L.A. Noire (Sony Playstation 3, 2011)

Back in the day, there weren't a ton of great detective games. A few scattershot attempts on the NES, as I recall, but nothing really special. Condemned: Criminal Origins on the 360/PS3 has a bit of forensics going for it, but it's still horror at its core. L.A. Noire is about a police officer, I think, but you basically do detective work, and while the game is simplified it's still interactive and open ended enough to be fun. This is a sandbox game like Grand Theft Auto. In fact, it's made by Rockstar and the developers pretty much used the same engine. The budget must have been smaller. Burgeoning film-noir esque Los Angeles isn't thematically defined, funny, or characterized that well, but it's gritty and realistic all the same. No music on the radio, just the jazzy period score that keeps the feeling that the game is mellow in every sense of the word. As an open ended game, you drive around in your police car solving different cases. Like in Grand Theft Auto, you can steal cars, however since you're a police officer you're justified if it's for the excuse of solving a crime, though most of the time it's just for the excuse not to walk. There are plenty of vehicles, but they don't control particularly well and vehicular chases aren't a huge emphasis here.

There's a lot of on foot chasing. Chasing criminals across rooftops, using a gun to hold them up, bludgeoning them with your fists, and even shooting them. However, all of these bits feel like minigames instead of freeform parts of the gameplay. The shooting, in particular,  feels like a severely dumbed down Grand Theft Auto 4, which isn't to say it's bad, because it's still fun, just mindless. The enemies in GTA IV weren't very smart, and these enemies aren't very smart either. The game has enough going for it to make it cool. As a detective, you scout for clues. Solving the crimes involves paying attention. Picking up the clues lets you discover locations where you can interrogate people. Once you actually capture a suspect, you can interrogate them further through a little minigame where you get them to confess to the crime. The acting is actually good, and the game had facial technology implemented which shows characters rolling their eyes to the left which might indicate lying (Even though studies have shown looking away is no indicator of lying in real life) Once you catch a criminal, the case is usually finished. You get a rank based on how well you did.

Most of the detective work isn't that in depth. There are multiple paths to solving the crimes based on the evidence you pick up. Most of the evidence is pretty obvious, like finding a gun three feet from the murder scene in the garbage can. A master criminal mind, that there. Picking the clues is hard because the game makes it hard. Finding shell casings on the floor of a huge open world is difficult because you have to stop dead and then press a button to select them. This is still not a hard or complex game, because most of the time you don't need most of the clues to finish the case. The bare bones of finding a murder weapon, searching a body or something of that nature can lead to a suspect and a subsequent hold up. The evidence you collect can lead to a better interrogation later on.

The gameplay itself is also a little nerfed compared to a lot of open world games. For one thing, you can't jump at all. You can run and climb ladders and pipes, chasing criminals across rooftops. The weaponry is limited to whatever you're carrying, with no ammo or anything to micromanage. It's just not about that.

This is still a really short game, maybe 1/10th as long as Grand Theft Auto IV was. And while the open world is highly detailed, there's not really that much to do in it. There doesn't seem to be a compelling story arc driving the narrative, though granted I haven't finished the game full yet. The good thing about the game is the variety. Driving, brawling, shooting, holding up, chasing, collecting clues, solving crimes and interrogating is all fun and well done. The open world's ability to draw the player in works too. I will say that I have a fat 60GB PS3 and even after installing patches the game still freezes at the fourth mission. That's in some ways unforgiveable, though the game is old, and I didn't pay full price for it, so I can't complain too much.

The world looks cool, with a lot of details surrounding the backstreets of LA. It's not exceptionally large, but it's big enough considering the length of the game. The art direction does a good job of making the world seem lived in, much like the Grand Theft Auto games do. Plenty of smaller details in the environment indicate things have happened, or are happening, and the retro cars and people that flood the streets are just cool to look at. One thing I don't like about the game is that finding clues doesn't really make sense. The game says you'll hear a "chime" but I never heard it. I had to wander the character around looking for the chime, but I heard no chime. Maybe it's too subtle for my 80 year old ears. The voicework is great, though. If you have a passenger, you can press square and they'll tell you which direction to turn to reach your destination. There's no GPS, being that it's an old era, but you still get a waypoint on the mini map.

L.A. Noire does just enough to make it good. It's a shame that I've had to seek the game out on the PC because the PS3 version refuses to function. All the same, when it's up and running it's a lot of fun, and at least better than Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Dick Tracy on the NES, two games that might have held prior honors for 'essential' console detective games. There's also a point and click one, but the name fails me at the moment.

Recommend this product? Yes