the audio design was ok for a minute and then would randomly cut out when I was leaving a building, again completely severing immersion and the flow of the game.
Even at the point where Phelps cheats on his wife, I thought that while this is jarring in a good way that I didn’t see coming, it also didn’t make sense for Phelps’s character arc. This man didn’t hit a woman, and would always be the one who would stick up for the downtrodden, he was a model citizen. The effort to make him the good cop with a sorted past held little to no meaning for me because of how the story was paced and how his character was portrayed up until the final chapter of the game. What it comes down to is I think there were so many good ideas in this game that all were thrown together in a very haphazard way that none of those singular ideas got a chance to breathe. I would have much rather the game focus on it being strictly a murder mystery, or a post-war game instead of multiple chapters that have one focus but also reference ideas from across the entirety of the game which makes the flow of the game confusing.
Final thoughts:
After going through another Rockstar game previously, (GTA 5), I was interested in diving into an “older” Rockstar title. While yes, I thought the game was repetitive, and snooze-worthy at points (assign cases, interrogate suspects, find evidence. Wash, rinse, and repeat), the driving mechanic oddly enough is better than the one in GTA, makes it make sense. other things such as combat, and running, were a bit wonky at times and characters would get stuck on items rather easily.
This game also had some golden moments that we see creep into later Rockstar games. The interaction with Phelps and each partner he has creates this great dynamic throughout the game, and this witty banter and sarcasm get put into other titles such as GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2. Granted it's not as defined in L.A Noire, obviously, but I saw the growth and budding of what was to be, and that’s something special.
Comments