L.A. Noire -- All-In-One.

L. A. Noire was developed by Team Bondi and published by Rockstar Games. L. A. Noire puts you in the shoes of W. W. II veteran Cole Phelps as he rises through the ranks from beat cop to detective in 1947 Los Angeles. L. A. Noire was one of my most anticipated games of the year and in the end might make my most disappointing game of the year. Is it a terrible game? Not really as some of the aspects of the game are really well done. What's good about it? The graphics for one as the game just looks great. The character models and the world itself are wonderfully detailed. The facial animation is a true step above. They used numerous high definition cameras to capture the faces of the actors while they were giving their performances. They went through so much trouble because the majority of the gameplay hinges on reading the faces of characters as you interview and interrogate them. They wanted to employ subtleties that had been previously unavailable in facial animation in video games and for the most part they've succeeded. It's probably unfair of me to say that they spent so much time on facial tech that they neglected other aspects of the game but it does feel that way. Almost every other aspect of the game feels average. The handling of the cars is competent at best but the NPC vehicle AI is annoying and that really comes into play as you have to do a lot of driving in the game. The gunplay and cover mechanic are both rather clunky. Getting into cover is fine but moving around corners or getting out of cover just doesn't work very well. The well realized world is massive but it's also extremely empty. They've tried to fill out the world with random crimes, and both cars and film reels to collect. The bulk of the game is of course working the cases and it's there that the game performs best. But unfortunately here too the game is flawed. The cases are fun. You'll be dispatched to a crime scene. You'll investigate the scene gathering evidence and you'll interview witnesses and the like. The facial animation really comes into play when you're interviewing witnesses and suspects. You'll ask them questions and after their responses you're able to choose between truth, doubt, and lie. Essentially truth means you believe them, doubt means you think they're lying but can't prove it, and lie provides you with the opportunity to prove they're lying with gathered evidence or statements. Once you see how the facial animation and interview systems work the story becomes mostly irrelevant. It really is like rock, paper, scissors. Are they having any facial reaction beyond looking you straight in the eye? Then they're lying. Now, can you prove it? If so, pick lie. If no, pick doubt. You'll be able to get through the cases flawlessly as long as you're thorough in collecting clues so you can call them on their lies. The game has an issue between overarching story and the cases. It's like they had to hammer the square pegs of the cases into the round holes of the overarching story for a couple of cases. And that really hurts the game in the homicide desk. It would have helped a lot if they had just left the Black Dahlia alone. The overarching story is actually pretty good and it's too bad they've seemingly forced the cases to deal with it. It has a lot of smart connections to the era. The problem comes in being so tied to the story. You can't go off the rails in the slightest. Another issue is the repetition. There is too much repetition in the cases and in the random crimes. L. A Noire is a flawed but fun first step in spite of itself. Team Bondi has the potential to turn this into a great series if they address the issues present in L. A. Noire. A little freedom in the cases. More to do in the large and detailed world. More variety in the cases. The player needs to not feel like they're on such a short leash to the story's needs. I'm giving L. A. Noire a 7.