{"id":5147,"date":"2011-06-08T22:12:38","date_gmt":"2011-06-08T12:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=5147"},"modified":"2014-05-13T12:53:09","modified_gmt":"2014-05-13T02:53:09","slug":"l-a-noire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=5147","title":{"rendered":"L.A Noire"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"lanoire\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Platform:\u00a0 <\/strong>Xbox 360<\/em>
\nDeveloper:\u00a0 <\/strong>Team Bondi<\/em>
\nPublisher:\u00a0 <\/strong>Rockstar Games
\n<\/em><\/em><\/p>\nO<\/span>ver six years in the making and created by a development team of over 180 staff, L.A Noire<\/em> is a hugely ambitious detective game set in Los Angeles, 1947.\u00a0 Players take on the role of do-gooder lawman Cole Phelps as he returns from a military campaign in Okinawa and begins life anew as a traffic cop.\u00a0 Over the course of twenty one cases, Phelps works his way up the ranks and gradually finds some of his investigations begin to blend into one another as single puzzle pieces that are part of a larger conspiracy.<\/p>\n

L.A Noire<\/em> drew a lot of attention prior to its release due its use of a remarkable motion capture technology that does an incredibly convincing job of recreating the facial tics of real life actors and transposing them onto the character models in-game.\u00a0 The people in L.A Noire<\/em> blink, wince, sneer, shout and smile in a truly lifelike fashion that stands head and shoulders above the rest of what the gaming industry currently has to offer.\u00a0 It’s my hope that this piece of technology becomes widely available and used by other game developers.\u00a0 After spending the past fortnight playing this game, it is difficult to switch to other character based games that have such wooden animation by comparison.<\/p>\n

The scale of the game is enourmous both in terms of geography and scope of storyline.\u00a0 L.A Noire<\/em>‘s post-war Los Angeles is a massive landscape that really checks all the boxes you could ask for when window-dressing a noir detective game.\u00a0 Famous landmarks such as Chinatown, Union Station and the RKO Theatre are all modelled and accessible in this game.\u00a0 There are sleazy red light districts, suburban sprawls, rundown neighbourhoods, upmarket gated communities and so on.\u00a0 If there’s a location you can name in your favourite noir film, chances are, it’s in this game.<\/p>\n

The sheer volume of cases and storylines are worth noting too.\u00a0 Twenty one cases, each taking around 45 minutes to complete, is a lot<\/em> of content.\u00a0 There is a massive variety in cases with some based on famous real life mysteries such as The Black Dahlia murders.\u00a0 I read an interview in Edge<\/em> Magazine where the developers equated the content to roughly ‘two seasons of tv show.’\u00a0 They’re not kidding.\u00a0 There’s enough ideas and stories packed in here to fill the narratives of several games.<\/p>\n

So how does it play?\u00a0 As with most of its other features, L.A Noire<\/em> really throws the kitchen sink at you in terms of what you can do as Detective Phelps.\u00a0 Over the course of the game you’ll be interrogating suspects, searching for clues, checking in with the boys down at the crime lab, chasing perps, busting drug runners and uncovering corrupt cops.\u00a0 This game has it all and most of these action sequences are well handled and fun to play.<\/p>\n

There is a decent amount of customization available in L.A Noire<\/em> too that can significantly change the gaming experience depending on what you want as a player.\u00a0 You can add or remove audio cues to help you find clues and there is also a rather nifty option to turn the visuals monochrome to give it the feel of a Forties film.\u00a0 These choices are a good thing and help personalize the game to the tastes of the individual.<\/p>\n

I guarantee most players will be enthralled after playing L.A Noire<\/em> for an hour.\u00a0 Thanks to its casting of well known actors (mostly from Mad Men<\/em>) and its slick presentation of an under-represented genre in gaming, everything feels fresh, exciting and full of promise.<\/p>\n

For most players, this goodwill starts to wear away after the fifth case or so.\u00a0 Let me explain.<\/p>\n

After notching up a few successful cases and getting promoted to the Homicide Division, a pattern begins to emerge.\u00a0 Each case never has more than two suspects.\u00a0 The interrogation, surely the heart and soul of a game such as this, never expands into anything more sophisticated than asking four questions and is completely lacking in depth.\u00a0 During the interogations, each statement a suspect makes is followed by the option for the player to either believe, doubt or call them on a lie.\u00a0 It doesn’t matter if the player gets this response right or wrong.\u00a0 The game continues irregardless with the same outcome<\/em>.\u00a0 This feels hugely disempowering.\u00a0 You could play Phelps as the world’s sharpest detective or as a Forties version of Frank Drebin and it doesn’t make a shred of difference.\u00a0 Where is the incentive to put in any effort?<\/p>\n

Phelps also seems to undergo enourmous changes to his personality depending on which option you choose.\u00a0 When you believe what the suspect says, Phelps is kindly, supportive and mild mannered which pretty much fits his demeanour during the rest of the game.\u00a0 However, choose to doubt a suspect’s statement and occasionally he will go uncharacteristically bezerk, berating old ladies and making degrading sexual remarks about recently widowed housewives.\u00a0 His insane bi-polar behaviour where he intermittently acts kindly then angrily reminded me of that old Monty Python<\/i> sketch at the butcher shop.<\/p>\n