1. L.A. Noire is a landmark, a game that pushed not only technical boundaries but the way games were be used as a storytelling and world building medium. It is a decent experience overall but it is starting to feel like the kind of thing that's worth playing because it is historically important rather than because it is genuinely enjoyable to play right now. This isn't a such a terrible thing. I'd put L.A. Noire in the same category as the first Resident Evil games. It's great, maybe a masterpiece, but as it ages and it can't rely so much on its unique presentation, you start to notice more and more problems w/ gameplay.
2. It takes place in a realistic but still stylish take on post-war Los Angeles. You get a real sense of its size w/o actually having to and see all of it--though you can go see all of it if you want. It does not quite give you the sense of a bustling city w/ a million things going on but, I dunno, if you want that, you have to have in-game traffic jams so a little poetic license in that regard isn't a bad thing.
3. The real news when this came out back in 2011 was its facial animation. Aaron Staton who you most likely know as Ken Cosgrove on Mad Men plays lead character, Cole Phelps, and there is not a moment that goes by where you are not like, yeah, that character model looks and acts exactly like the dude who plays Ken Cosgrove on Mad Men. The other character models are a little inconsistent--women esp. seem to look a bit funny for some reason--but the fact remains that the facial animations in this are so good they make everything else about the graphical presentation, which was still excellent for the time, look just a little bit clunky.
4. The acting across the board is compelling, which is necessary because L.A. Noire leans really heavily on its cinematic sequences. In addition to Aaron Staton, it borrows what must be over half the cast of Mad Men for various roles so that is the kind talent you an expect to see.
5. The sound design is right up there too. Voices sound like they are in realistic spaces, guns pop-off w/ convincing immediacy, radios blare period music, engines rev and roar and the whole thing is polished off by a memorable score that emphasizes the moment to moment impact of each scene perfectly.
6. I like what it attempts w/ its gameplay too. It is essentially an adventure game in the form of police procedural. In theory, I really like the idea of investigating physical evidence which you then use to tease the truth out of the suspects you question. In reality, investigating physical evidence is walking around and clicking on every little thing and interrogating subjects consists of asking suspects a limiting set of questions and trying to guess weather they are telling the truth or lying. The whole thing feels like you are stuck on rails rather that unraveling each case on your own.
7. This lack of control is really felt when you start seeing how little your performance affects actual outcomes. At one point, I really dropped a ball on one case. The police chief really let me have it but, in the very next scene, he says the DA is really happy w/ my work and drops a promotion in my lap. I did literally nothing in between.
8. There are also action sequences and these are outright miserable. I constantly found myself losing suspects I was chasing because I ran into something accidentally or got stuck halfway climbing up a fire escape. Aiming guns is a pain and the fighting system is just plain odd. The game basically admits to the player how bad these sequences are by just allowing them to just be skipped after a few tries. Thankfully.
9. The story is cut up into five sections, each of which has a few cases for you to solve w/ story-relevant cut scenes in between them. The first section is basically an introduction, the second is an extended introduction and the third is an in-depth introduction. Only once we get to section four is the overarching plot of the game revealed w/ any thoroughness. It is then wrapped up in section five. Needless to say, I found the pacing of the game to be a bit slow through some of the middle sections.
10. Women in L.A. Noire exist for the exclusive purpose of being victims--generally the victims of murder. The one female character that is given any sort of agency uses it to go ask for help from a man. She does this upon instruction from a different man.Similarly, black people play no other role in society than that of junkies, jazz musicians and small time criminals. Or, I should say black men. There is not a single black woman w/ a meaningful line of dialog in the whole game.
11. Some would be willing to write these issues off as either being a product of the 1940s setting or simply to genre tropes. I'm not. Fictional late forties L.A. presumably has a similar population as real late forties L.A. and real late forties L.A. County had a population approaching four million. If you cannot imagine, of these four million fictional people, a few that have control of their circumstances and who are not white men, you are just not trying. It is simple as that.
12. L.A. Noire is an open world game but doesn't really feel like it because you are pretty much stuck on a single path as far as the main story line goes. It does offer you some incentive to explore but the opportunities it gives you are lackluster at best. You can indulge in the horrible action mechanics and solve street crimes or go poking about looking for various hidden extras. Really, the best way to enjoy the scope of the game's take on Los Angles is just to go for a ride and see what you can see.
13. For all my complaining, most of what drives me nuts about this game was all done in service of what it does really well. You are stuck on rails because it has a story to tell. The mechanics are bad because the focus is on police procedure, not gun slinging. Women and minorities are portrayed poorly because... well, there's no excuse for that. Ultimately, L.A. Noire is nothing if not ambitious. In some regards, it bites off more than it can chew but it succeeds incredibly at building a believable world and spinning its twisted tale. I did not love every moment I spent playing it but it is a game that will undoubtedly remain bouncing through my thoughts for a long time to come.
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