It’s been over ten years since L.A. Noire‘s initial release, and it has become such a classic that it still gets occasional re-releases, with the most recent landing on the Nintendo Switch. Despite the game’s stay in development hell, Team Bondi struck gold by putting the player into the loafers of a ’40s Los Angeles detective and adding detailed forensic and interrogation mechanics. Even compared to more modern detective titles like Frogwares’ Sherlock Holmes, L.A. Noire has set a standard for the genre — and with good reason.
L.A. Noire is a Rockstar published game, created by the now defunct Team Bondi. Players take on the role of Cole Phelps, a rising detective in the LAPD and veteran of WWII. As Cole, players solve various cases, making their way through different departments while a major conspiracy unfolds in the background, ultimately connecting to Cole’s personal story. It’s a fun game of intrigue with some great investigation mechanics.
The gameplay is simple in concept but works perfectly for allowing players to choose their own direction during investigations. It starts with inspecting the crime scene for evidence and clues, which can be missed or overlooked. Information and hunches can be followed up by heading to locations connected to persons of interest or the crime.
However, the most unique gameplay mechanic L.A. Noire has is its witness questioning and suspect interrogation. The NPC faces are modeled after real actors to have different facial expressions depending on when someone is lying or telling the truth. Players can miss information and even arrest the wrong person if questioning doesn’t go smoothly or if evidence is missed. This means that while cases have a correct ending, players can come to different conclusions, including the wrong ones.
Newer detective games have similar styles of gameplay and yet haven’t attained the same level of recognition. Sherlock Holmes games have evidence and information gathering, which can be missed. However, its interrogation and questioning mechanics rely on evidence and deduction rather than including the NPC. Gamedec has evidence and information gathering, but it’s done in an isometric RPG style, like Baldur’s Gate or Divinity: Original Sin II. Players need the right skills to access dialogue or hidden evidence, locking out some information. While both are similar to L.A. Noire‘s gameplay loop, there is one major difference which is how it’s presented.
Sherlock Holmes, Gamedec and many other detective games are centered around an overarching story, making the gameplay feel very linear. With L.A. Noire, it’s reversed. Being a detective is paramount to the gameplay, while the story happens in the background. It eventually comes to the foreground later, but the gameplay makes room for the conspiracy. This makes each case feel like its own contained story, which means there’s always something new around the corner, while other games tend to take the player along for one ride, with little difference between cases if any. Telling the story of a detective and being a detective are two very different things, and it’s this dichotomy that continues to make L.A. Noire one of the best detective games around.
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Read More:Why L.A. Noire Is Still the Best Detective Game
2022-04-23 14:15:00