“In his fight to climb the ranks and do what’s right, LAPD detective Cole Phelps must unravel the truth behind a string of arson attacks, conspiracies, and brutal murders, battling the L.A. underworld and even members of his own department.” – Steam Synopsis
L.A. Noire is one of those fabled games. The game that invented new facial technology, which in turn was so costly and time consuming it led to its studio (Team Bondi) going under after it was released. Along with Bully, this is the forgotten Rockstar game that deserved to be a series like GTA and Red Dead. As a fan of Rockstar games, it’s a shame it took me so long to beat this game, but I will say when it was all said and done, while I don’t believe this game is a 10/10 masterpiece. It is still a unique experience to this day and while it is rough around the edges, it’s still a classic worth playing.
L.A. Noire’s story is an interesting case of the whole thing being better than the individual parts. After I finished the game and was able to take a step back and look at everything holistically, I really enjoyed it. I love the episodic nature of the desks and cases and how they eventually connect with one another and how all of it as a whole comes together in the end. The problem, though, is that not all of the cases are good. Everyone is going to have their favorite desk/case. My personal favorites are homicide and arson. Those were the absolute best. They had the most interesting cases, characters and story moments. Meanwhile, nudged right in the middle of those desks is vice, which I think is bad. It adds a lot story wise, but mission wise it was boring and mission design wise it was tedious. The worst offender of it all though is the DLC cases, which on the PC version are mandatory. They usually loosely tie into what you were already doing and the overall story, but if they were missing nothing of value would be lost. They stick out like a sore thumb with their length and just how uninteresting I found them.
With all that being said, the story as a whole is great. Cole is this former officer from WW2 now back from the war working as a cop trying to do his best and working his way up the ranks in the corrupt post war L.A. Drugs, murder, movies, mafia, corruption all around him. Unlike other Rockstar games, mainly GTA, which can often lean into the parody of the world. This games version of L.A. feels very grounded and real. It leans heavily into its noir roots with its grit. I’m not going to lie. Some of the stuff in these cases was hard to get through. There are a lot of messed up situations throughout these cases. Murder, sexual assault, racism, drug overdoses, immigration, PTSD, etc. It’s heavy stuff and this game’s characters react about how I would expect for officers and detectives of various pasts and ranks. And when it’s all said and done and this game rolled its credits, I was left feeling like I just played a good game but also like I just experienced a really gritty reality and I liked that.
Phelps is a great character. The more we learn about the past and his past, the more he starts to make sense. At a glance, he comes off as kind of wooden. A good cop who always wants to get to the bottom of the case. As the game goes on, there’s a lot more complexity that gets added to him and the characters that he’s forced to interact with bring out so much in him. All of the partners that we get are great in their own way. There are four main ones to coincide with the main desks. Bekowsky was fun to interact with. But the other three are my favorites for different reasons. Rusty wants the easy way out of the case most of the time so it was interesting going back and forth with him during Homicide with this maybe maybe not serial killer with all of these cases that have irrefutable connections but the through line just isn’t quite there. Roy is a corrupt asshole. That is the perfect foil to Phelps. I loved to hate him and his awful self. And finally Herschel was just a great character to be around. I haven’t even mentioned the other recurring characters, police chiefs, and people in each case. The characters are this game’s strong suit all the way through.
The story, as I’ve heard it for over a decade, is that the facial mapping technology was so expensive and labor intensive to make that it bankrupted the studio and the game almost didn’t come out. The big question over a decade later is, was it worth it? To me, yes and no. A lot of the facial animations are actually really impressive still to this day and the game switches up the facial tells enough that I think it’s very cool. For it being such a pivotal part of the gameplay, it works. The interrogations and questioning are the best part of the gameplay by far and the facial technology is quintessential to that. But it almost seems like everything else got left behind for that. From a far this game doesn’t look bad graphics wise but man up close in those questioning scenes it looks rough. Rougher than other games that came out during this generation. Sometimes the faces blur when a character is talking. The hair looks god awful all the way through as well. That’s not to say there aren’t some good-looking moments but overall this game can look really rough.
The city of L.A. looks nice despite it being very empty. Occasionally it was nice to drive around, but not really because the driving in this game is awful. The movement in this game in general is so rough. Rockstar games love that realistic movement, and this is the early stages of that and it shows. Gunplay was fun but a slog and overall any mission that diverted too much from the formula of find clues, question, rinse and repeat ended feeling bad to play. Especially the tailing missions. What was early in the game, a nice break up of gameplay, becomes way over done in vice. It’s one of the reasons why I hate that desk so much. Overall, gameplay isn’t really that good outside of the investigation formula that they nailed and the game has moments of looking really good but ultimately falls below the standard of even 2011.
So yeah, L.A. Noire is a very flawed classic. Despite all of its graphical and gameplay faults, it makes up for it in spades when it comes to the story, characters, and the main investigation loop that is so addicting. I think this game nailed what it needed to nail and if the auxiliary pieces were better than it could’ve easily been something truly amazing. But this game is definitely worth a play through and I would love if Rockstar gave this series some new life. A game in this vein set in Chicago or New York would be amazing.
L.A. Noire – 7/10
