Review: L.A. Noire

It has been a while since I last reviewed a video game let alone written a review for anything.  I've played a lot of games since I wrote my review for Call of Duty: Black Ops back in December and while I could write reviews for all of those games, I feel as though it is best to keep current (not to mention how incredibly backlogged I would be).  The game I'm going to review for you today is L.A. Noire.

First off I want to state that I played L.A. Noire on the Xbox 360 and as such the game came on three DVDs as opposed to one Bluray.  While I've seen various people complaining about this online, I want to point out that it wasn't that much of an issue.  Yeah, it would have been nice to have the entire game on one disc, but the moments at which you change it aren't inconvenient and walking ten feet to my DVD rack and changing the disc all of twice over 30+ hours of play time isn't that big of a hassle.  Moving on.  To fill you in a little bit about what the game is about, you play as an LAPD officer by the name of Cole Phelps who you quickly find out recently returned from World War II and was awarded the Silver Star.  The story follows Phelps as he rises through the ranks of the LAPD.  The core of the gameplay is something much different than developer Rockstar Games has ever done before.  While the game has its fair share of shootouts, chase scenes, and fist fights, the bulk of the game focuses around Phelp's detective skills.  Roughly 50-60% of the game requires the player to search a house or crime scene for clues as well as interrogate witnesses and possible suspects.

Searching for clues can some times be overly tedious, but is relatively satisfying.  Clues are not overtly difficult to find seeing as how when the player is close enough to a potential clue the controller vibrates.  I say potential clue because the controller will vibrate at useless objects such as a box of laundry detergent or a bottle of wine.  While this makes the game a little harder in terms of figuring out which clues matter and which ones don't, I found myself on a number of occasions rotating a hair brush for a few minutes trying to see the underlying clue before Phelps told me that the object didn't "pertain to the investigation."  The interrogation aspect of the game is much more engaging and interesting than the investigation part.

L.A. Noire's claim to fame is its use of MotionScan technology in which actors are recorded by 32 surrounding cameras allowing them to capture facial expressions from every angle.  With that being said, the face animation is the best I have ever seen in a game, each expression not only being believable and recognizable, but deep and wrought with emotion.  The numerous interrogations the player comes across in the game heavily rely on MotionScan.  When interrogating, you ask a series of questions and you can chose to accept the witness/suspect's statement as truth, approach it with doubt, or accuse them of lying.  Much of this relies on being able to tell whether or not the person in questions actually looks like they're lying.  However, as the game progresses, the interrogations become increasingly more difficult and at some times frustrating.  However, the way in which the entire process is set up is almost flawless.  The player can review case notes and various clues before deciding which choice to make as well as use Intuition Points (acquired with each level gained) allowing them to see the most popular answer from the L.A. Noire Social Club or eliminate one of the potential answers.  This makes interrogations a little more manageable and a lot less frustrating.  Furthermore, certain lines of questioning are not accessible unless certain clues have been found or previous questions have been answered correctly.  Overall, the interrogation scenes are the most dynamic and engaging aspects of the game.

The graphics outside of the facial animations have strong and weak points alike.  While a lot of reviewers have said that the animations of the peoples' bodies are bad, that is only when held in comparison to the frightenly accurate depiction of the faces.  The bodies are no worse than in other Rockstar games such as Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto IV, but because the faces are without rival, the bodies standout as a bit of a sore thumb.  The scenery in the game as a whole is astonishing and incredibly well rendered.  Lighting and shading are impeccable and textures are smooth overall.  The city of L.A. itself is full of life with classic cars being driven around, old time advertisements hanging in store windows, and citizens sporting late 1940s fashion trends.  The entire game has a breath of life in it which makes it incredibly immersive.  The city itself is enormous, not to mention historically accurate.  Unfortunately, the player may not ever discover quite how large the city is.  Fortunately for me, I have a habit of trying to get as much out of a game as I can and attempt to unlock as many achievements/trophies as possible.  Because of this I have explored L.A. Noire up and down and have seen almost every bit of it.  However, because L.A. Noire isn't an open world game much like Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption and GTA series, the player almost has to force themselves to explore the city.  The cases are split up like levels and at the completion of each case a new one starts immediately.  Not until you complete a particular branch of the LAPD are you allowed to enter "Free Roam."  While this allows the player to go back and complete Street Crimes as well as search for hidden collectibles, it detaches the life of the city from the campaign's main plot.  One of the things I love most about Rockstar's past games is the players choice to do what they want.  Much like an RPG, if you decide to take a paticular mission, you can, if you don't want to, you can save it for later.  In between missions you're allowed to explore, look for side missions, or just have fun driving around/riding your horse and hitting pedestrians/cowboys.  L.A. Noire almost forces you to play the main story missions and staples the rest of the city on as a bonus.  Because of this, players will only see the areas in which a particular case takes place as opposed to being able to explore the city and pick up cases of their
own volition.  This has to be my biggest complaint about the game overall.

Outside of the facial animations, the strongest point of L.A. Noire is the soundtrack.  Each and every song, whether licensed or original, seems to capture the mood and time accurately.  While there's no way to change the radio station in your car, much like players have been able to do in the GTA games, you're sure to hear every bit of music they have available. Click here to listen to my favorite song from the game.  Another strong suit for the game is the cast.  Not only are they strong voice actors, but because of the MotionScan technology, you'll be able to recognize a good number of people.  Just from being a fan of Mad Men alone I recognized not only Aaron Staton as Cole Phelps, but I noticed Michael Gladis and Rich Sommer, both of which are supporting characters throughout all four seasons of Mad Men. 


A few more quick complaints before I wrap up.  As I say this I want to note that this next sentence may contain POTENTIAL SPOILERS, but all things considered it really doesn't.  For the last three cases of the game the player plays almost exclusively as another character and not Cole Phelps.  While this was refreshing for one case, to finish the game playing as someone else after having invested so much time in Cole Phelps was almost upsetting for me.  SPOILERS OVER  Another complaint is that there were two DLC cases ready to download on the day the game was released.  This just brings me to again express my frustration with the money grabbing game industry and ask why they didn't just included these two cases on the game disc.  It seems dumb for me to pay an extra ten dollars for an extra two hours of gameplay that are available on the same day the game releases.  Overall, L.A. Noire is a solid and enjoyable game that I put a considerable amount of time into.  While the pacing at times can get a little slow and the cases can get a little monotonous having to bend over and look at every single object that vibrates at your feet, the innovative interrogation gameplay supported by MotionScan technology is deeply immersive and simply fascinating to look at.  The research put into the scenery of L.A. Noire is incredible and the city is full of life, but because of the way Rockstar (or potentially their partner Team Bondi) decided to split up the main story and Free Roam, much of the city may go unexplored and therefore unappreciated.  All things considered, L.A. Noire is an enjoyable and welcome experience if not only to break up the flood of shooters and action games with an intriguing twist on the genre.

Review: Super 8

This week marks the return of director JJ Abrams to the summer movie scene with the cryptically-advertised Super 8. Abrams, who proved himself a more than capable action director with 2009’s Star Trek, charts new territory here, backed by the steady hand of producer Steven Spielberg. Indeed, the film resonates with Spielberg’s blockbuster mindset, as well as his characteristic love of filmmaking in general. It is a wonderfully entertaining film, spectacularly filmed and acted, and crafted with all the joy and care of the films it skillfully evokes.

Set in small-town Ohio in the late seventies, Super 8 follows a group of children who, while trying to make an amateur zombie film, are witnesses to the start of a terrifying chain of events that soon has the town itself tearing apart at the seams. The plot begins in earnest with a train crash, an accident whose implications I will not reveal here. The scene is filmed about as perfectly as it is possible to film a horrible accident, and is one of the best action sequences to hit the screen in years. The reason for this is because the scene it is comprised of shots that for a cohesive unit of action, rather than just a set of incomprehensible takes glued into a loud blur. Abrams knows what it is to show his audience something of this magnitude; he understands that we want to actually see what happens, not just have it implied to us through overwhelming cacophony and distorted explosions. Michael Bay could use Super 8 as a text for his next overlong, soporific robot orgy.

From there, the film takes off into a plot that draws on action, horror, and drama. Abrams builds his picture with exacting detail, filling the screen with sights and sounds of the era, and people who make the world feel real and alive and afraid. The conspiracy is intriguing, but more compelling is the human story here. The film’s young main character, Joe Lamb, recently lost his mother and feels no connection to his father, the town’s deputy. Officer Lamb tells his son about a baseball camp he knows Joe would like, despite the fact that Joe spends his free time making models and fake blood for his friends’ movies. Joe, meanwhile, finds a friend in Alice, who puts Joe into a trance even covered in zombie makeup. The two share a common ordeal in their distant fathers, but the tenderness of the friendship is deepened through the trauma of the film’s central adventure. It works because they care for each other, and the audience cares about their survival. Action is meaningless if we’re not sympathetic to the people involved; Abrams knows this, and uses the fact well.

Eventually, the conspiracy becomes something bigger than the town itself. The horror is kept out of sight just long enough to make it real, a technique that Spielberg mastered long ago and to which Abrams pays homage here. The revelation comes to the characters not through firsthand experience, but through the lens of a camera. The film has a curious way of framing its visuals in a way that is both deliberately constructed and entirely natural. From the theater, we feel as though we sit behind the camera, watching the action unfold in realtime. And at its heart, that’s what Super 8 is about: the pleasure of the moving image, and its power to expose reality in new and amazing ways. The young actors perform in ways that seem more genuine than such people might behave in the real world. The camera brings out their sadness and desire, so carefully hidden away from the world of their daily lives. In the end, the meat of Super 8 resides in the power of that revelation, the magic of the moving picture to make sorrow and fear and love real to the audience, and to make the world just a little bit clearer.