{sidebar id=1}There are a few things that are uniquely American and could only have originated in America – jazz and Westerns, for example. And then there are things which, despite their origins, function best when set in America, like noir, whether in film or literature. There are a number of reasons why this is true, but one of the most prominent is Los Angeles. Frankly, if L.A. didn’t exist, noir would have had to invent it and make it actually happen, if only to guarantee that readers and moviegoers would be familiar with an idealized place populated almost solely by predators where naïve youths went with the hope of finding wealth and fame, only to discover the cost for both was far too high and never actually guaranteed either.

One of the reasons noir works so well when set in Los Angeles is the juxtaposition between the environment and the reality of the city. On the surface, it’s all sunshine and palm trees, but the political and criminal reality is quite different and noir, at its best, lifts up the rock so we can all marvel at and recoil in horror from the crawling, squirming, wretched little things underneath, those squalid little beasts that mimic the evil that people do when they think no one’s paying attention, when they think they can get away with it … or because they have an audience.

Rockstar’s two most recent games have focused on genres which have often, although not always, been best expressed by American authors and filmmakers. In the case of Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar crafted a revisionist Western which somehow felt far more traditional than it had any right to – an anti-hero trying to make up for mistakes, struggling with a life vastly different than the one he led before, haunted by his past … John Marston was a man who was just trying to get by. He wasn’t a hero by any stretch of the imagination – he just wanted his family to be safe and protected from what he had done. He wanted to move on, but – as another noir-ish movie set in L.A. once reminded us, we may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us. It never is.

L.A. Noire’s Cole Phelps is similarly haunted by his past – not so much the threat of revealing a secret which would destroy his reputation and life, but the gnawing truth that he had been measured and found wanting, yet was somehow rewarded for his shortcomings when others were punished for their strength of character. And that terrible burden is what drives Cole Phelps to approach his police work with a religious fervor and enforce the law with absolute moral certitude. To Phelps, right is right and wrong is wrong – the two can never meet, can never shake hands, can never even nod in passing, even if on opposite sides of the street. And that rigid, inflexible belief in absolute righteousness serves Phelps well for a moment or two.

But this is, after all, Los Angeles in 1947. Certain compromises need to be made to ensure the city’s continued growth and prosperity. Certain consideration must be given … the public doesn’t need to know everything, after all. And if some evidence is lost here or there, or a suspect is released due to a clerical error, or a procedural mistake results in a case’s dismissal, it’s all for the greater good, isn’t it?

Welcome to the world of L.A. Noire.

First and foremost, Red Dead Redemption is about the closest thing to a perfect game that we’re likely to see. The main story is amazing. The side-quests are funny, curious and appropriately bewildering at times. The challenges provide players with plausible reasons to explore the incredibly detailed world that John Marston inhabits, and there’s a reason to go just about everywhere and see everything. And online roaming and multiplayer, combined with DLC, extend its playability infinitely. To me, it is a perfect game which not only ages well but actually improves with age.

And since L.A. Noire follows on Red Dead’s heels, players are likely expecting a game which is the equal of a masterpiece of this console generation, an idea which is both unrealistic and unfair. Any game which followed Red Dead would likely be at least slightly disappointing simply because of how high Rockstar set that bar.

But here’s the good news – while Red Dead Redemption is easily the best game that Rockstar has ever developed, L.A. Noire is a VERY close second. As a developer, Rockstar seems to have moved away from the frustrating puzzles like driving the limo across the city at top speed in Vice City and similar challenges in San Andreas to games which focus less on twitch reflexes and more on stories, whether Niko Bellic, Gay Tony, John Marston or Cole Phelps.

Reflecting this change in philosophy, L.A. Noire is even more streamlined than Red Dead Redemption. There aren’t really any races – even in car chases, while skilled players or players with better reflexes can catch up to the car, disable it, spin it out, etc., simply keeping the car in sight will eventually lead to the driver losing control or running into an obstacle and surrendering. There are no timed challenges – players don’t have to make it to destinations in a certain order or race to reach a location before an event happens. Players can accept side missions between case objectives; they can drive around the astonishing replica of 1947 L.A. and so on without fear of messing up a case.

And even if a player does make a mistake, it’s possible to replay cases by accessing them from the main menu. Intuition points allow players to remove options or see what other players have selected, giving players who are stuck multiple ways to achieve objectives. The Options menu allows players to activate a mode called Action Skip, which allows a player to simply bypass a particularly problematic sequence after failing it three times. Even more noteworthy, most of these action sequences are relatively short – it’s not a matter of driving across the entire map only to fail an objective and then restart, it’s a very small setback of a minute or two.

While these changes in gameplay will be discussed in the accessibility portion of the review, it’s crucial to note that L.A. Noire is Rockstar’s single most accessible game to date.

However, that accomplishment does not come without some concessions. While Red Dead Redemption was a virtually perfect game with accessibility concerns, L.A. Noire is an exceptionally accessible game which feels like overkill. Red Dead Redemption gave players an incredibly detailed game world and plausible, sensible reasons to visit almost every corner of it. L.A. Noire gives players a remarkably accurate version of Los Angeles and, in streamlining the game, actively leads people away from exploring it.

Yes, there are widgets to look for and cars to collect and monuments to see, but in the course of playing through Red Dead Redemption’s main story, players were taken to almost every part of the world John Marston inhabited, even if they were on horseback, galloping to another location. It brought the world to life and resulted in a more immersive experience as the player moved from biome to biome, crossed borders and explored regions

In L.A. Noire, players will likely turn on the siren and head straight to the crime scene or to pick up a suspect, never really noticing the drive-ins, the coffee shops or the tobacconists. L.A. Noire effectively creates one of the most comprehensive, realistic and historically accurate versions of Los Angeles ever seen in a game, and then gives players a reason to ignore 90% of it. As one perfect example, how many people outside Southern California knew there were oil fields in Los Angeles proper? And how many L.A. Noire players will actually see the oil fields in the game?

And keep in mind that this is a very trivial complaint, not unlike saying “Yeah, the Mona Lisa is a pretty good painting but her nose is a little too big.” It’s just that this world is so exceptionally detailed that it’s a shame Rockstar didn’t give people more reasons to see it and explore it and appreciate the work the designers did in bringing it to life.

And that realism extends through the rest of the game – if you hear a voice or see a face and think it’s familiar, it probably is, and it probably is the actor you’re thinking of (as one perfect example, I had to look up “Mulholland Dr.” on IMDB to find Patrick Fischler’s name because I knew his voice and face but could not remember his name to save my life – the same was true for Michael McGrady from “Southland,” and Ned Vaughn, who I remembered from “China Beach”). Perhaps as a direct result of the care and attention paid to casting and rendering faces, more than any other game to date, L.A. Noire feels like interactive storytelling. You can literally see people telling the truth, people leaving details out and people lying.

Before L.A. Noire’s release, I wondered how interrogations would work, especially with the claims that facial expressions would give players hints about whether a statement was true or false. I grew up around a lot of police officers and learned some of their tricks in detecting lies and doubted that a video game could faithfully render facial tics, eye movements and other small signs. After release, I found myself referring to Web sites diagramming eye movements which correspond to the brain accessing memory and imagination (if you plan to play the game, you may find http://www.blifaloo.com/info/lying-resources.php useful, especially http://www.blifaloo.com/info/lies_eyes.php). In that sense, L.A. Noire becomes a maddening puzzle at times, as players know someone is lying but can’t find the necessary proof to crack them in interrogation.

And think about how extraordinary that is for a moment, that a video game is so detailed and so well-rendered that you can read a suspect’s face with such detail that you know they’re lying to you. Think about how exceptional the graphics are when faces are so closely animated that you can read lips. And that level of detail is present through the entire game.

As a game, L.A. Noire may face some challenges because it isn’t especially replayable – once it’s done, it’s done. You can begin a free roam session for any part of the game to find monuments and film reels and cars, but – especially with collecting cars – it can turn into needle-in-a-haystack work. Unlike Red Dead Redemption, L.A. Noire doesn’t have any multiplayer component and while this is good for single-player gamers because it means that Rockstar focused exclusively on that experience, it limits the long-term value of the game in the absence of DLC. With that said, L.A. Noire will still take most players a solid 30 to 40 hours to finish.

As a gaming experience, L.A. Noire is one of the few essential games of this console generation. This is a game which – through its use of genre, genre conventions, story and narrative – strongly supports the idea that video games can act as literature. This is a game which – through its incredibly detailed and rendered graphics and cityscape – eloquently argues that video games can be art.

Go and read the review from AbleGamers. Here is a hint... it did great