Review – L.A. Noire

I wanted to wait several weeks before I wrote my review for L.A. Noire so I wouldn’t be impulsive to give it a really low review score. You see, I really really enjoyed the first half the game but almost completely despise the second half that it made me want to find whoever was responsible for the game and punch them in the face.

Now that I have settled down, I feel a bit different. The second half of the game probably isn’t as terrible as I imagine it to be. The problem is that the game is just so damn good all the way through the homicide missions that it was just so disappointing that the game took such a massive shit half way through.

The game starts out with one of the best examples of how to properly do tutorial missions. As a beat cop Cole Phelps has to learn the ropes of investigating a crime by the help of his partner and the player gets to learn everything along with the character. This is a great way for the game to introduce the player to a very new type of game.

Then the training wheels come off as Cole gets promoted to the homicide desk. This is where the game shines. Cole is put to the task as he has to solve a series of seemingly unrelated homicides and has pressure put on him by the higher-ups to make sure somebody ends up behind bars for each of the murders. The absolute best part of this chapter is when the real killer sends Cole on a wild goose chase across many of L.A.’s famous landmarks before they finally meet face to face. The writing during this entire chapter had me at the edge of my seat and the finale really ties everything together so beautifully.

It is at this point, when Cole gets promoted to vice, that the game takes an unfortunate downturn. It almost feels as if the team got lazy or was perhaps completely replaced only to have the new team attempt to mimic what was already there. The cases themselves become long, drawn out, boring stories. The illusion of actually being in 1947 L.A. completely falls apart as the game regurgitates the same exact side missions again and again and the random pedestrians blurt out the same exact lines for the umpteenth time.

The overall story itself also becomes completely over complicated and confusing. The game starts to focus on Cole Phelp’s overly cliche past of being a soldier in the army. It is also doesn’t help when the game deliberately hiding information from the player that becomes extremely important to the story later down the road. The entire time at the arson desk is just slow and boring. Not to mention the ending of the game was just an even worse version of Red Dead Redemption.

At the end of the day, most of my memories of L.A. Noire are largely negative. However, the first two chapters of the game as a beat cop and homicide are extremely good. Chasing down a suspect across the rooftops of 1947 L.A. was so fun that it made me wish we could have an Assassin’s Creed game set in 1920s New York City or something similar. The core experience of L.A. Noire is fun and unique, but the game is entirely way too long and the mechanics of finding clues and interrogating become tiresome after too long.