Retawes Review: L.A. Noire

Retawes Review: L.A Noire - 14.5/20

Coming into L.A. Noire you'll notice something. The gaming industry has accomplished the ability to captivate real-life people's faces into video games. That aside however, does L.A. Noire succeed in everything else?

Story and Setting - 7/10
The story is split into episode type scenarios in which you play as Cole Phelps. Cole Phelps is a World War veteran working in the police academy and the game is set in LA (of course) after the "recent" World War II where most people are just trying to come by. You meet several characters whom are all voiced by familiar actors/actresses such as Heroes star, Greg Grunburg. Yet these characters usually feel less developed as the game progress. Sure this may be due to their minor placement in their story. However, some "major" characters have limited backstory and seem to be more of a background. For example, the head of the Police Department has very little character backstory or detail on what his true intentions are in the game. Instead he just rants about your failure and the crime scene which doesn't really help!

Your under arrest! Penguin!

Futhermore, throughout the game your character develops and you slowly are promoted after each few crime scenes(Unless you get fail the investigation). Overtime, there is a few cutscenes of when Cole and his pals were in WWII which is decent backstory and his wife does get development aswell, but like I said before, there is hardly a story besides the initial crime scenes.

Although most characters have minor purpose in the game, the world does feel highly inhabited and the developers should be congratulated on bringing the 1940's LA to video games.

Gameplay and Graphics - 7.5/10L.A Noire's face rendering graphics are outstanding to say the least, yet the tool is more or less a gimmick compared to the rest of the game. During a crime scene, there is always a "chase scene" which involve you driving or running through unevasible objects that appear randomly due to bugs to hunt down the target. A cool gimmick, but like the face rendering it wears off really fast and ends up being a nuisance.

Although, The small sided shooting sequences are quite polished compared to the sand-box like gameplay that doesn't let you run over civilians, hit lamp posts or anything related to a "GTA" style (L.A. Noire and GTA are made by the same developers) The game uses the excuse that your a Policeman to subside the boring gameplay that occurs in every crime scene.

So sir, you say you left at midnight? LIES!

However, the conversations and investigating in the game are far more interesting. Observing if the suspect is telling the truth, lying or in doubt is awesome. There is also some after effects of these actions, including the suspect ignoring you for accusing them of lying about mourning of their dead sister. These choices are relevant for this type of game and fortunatly are actually playable unlike the driving mechanic. The investigation sequences are really innovative, as they combine music with your actions to acknoledge where a piece of evidence is. Compared to most AAA titles released last year, we haven't seen this type of mechanic in a while. Fortunatly it's on par with the conversations and actions that take place due to them.

Overall
Putting it into one big statement, L.A Noire is worth the purchase if you want to play "Detective" however if you think it's Police Academy meets GTA, don't bother as the driving and open world environment is barely tolerable.