La Noire Review

Before we go any further I find the period of Hollywood getting going extremely intriguing. I like the idea of how this modern colossus started, how LA was born out of a rough frontier, I am very interested in a phenomenon that, against the harsh tide of the worst economic catastrophe to occur in recorded history, grew and grew. Above all else I am interested in America I suppose. I have a lot of time for Yanks even if they can be some of the most annoying examples of human beings on the planet. I love LA Confidential, probably one of the best movies I have ever seen. Essentially I like this period, I have an interest in it and I am keen, we have established this.


Now I shall move onto LA Noire. I am not interested in this one bit. I played about an hours worth and I have to say that the over sanitised Rockstar Games mock up of a period I like is detailed, full of goings on but ultimately shite. When I strolled into Game station and purchased LA Noire I was under the impression I was buying a game. When I got home the full truth hit me, I had bought a dull movie that required me to work some controls.

The graphics and menus are the polished ones I have come to expect from Rockstar games. There is the standard HUD telling you all you need to know once you find yourself ejaculated into the body of a cop named Cole Phelps. But this is where it goes wrong. The game, like Red Dead Redemption, like GTA IV, is a procession of chores. Sure, one could marvel at the detail, the background noises and characters, the fact you are in a representative version of LA, essentially a living city full of autonomous goings on that you can, to an extent, interact with. But in the 1 hour and 3 minutes I played this all I did was run between a series of chores. And these weren’t enjoyable chores like ridding an area of Covenant forces whilst being a heavily armed Spartan or sneaking through an ex-soviet missile silo as a highly trained Third Echelon asset, no these were tedious chores that never at any time made me feel like I was in touch with the period of history I have a genuine interest in.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of work, care and polish not mention research has went into this, but on the basis of all of this I can’t say it is a good game. For one the controls for running, walking or driving the car are all soft and not precise then there is the shooting which, when stacked up against modern shooters and even the most ordinary of them, is just poor. The game engine tries to be a master of everything and becomes a lukewarm grey paste; unappetising and not leaving me eager for seconds. The controls themselves actually require no effort, just keeping push the movement stick towards where you are going then the character automatically just does his thing, climbing pipes, scampering over fences. It is just not good.

Merriam Webster’s dictionary the definition of the noun game includes words like “competition”, “contest” and even throws in the word “tactic”. In 63 minutes of game time none of these terms could be applied no matter how liberally I tried. The opening shooting scene saw me take prompts to pull a shotgun out the back of the car. I followed the prompts; got my shotgun and 12 cartridges and 40 seconds later I had stopped the bank robbery, sporting not even a scratch for my troubles. I never hid behind anything and even handling the games woeful controls managed to kill every single perp in the process of pilfering.

To take you back a moment, one of my all time favourite games is GTA: San Andreas. That game was cartoony, daft, ultra violent and most importantly fun. You had some chores in that game but they didn’t get in the way of the murder, mayhem and cathartic joy that running into a police station with a flamethrower brings.

This new and quite frankly bent approach to the latest Rockstar games, as perfectly captured by LA Noire, is drudgery in its most distilled form. I agree that the time is nigh for a detective genre to pop up, indeed the technology is there, but I do not want to turn on my Xbox and have to trudge through monotony. I have a family that I love dearly for that. I want to turn on my Xbox and be transported to another place and time, do stuff I can’t do in the real world, I want to shoot zombies, fly space ships, torch the SAPD HQ, be a black gansta that parachutes off tall buildings, be a CIA double operative or even a cute Japanese Manga character with a silly sword and ridiculous purple eyebrows. When the Star Trek crew go to the Holodeck they don’t go to wash the dishes or mow the lawn.

LA Noire does not offer fun, intrigue or require anything even approaching guile.

What LA Noire offers is a brash attempt to be LA Confidential, a clumsy interface from GTA with soggy controls that lead you about by the nose. LA Noire gives you access to a lukewarm experience set against a meticulously rendered but infuriatingly tedious and repetitive GTA based chase this guy, shoot that guy, drive the car and wait for the cut away video sequence backdrop that sharply reminds you where you left the receipt for the game and that you can’t believe everything that comes out of the store clerk’s mouth when you get her recommendations.

Like Red Dead Redemption and GTA IV LA Noire is a well researched, nice to look at and fully featured pile of chores. Great conversation whilst scrubbing a shit encrusted toilet does not greatly detract from the fact you are scrubbing a shit encrusted toilet. Don’t let the nice graphics and impressively full game world full you, LA Noire is not a good game. I read all the glowing reviews and I am left to wonder about how impartial reviewers are. This game has promise but doesn’t even begin to deliver on it. Other game engines (notably the Unreal 3 engine used in Batman Arkham Asylum & Gears of War) have overtaken the one used in this game; other games (Dragon Age or Fallout 3 for example) are more involved and give you a degree of flexibility that your actions shape the story and Halo Reach & Crysis 2 offer better, more action filled and compelling stories.


For me this game offers nothing and it is a real shame that such a good idea derived from such an interesting and intrigue rich period in a genre that is crying out to be populated is so badly executed. This is not a game but a series of chores set against a compelling and polished background.


For that reason I’m giving it 3/10.