L.A. Noire

Not in a Sandbox, Just Playing On It's Own

When L.A. Noire was first announced, I was incredibly excited. I was ready to call it my game of the year. I didn't watch that many Noir films, but I was very familiar with the genre and knew I enjoyed it. I had also been a fan of the company Rockstar, after Red Dead Redemption proved to be just as great as everyone was calling it.

The trailers clued me in on their new facial capturing mechanic, used to tell whether or not the suspect was lying, telling the truth, or holding something back. It interested me a lot, it looked amazing. Sort of like the animation technique known as rotoscoping, and if you count L.A. Noire rotoscoped, then I'd say that this looks about as good, rotoscope wise, as Ralph Bakshi's American Pop.

Something else went through my mind when I watched the trailers. "I hope this isn't as sandbox as Red Dead Redemption. Killing civilians felt weird in Red Dead since it felt against the more heroic traits of the main character. And since Noire has you play as a cop, that just wouldn't feel right." Thankfully, the game actually doesn't play like a sandbox game, and you can't even use your gun unless you are in a gunfight.

But, unfortunately, that gave a set-back. I was too used to sandbox games, and ended up wishing I could do more. I ended up a little disappointing, even though I was fully enjoying the game. When the story was over, I basically felt about what I wanted to do exploration wise, and felt feeling like it was simply a good game.

Then I replayed it. Knowing the limitations in exploration let me look even deeper into the story, characters, facial graphics, and atmosphere. I was wrong to judge the game as sandbox, because it really isn't and wasn't meant to be, which is what I had wanted in the first place. L.A. Noire did prove to have a compelling story, which would have it's own twists and turns, and even subtle changes if you did or didn't do one thing or the other, while not derailing if you fail, which wouldn't work for a game like this. It's more akin to a point-and-click, which I grew up on, and it's got a good following in Japan for being akin to a light novel.

This game really is great. It promised a lot, and for my money, it did deliver. It still wasn't my game of the year for the year it came out, and even though I can now look past it, I hope there will be a little more exploration if and when there is a sequel. The golden film reels were a bit annoying to find, but the street crimes and landmarks were interesting, so I hope for more of that. There is also confirmation that they plan to use the new face reading technology and use it for full-body, which will just make the great graphics even greater.

Check this game out. It's available for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and it's also gotten a PC release, but it's difficult graphics can cause trouble for those with lower-end computers. I'd say it scores at about 8.