Culture

Platforms: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, (4.5/5).

My mum got into LA Noire. She isn't one of those “closet casuals” either. Never has she grasped a controller in concord so it is telling that the relaxed, assured style of Team Bondi’s 1940s detective game compelled even her to try to master virtual-driving. A task that, as it happens, is as good as insurmountable for someone unfamiliar with twin joysticks.
 
Because LA Noire isn't flashy. This isn't Grand Theft Auto. Characters don't get pumped on bull shark testosterone and steal helicopters. They drive classic cars and interview the post-war middle class. Sometimes they are lied to. Not always because citizens are dicks. But because they are anxious, or sad, or perhaps ashamed. And sometimes because they are dicks. Every character, no matter how briefly they speak with Cole Phelps (Mad Men's Aaron Staton – that's the calibre of LA Noire’s), is expertly acted, with facial capture technology independently animating every wrinkle. NPCs feel motivated, period accurate (not that I would really know) and, most of all, really mature. Even your most shameless pandering politician wouldn't accuse the game of being a childish distraction.
 
But don't go in expecting an interactive storytelling revolution. If you do, you might not enjoy LA Noire. No attempt is made to give the player an influence over Cole's character. A good thing, since he is extremely well established and a black-and-white morality system would have felt insincere.
 
Same with the interrogation. LA Noire would have failed, utterly, if it had tried to replicate every single nuance of human communication. Each choice you have after watching an NPC answer your question has a concrete purpose that never changes. Choose 'truth' if you think they are being straight with you, 'lie' when you can prove dishonesty,and 'doubt' if you’re not sure. That's it. No, it's nothing like how an actual police interview would go down but it does a really great job of instilling some of the possible feelings.
 
LA Noire is an adventure game. Not in the loose, modern sense where everything is some kind of adventure through some kind of world (though it's certainly that too), but in the old-school sense of picking up objects and using them to solve puzzles. In 2011, this translates to Phelps walking around a crime-scene until the controller vibrates and picking up a meaningful (or redundant) object and clicking and rotating it around hoping something will happen. Out of context this would feel absurdly simplistic, because it is. You can't combine the objects by using your brainy powers, and they really only serve as evidence for the interrogation segments. The crime-scene parts of LA Noire feel like much more of a contrived time-suck than the interviews, but that's all forgiven by the scenes' design. Sometimes they are brutal, often they are disturbingly creative, but the characters’ reactions to them are always grounded.
 
Something as stupidly mundane as walking out of the police station (which happens at the start of every single new case) feels ludicrously, profoundly cool thanks to the swelling brassy musical score, the detail with which the 1940s police station has been crafted, and the chatter of your colleagues around you. LA Noire is not a revolution of any kind, neiter a watershed moment for interactive storytelling nor even particularly unusual. To claim it is would be absurd. But that doesn't stop it from being really, damn good.