L.A. Noire

Hey Charlie ! Ever wondered what a Film Noir from the 40s or 50s would look like as a videogame ? Neither have I. Yet, the result is pretty amazing.

L.A. Noire, the title speaks for itself, is set in L.A. during year 1947. We follow the story of Cole Phelps, former marine Lieutenant from the Okinawa campaign during WWII. Phelps becomes a detective, and goes through many diferent cases throughout the game.

The game is made of some investigation scenes, which can sometimes be rather tedious, and interogation scenes, with multiple answers possible every time, and where a keen eye will be needed to be able to see when the suspect is lying, or simply trying to tell only half the truth. There are also some action scenes, with gunfights, fistfights or car chase, but they are not omnipresent, and manage give the game some adrenaline.

What makes this games really good is the fact that the atmosphere is very well, if not perfectly transcribed, from the modelization of cars to the architecture of buildings, even the characters suits are perfectly integrated into this atmosphere. Another wonderful effort made by the developpers is the use of face scanning technology to make the character's dialogue very realistic, with every suspect interogated having its own twitches when lying.

The music is also a very good point of this game, with the radio playing music from the best artists from the time, such as Ela Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong. This further reinforces the atmosphere, and is really pleasant to hear.

But this game also give us a good perspective on the evolution of america during these years. The image of "The Automobile" is very present in the game, including the introduction. The consequences of the war's atrocities on civils and veterans are also shown in this game, with a case being about a problem of illegal distribution of morphine to veterans. We also see the beggining of Urban Sprawl in th U.S., and the many other themes that the game presents are really interesting.

I think that this game can be regarded as a wonderful portray of L.A. during the Hollywood golden age, with its lot of corruption, maneuvering and insurance fraud, but also as a good descriptions of the consequences of war. It is a really good experience that I recommend for anybody who reads this (Even if you aren't into the videogaming thing, anybody can play it, given that you can pass the action scenes)

For those who are interested, here is the game's introduction.

I do not own any of these images, and are all the property of Take-Two interactive and Rockstar Games.