Real Men Wear Fedoras.

Of all the blogs on all the internet.... you just had to walk into this one....



1947 USA; When cars were made of metal, buildings of brick, and "Broads" knew not to talk back. Yes post WWII America was a cigar smoking, whiskey swilling mans world, and with LA Noire, rockstar games brings that world back.

On the surface this game appears to be "Grand Theft Auto 1947", and I assumed this was the case after Rockstar successfully used the GTA model in the Old West with Red Dead Redemption. Although you do drive around in a living, breathing, faithful recreation of 1940s Los Angeles and complete missions the gameplay here is completely different from any previous Rockstar game... or any game period, for that matter.

Noire owes its unique gameplay style to a new and much heralded technology, "MotionScan" that allows for extremely impressive and realistic facial animation. The technology allows the player to interview NPCs and decide for themselves whether or not they are lying. This Combined with combing crime scenes for clues causes each game mission to be basically played out like a 1940s version of an episode of Law and Order or CSI. (Or, more accurately, for the more aged among you; a classic police drama like Dragnet)

There are car chases and gunplay but this action takes a back seat to the interviewing and clue hunting. I admire Rockstar for going out on a limb and trying something different, but I wonder how this sort of slower paced cerebral gameplay will be seen by the general "Pew pew" Call of Duty loving masses.

The game is not perfect; there are some amusing audio bugs, dialogue popping up in the wrong place and the narrative is a bit bumpy and doesn't always flow properly. The writers don't take full advantage of the "Noire" theme, either. The first couple of missions have a gritty Noire style narration, but this is abandoned for the entirety of the rest of the game. Sadly, the other knock against this game is the re-playability. While I am VERY glad they did not try to tack on some sort of multiplayer, once you finish the story, that's it. You can replay mission to improve your case rating, unlock various vehicles or go on the usual sandbox game obscure hidden item scavenger hunt but none of that is very engaging. On the other hand, DLC might actually work pretty well for this, though, given the episodic and compartmentalized feel of the cases.

In any case, I hope that this game does find some retail success, as it is nice to see something new and different for once. Give it a try, you just might like it.