L.A. Noire: The Big Yawn

I should not dread playing a video game; this is a time to unwind, to lose myself in another world, and most importantly, to have fun. I had high hopes for L.A. Noire; roaming the streets of 1947 Los Angeles as a detective has all the makings of a great time. The game also boasts a huge cast including Madmen's Aaron Staton in the lead and John Noble from Fringe. Not to mention publisher Rockstar has a long history of amazing, genre defining successes including Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, and Max Payne. Unfortunately, L.A. Noire fails to deliver, leaving players with a beautiful looking game hampered by boring, uninspired game play, a story filled with questionable narrative decisions, and a bland protagonist for whom we neither hope nor fear until the very end.

The opening credits have a cinematic flair. A smooth jazz score plays as we cut to various locations around the city while an unknown narrator describes Los Angeles, a place of promise, full of hopes and dreams, but also “a city of  undercurrents where not everything is as it seems.”  The city itself is L.A. Noire's most impressive accomplishment. The level of detail is incredible, from the impressive architecture to the cable cars gliding along cracked streets. Famous landmarks including Grauman's Chinese Theater, Union Station, and Pershing Square dot the landscape waiting to be discovered. The interiors of buildings, houses, and apartments are meticulously decorated adding to the immersion.  

As the credits fade, we meet Cole Phelps in the first of many letter boxed cut scenes. Phelps is a decorated World War II vet who has joined the LAPD.  Over the course of the game he ascends the ranks working in patrol, traffic, homicide, vice and arson. Each promotion reveals a new set of cases to solve. The patrol section serves as a tutorial where you learn the various control schemes and how to search for clues and interrogate suspects. Unfortunately, my brief time as beat cop did not bode well for what was to come.

As I arrive at my first crime scene, I encounter a gruff, veteran detective who sends my partner and I down a dark alley to recover a gun used in a homicide. I wander around with my flashlight, approaching various objects in the environment until the controller vibrates, letting me know I can interact with an object. Pressing a button zooms into a first person point of view where you can manipulate the object to discover if it is evidence relevant to your case or not. And this pretty much sums up evidence collection. The clues tend to be the same: matchbooks from local bars, incriminating documents, weapons, clothing, letters, pictures, and memos all left in plain view. This becomes mind-numbingly repetitive, but be prepared to spend a lot of time searching for clues. For diehards craving a more “realistic” experience, you can turn off the vibration. Hmm, should you pick up that coffee mug on the table or the hit list lying next to it? Vibration or no vibration, it's simply not fun.

The final case as a patrol cop introduces how interrogations work and is the first real demonstration of the highly praised facial animation technology which allows for some of the most realistic looking characters and performances ever seen in a game. It is truly impressive, with every smile, grimace, frown, and wrinkle captured on screen.  However, it never fully captures the world shattering depths of emotion only revealed in characters' eyes, which tend to be dark and expressionless. Nonetheless, it is a huge leap forward, and bodes well for future games.

Interrogations are also handled in first person. Evidence you discover is recorded in your notebook, a smoothly designed interface used to ask questions while you observe suspects' facial expressions and body language to determine if they are lying. This too gets old, as you watch for characters to telegraph their lies by nervously shifting their eyes and then hope you have collected enough evidence to support your accusations. Making a mistake does not result in failing a case though; you simply receive a lower overall rating once the case is complete.  The main storyline proceeds no matter how badly you perform, which negates any real tension during interrogations. Sure, I may feel like an idiot with my one star rating at the end of a case, but I'm being promoted anyway, so who cares? At least you have some freedom to approach cases from different angles, choosing which locations to investigate and people to interrogate.

As you progress, the cases get longer and more involved, but the story lines mostly stick to the tried-and-true noire tales. There is the young girl come to Hollywoodland seeking stardom only to have her dreams shattered by perverts and pedophiles, the boxer who doesn’t take a dive, the serial killer preying on young women, gangsters pedaling drugs, and a police force full of corruption. Give credit to L.A. Noire for showing all the ghoulish realities of police work. Be prepared to hover over plenty of gruesome corpses as the sunny streets reveal dark shadows filled with rape, racism, necrophilia, and misogyny. One of the most shocking experiences I had was kicking open the door of a suspect's bedroom, only to discover a twelve-year-old girl in his bed. The game is rated Mature for a reason, and while it all sounds exciting, it takes a long time to get to the good stuff.

When I start working vice, the main storyline finally begins to develop and the stakes are raised with police, politicians, gangsters, soldiers, and businessmen all part of a large conspiracy. Unfortunately, I didn't really care after doing over 10 hours of hard time in patrol, traffic, and homicide.  It is frustrating to think how much better the overall story might have been if the main storyline had been brought to the forefront sooner rather than later. The larger tale is hinted at through various flashbacks, but my time in patrol, traffic, and homicide felt disconnected from the major storyline that unfolds in vice and arson. I understand the game is about Phelps climbing the ranks, but the story lacks cohesion, and the inclusion of newspapers a player can discover that attempt to pull everything together only hurts the narrative more.

The newspapers delve into other characters’ backstories and motivations and are directly tied to the main storyline. However, it does not work because although we see Phelps pick up the newspaper, it is the player who becomes an omniscient viewer, watching the various scenes transpire. Phelps has no clue what you are seeing, which makes for a bizarre experience that shatters the narrative point of view. On the one hand, it provides the player with information, but it also ruins the mystery in a story billed as detective fiction. It makes hours spent investigating crime scenes and interrogating suspects an even greater waste of time. It would have been better if the story unfolded more organically with Phelps and the player discovering the vast criminal conspiracy together. Granted, reading newspapers is optional, but they are left out in the open at various crime scenes and provide crucial story information, so I'm not sure how “optional” that makes them.

The disjointed narrative is made worse by Phelps himself who is an enigma for much of the game. We learn snippets of his character through World War II flashbacks between cases and conversations with his various partners, but it takes too long to arrive at his central conflict. Phelps is heralded as the “golden boy” who always upholds the law even in the face of rampant corruption. The problem is that Phelps doesn’t seem too concerned with any of the devious shit going on around him and gladly accepts each new promotion. Sure he gets upset every once in awhile when one of his partners goes a little overboard with a suspect or seems too chummy with a gangster, but overall Phelps strikes me as complacent for much of the game. He talks about truth and justice, sometimes sounding like an asshole, but there is no concrete conflict in him, and this makes it difficult to understand his motivations. It wasn't until 13 hours into the game that I finally learned what happened during the war that continues to haunt him and is the driving force behind his actions in the story. His character would have been more interesting if this crucial information was revealed sooner. I only started to hope and fear for Phelps towards the end of the game, and then suddenly the narrative rug was pulled completely out from under me, and not in a good way. 

During the last three cases, you assume the role of another character while Phelps recedes into the background. It dramatically changed the narrative structure and completely pulled me out of the experience. I can understand what the writer had in mind, but the way this switch is executed could have been handled better by slowly easing the player into the new character's shoes while delving deeper into his relationship with Phelps sooner. However, since we hardly know anything about the new character, it’s a jarring transition and a bit infuriating as well. I had invested so much time in Phelps and just when he becomes interesting, I'm treated to what is destined to go down as one of the huge what-the-fuck moments in gaming history.

My 20 hours spent playing L.A. Noire was a disappointment.  Yes, the city of Los Angeles is incredibly realized and the facial animation technology is a great sign of things to come. The game also has strong acting and crisp dialogue, and you can even play the entire game in black and white if you crave that true noire feel. However, this is a video game, not a movie. Get used to arriving at a crime scene, hovering over a dead body, and then wandering around various locations waiting for your controller to vibrate.  Around the 11-hour mark, I had to restrain myself from hurling the controller at my television when Phelps entered a huge warehouse, his partner informing him that they should look around for clues. One might think hunting a serial killer would be fun. Instead, I found myself wishing the guy would stop killing women, not because killing is wrong, but because I was bored. The monotony is occasionally broken with more exciting game play, including car chases, foot races, gunfights, and fist fights.  All of these elements work great, but they are few and far between and end too quickly. Many have praised the slow, methodical game play, claiming the investigations and interrogations capture the essence of real police work, but herein lies the problem. There is nothing wrong with an added sense of realism, but there needs to be a balance between a great story and exciting, interesting game play. I'm sure the day-to-day life of a real detective isn't that thrilling, so why would you want to replicate that mundane routine in a video game?

Video games are a perfect medium to tell epic tales that unfold over many hours. Characters creation and story development can grow and develop at a slower pace, but there is also the monumental challenge of maintaining player interest. This isn't a two-hour movie; this is long-form, interactive storytelling. Video games can be informed by film, but they are ultimately meant to be played, and while LA Noire has its moments, they are rare and ruined by boring game play that feels like more of an afterthought.