Let it be known that I was not born a hater of L.A. Noire.
The entire concept appeals to me. Detective fiction is one of my favorite flavors. I am a great lover of video games that heavily feature immersive conversations. I prefer period pieces and more fantastical settings to the doldrums of life on present Earth. I have had little experience with Rockstar but know them via a profound reputation for quality, and nobody has ever played another video game by Team Bondi.
Not only would I say that I entered with no biases against L.A. Noire, I would say that I am the exact audience for it.
When I first started playing I was quickly smitten with the actor's in-game performances and the mechanics of crime scene investigation. I praised the multitudes of meaningless junk items that littered each crime scene because investigation should be about finding that which is significant, not just interacting with everything the game allows. The use of music and chimes to denote the existence of unclaimed clues struck me as clever and quite probably necessary. When the game first let me into a vehicle I was happy to obey every traffic law and immerse myself on the way to each objective. This roleplaying did not last. It could not last.
By the time I finished my work at the Vice desk I was so far ejected from the game that I was earning the lowest possible case ranking on purpose, out of sheer, seething spite.
There are no consequences to any action in L.A. Noire other than the possible reduction of that post-mission score. Unless the protagonist dies in a hail of gunfire or loses track of their target when tailing or chasing, they cannot fail, and in those instances the only penalty is that they may need to repeat approximately thirty seconds of gameplay. Failing to correctly intuit the broken, nonsensical logic of the spectacularly terrible interrogation interface does not change anything. Ever. The player will always receive the information that they need to continue the case, even if a suspect has to blurt it out for no sensible reason. If there appear to be two possible culprits in a case, feel free to book whichever one you find more offensive. The script has already decided that they are both the wrong answer, and there is no possibility in this case of finding the right one.
This puts the player at a terrible crossroads. One breed of player will accept the post-case grading system as sufficient motivation, and will try their best to make sense of the stupid idiot moon logic that L.A. Noire requires from the player to earn their perfect score. I have played every Ace Attorney game and two out of three mainline Danganronpas. Not one of those games features as many instances of arbitrary nonsense as L.A. Noire. Ever since the birth of that thrice-damned fools-lauded conversation wheel back in Mass Effect 1, these sorts of AAA games have been horrifically fumbling the roleplayer's intent as it travels from human to machine, and L.A. Noire does it even worse than most. In a good roleplaying game (do not start with me on whether or not L.A. Noire is a roleplaying game) the player is constantly asking themselves: "What do I want to do?" In a bad roleplaying game the player constantly asks themselves: "What does THE GAME want me to do?"
It did not take long for me to decide that L.A. Noire's interrogation system did not deserve the pleasure of my learning how to put up with it. In fact, it reminded me quite viscerally of my life in college, my every action graded by a rubric I did not respect and did not feel represented my interests in any way. I began to feel insulted, as if L.A. Noire were asking me to figure out when to use its stupid doubt button as a sign of submission. So that it could reward me with idiot points, signifying nothing but my obedience.
I still have no idea whether I'm supposed to actually take the context into account or if I'm just supposed to press the doubt button every time a character behaves in a way that no corporeal being ever has, and I refuse to learn. This is not how human beings behave, and thus no social ability I might bring to this game would avail me anything.
I ran down Roy Earle with his own car at least seven times because it was the only agency I had and because I was sick and tired of being surrounded by horrible, insufferable people who have to die. I did as much damage to his car as I possibly could on purpose, and pressed whatever button I damn well pleased in every conversation. What I'm saying is that when I reached the crossroads, I went left... barreling down Hater's Lane.
The moment the illusion shattered and I realized the utter absence of stakes, the floodgates opened. I went from driving patiently and in character to maxing out the gas pedal and road raging at any car I couldn't dodge. I became even more annoyed at the repetitive, ridiculous barks of NPCs than I already was. Not only has every single citizen of pre-television L.A. heard of Cole Phelps, That Cop Who Won The Medal And Is Solving All The Cases, they recognize him on sight without fail, and MUST announce the fact.
I was able to engage with maybe one third of the game's cases. The overly episodic nature of the story turns the characters in most of the cases into meaningless nobodies and their problems into something transient and ephemeral. Many of the cases are so repetitive that even if there were any stakes involved with the gameplay, it would be difficult for many players to become as invested as they should ideally be.
Firefights are always forced and no participant can ever be taken alive. Fistfights can be cleared simply by mashing the A button. Scenario design is frequently unclear which can lead to players having no idea what they're supposed to be doing, even if they haven't fallen victim to the game's many bugs. The PC Remaster crashed on me at least four times.
Not only do the GAME parts of L.A. Noire add nothing positive to the experience, they actively get in its way at virtually every turn. In my world, this earns something the title of "A Bad Video Game" by default. If removing the video game from your video game would improve it, you have made a bad video game, and should have made a movie instead. The problem of course is that by the nature of the medium, video games almost never pull off non-interactive stories better than film does and L.A. Noire doesn't manage it either. Almost all of the meat in the game's plot plays out in the last five hours and the writing is not above some serious criticism.
If you're coming to L.A. Noire looking for a good video game, don't. If you're coming to L.A. Noire for a good Noir story, I'd recommend you just watch or read some of the great Noir fiction of other media. If you insist on getting a fairly robust Noir story from a not exactly fun video game, I recommend you reach for Grim Fandango instead.
The entire concept appeals to me. Detective fiction is one of my favorite flavors. I am a great lover of video games that heavily feature immersive conversations. I prefer period pieces and more fantastical settings to the doldrums of life on present Earth. I have had little experience with Rockstar but know them via a profound reputation for quality, and nobody has ever played another video game by Team Bondi.
Not only would I say that I entered with no biases against L.A. Noire, I would say that I am the exact audience for it.
When I first started playing I was quickly smitten with the actor's in-game performances and the mechanics of crime scene investigation. I praised the multitudes of meaningless junk items that littered each crime scene because investigation should be about finding that which is significant, not just interacting with everything the game allows. The use of music and chimes to denote the existence of unclaimed clues struck me as clever and quite probably necessary. When the game first let me into a vehicle I was happy to obey every traffic law and immerse myself on the way to each objective. This roleplaying did not last. It could not last.
By the time I finished my work at the Vice desk I was so far ejected from the game that I was earning the lowest possible case ranking on purpose, out of sheer, seething spite.
There are no consequences to any action in L.A. Noire other than the possible reduction of that post-mission score. Unless the protagonist dies in a hail of gunfire or loses track of their target when tailing or chasing, they cannot fail, and in those instances the only penalty is that they may need to repeat approximately thirty seconds of gameplay. Failing to correctly intuit the broken, nonsensical logic of the spectacularly terrible interrogation interface does not change anything. Ever. The player will always receive the information that they need to continue the case, even if a suspect has to blurt it out for no sensible reason. If there appear to be two possible culprits in a case, feel free to book whichever one you find more offensive. The script has already decided that they are both the wrong answer, and there is no possibility in this case of finding the right one.
This puts the player at a terrible crossroads. One breed of player will accept the post-case grading system as sufficient motivation, and will try their best to make sense of the stupid idiot moon logic that L.A. Noire requires from the player to earn their perfect score. I have played every Ace Attorney game and two out of three mainline Danganronpas. Not one of those games features as many instances of arbitrary nonsense as L.A. Noire. Ever since the birth of that thrice-damned fools-lauded conversation wheel back in Mass Effect 1, these sorts of AAA games have been horrifically fumbling the roleplayer's intent as it travels from human to machine, and L.A. Noire does it even worse than most. In a good roleplaying game (do not start with me on whether or not L.A. Noire is a roleplaying game) the player is constantly asking themselves: "What do I want to do?" In a bad roleplaying game the player constantly asks themselves: "What does THE GAME want me to do?"
It did not take long for me to decide that L.A. Noire's interrogation system did not deserve the pleasure of my learning how to put up with it. In fact, it reminded me quite viscerally of my life in college, my every action graded by a rubric I did not respect and did not feel represented my interests in any way. I began to feel insulted, as if L.A. Noire were asking me to figure out when to use its stupid doubt button as a sign of submission. So that it could reward me with idiot points, signifying nothing but my obedience.
I still have no idea whether I'm supposed to actually take the context into account or if I'm just supposed to press the doubt button every time a character behaves in a way that no corporeal being ever has, and I refuse to learn. This is not how human beings behave, and thus no social ability I might bring to this game would avail me anything.
I ran down Roy Earle with his own car at least seven times because it was the only agency I had and because I was sick and tired of being surrounded by horrible, insufferable people who have to die. I did as much damage to his car as I possibly could on purpose, and pressed whatever button I damn well pleased in every conversation. What I'm saying is that when I reached the crossroads, I went left... barreling down Hater's Lane.
The moment the illusion shattered and I realized the utter absence of stakes, the floodgates opened. I went from driving patiently and in character to maxing out the gas pedal and road raging at any car I couldn't dodge. I became even more annoyed at the repetitive, ridiculous barks of NPCs than I already was. Not only has every single citizen of pre-television L.A. heard of Cole Phelps, That Cop Who Won The Medal And Is Solving All The Cases, they recognize him on sight without fail, and MUST announce the fact.
I was able to engage with maybe one third of the game's cases. The overly episodic nature of the story turns the characters in most of the cases into meaningless nobodies and their problems into something transient and ephemeral. Many of the cases are so repetitive that even if there were any stakes involved with the gameplay, it would be difficult for many players to become as invested as they should ideally be.
Firefights are always forced and no participant can ever be taken alive. Fistfights can be cleared simply by mashing the A button. Scenario design is frequently unclear which can lead to players having no idea what they're supposed to be doing, even if they haven't fallen victim to the game's many bugs. The PC Remaster crashed on me at least four times.
Not only do the GAME parts of L.A. Noire add nothing positive to the experience, they actively get in its way at virtually every turn. In my world, this earns something the title of "A Bad Video Game" by default. If removing the video game from your video game would improve it, you have made a bad video game, and should have made a movie instead. The problem of course is that by the nature of the medium, video games almost never pull off non-interactive stories better than film does and L.A. Noire doesn't manage it either. Almost all of the meat in the game's plot plays out in the last five hours and the writing is not above some serious criticism.
If you're coming to L.A. Noire looking for a good video game, don't. If you're coming to L.A. Noire for a good Noir story, I'd recommend you just watch or read some of the great Noir fiction of other media. If you insist on getting a fairly robust Noir story from a not exactly fun video game, I recommend you reach for Grim Fandango instead.