Gameplay Today - Because You're Always Gaming

Anytime a developer tries something new and heads off the beaten path of gaming, it’s a big risk. Games aren’t cheap to make anymore and ambition can potentially result in a big bust that leaves a developer making movie-licensed games for years. L.A. Noire is about as ambitious as you can get nowadays. Retail shelves are packed with shotgun blasting first-person shooters and cookie cutter action games. Team Bondi has opted to resurrect the adventure genre with a sprinkling of Grand Theft Auto. The slow pacing of adventure games might be a hard sell to gamers in this age of instant gratification, but it’s a risk Rockstar was willing to bank on.

L.A. Noire takes place in a post-war 1940s Los Angeles that feels and looks like it was ripped right out of a classic private dick novel. Team Bondi’s game puts you in the gumshoes of one Mr. Cole Phelps. Cole is a recent war-veteran turned LAPD cop. Phelps moves up the ranks pretty quickly though as he becomes a detective in no time thanks to a knack for cracking cases and nailing criminals.

The gameplay and world of that Phelps and the rest of the L.A. Noire cast inhabits isn’t like anything Rockstar has released before. Sure you can see some influences in design, but make no mistake; this is just some re-skinned Grand Theft Auto with fedoras and tommy guns in place of baseball caps and AK-47s. The gameplay itself focuses on solving crimes through crime scene analysis and questioning people and suspects you encounter in the vintage world around you.

You kick off each investigation with a look over the scene. This is done in the style of The Mentalist or Psych rather than the scientific world of CSI, where things come to your attention through the use of music or a vibration in the controller. Pass over a hot piece of evidence and you’ll trigger a musical note that lets you know you’re “getting warm”. These clues lead Phelps to questioning the inhabitants of the city on his way to solving each case. Here is where L.A. Noire’s big hook comes into play – the MotionScan technology.

As Cole asks questions, it’s up to you to interpret the facial expressions of the people as they respond. The goal is to see whether they’re being honest, completely lying or possibly just hiding something. The technology used to create the facial responses is impressive to say the least. You can clearly tell what the emotions are as they come across a person’s face. Nail the interrogation and you’ll earn Intuition Points. These points come in handy as they increase your ability to locate clues and nail answers to questions faster. In all honesty, the Intuition Points system is about the closest thing to a modern video game mechanic in all of L.A. Noire. That’s because, as mentioned before, this is more of a classic adventure game wrapped up in pretty graphics than anything else.

Maybe the fact that this is an adventure game in 2011 is what makes it feel so repetitive when compared to other games out there. It really just boils down to find clues, ask questions, sprinkle in a gun fight and solve the crime. You pretty much just repeat this over and over. The repetition results in you skipping a lot of things in order to see where the story goes and get the whole thing over with. It only takes a couple gun fights before you just opt to skip ahead. The same goes for traversing the city. Thankfully you have the option to have your partner drive instead. This gets you from point A to point B without the boring drive.

The audio and visuals are the odd saving graces of this game. It’s not that big of a surprise considering Rockstar and the Australian developer touted these aspects of the game all along. And they really do drive the entire experience. Just when things feel like they’re starting to drag along, the music kicks in with such supreme and perfect effect, that you know something is about to happen and can’t wait. The imagery is just as important and contributes to the gameplay more than just supporting the story. The visuals are as much a part of the story as the gameplay that helps the tale of L.A. Noire unfold.

L.A. Noire is a fine game, if not one of the most ambitious titles to release in a long time. The lather, rinse, and repeat gameplay can be a bit trying at times though. Things do get a little stale pretty quick, but those willing to muscle through the game are rewarded a great story that really heats up about two-thirds of the way through. Make no mistake about it; just because L.A. Noire has a Rockstar logo on the front, don’t mistake this for a 1940s Grand Theft Auto. This game is a very pretty adventure title that is more Sherlock Holmes than Mafia II. Should you pass on it if you don’t like adventure games? I’d say yes.