Monster hunter rise sunbreak steamjackbox steam games L.A. NOIRE game Announcer: “We go to Washington now with national news from American Century Broadcasting.” L.A. Noire certainly wasn’t an unsuccessful game—the reviews were almost universally fantastic, and it sold quite well (at least initially, breaking some records and remaining atop several charts). However, despite many nominations, it failed to win any major awards besides two for music; and, less than six months after the game’s release, its developer closed its doors. Whenever the game is raised in conversations now, two typical responses seem to follow: either its underrated but flawed; or flawed and disappointing. My opinion lies more with the former, so I’m fascinated with the thought process behind the latter. What is it that players find so disappointing about this game? Why has it become so forgotten despite its high review scores? And why has it never received a sequel? I’d like to find out. Let’s take a look at what went wrong with L.A. Noire. After spending three years developing the PlayStation 2 game The Getaway at Sony’s Team Soho in London, director and writer Brendan McNamara moved back to his native Sydney, Australia around early 2003. Within about six months, he founded a new development studio, Team Bondi, with some fellow Team Soho developers. Before long, the studio started development on its first game for the PlayStation 3, having signed an exclusive deal with Sony Computer Entertainment. By July 2005, the game had a name: L.A. Noire. By September 2006, the game was no longer a PS3-exclusive—and Sony was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the game was picked up by video game publisher Rockstar Games—you’ve probably heard of them. This certainly wasn’t the first time Rockstar would publish an original game from a third-party studio—but it would be the last. In the months and years that followed, Rockstar would go on to publish several well-received games; among them: Bully, Manhunt 2, Red Dead Redemption, and, most notably, Grand Theft Auto IV and its two DLC episodes. GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption both went on to become some of the best-reviewed games of all time, and GTA IV in particular broke several sales records. So, naturally, players and journalists had one major expectation: This is basically going to be a new Grand Theft Auto game. Despite some initial comparisons by the developers, both Rockstar and Team Bondi—as well as several previews of the game—tried to shut them down, clarifying that L.A. Noire would be its own thing, nothing like Rockstar’s popular crime series. But the damage was already done. Most third-person action-adventure games that feature driving around a large map will be compared to Grand Theft Auto by default, but simply Rockstar’s involvement was enough to keep these comparisons at the front of everyone’s minds. Even to this day, there are many players who are unaware that the game wasn’t developed by Rockstar and are probably confused when they find out that it doesn’t play like GTA or Red Dead Redemption. That’s the thing: once you actually play the game, you find out that it’s really nothing like Rockstar’s previous games. There’s no stealing money or racking up a significant wanted level with cops on your tail. You can’t pull out a gun unless it’s within a sequence dictated by the game, and, even then, you can’t shoot at anyone besides the target without failing the mission. It’s even difficult to run down pedestrians, who are able to jump out of harm’s way nine times out of ten. This is a slow, mostly linear game with a strong focus on story and characters. The game’s main mechanics involve sitting down and talking to people and rummaging around locations looking through useless junk. This is not Grand Theft Auto, and several people were disappointed by that. But they shouldn’t have been. Not if they knew who developed the game. The last game that Brendan McNamara worked on before moving back to Australia and founding Team Bondi was a PlayStation 2 game called The Getaway. Now, if you’ve never played it, The Getaway was quite an unconventional game. The developers sought an immersive and cinematic experience, having been inspired by popular British gangster films. In order to achieve this immersion, several open world video game tropes were ignored. Most importantly, there’s nothing on the screen. There’s no mini-map—to find your destination, you’ll need to follow whichever path your vehicle indicators direct you. There’s no health bar—if you want to know if you’re running low on health, your character will move slowly and bleed. And instead of collecting painkillers or first aid kits or simply sleeping to restore your health, just find a wall, lean against it, and wait for all your bullet holes to seal themselves, I guess. Despite all these unique gameplay features, however, comparisons to Grand Theft Auto were inevitable—and rather logical, considering that Vice City had released less than two months earlier. It’s an interesting comparison to make, however—Grand Theft Auto had only gone 3D in 2001 with GTA III, about halfway through The Getaway’s two-year development, so it certainly doesn’t appear to have been a knock-off—but that didn’t stop players and journalists from saying it. Once you actually play the game, though, the differences become clear. There’s still shooting and driving and crime, even with its own wanted level feature. Radio: “All units, vehicle driving dangerously.” And, of course, the camera angles are pretty similar, but the similarities don’t go too much deeper than that. The Getaway isn’t an open world, free-roaming sandbox with a wide variety of missions, side missions, and collectibles—it’s a linear, character-driven narrative game with a clear beginning and an end. It’s not Grand Theft Auto, nor is it really trying to be. Had players familiarised themselves with the history of the developers, then, they mightn’t have been so surprised by L.A. Noire—it’s a linear, character-driven narrative game with a clear beginning and an end. It’s not Grand Theft Auto, nor is it trying to be. It still has side missions to complete and collectibles to find, but you either have to actively stop in the middle of a case or select an option in the main menu to do so. They feel as though they exist more to appeal to the mainstream audience or completionists than anything else—at the end of the day, the game is about the story. If some Rockstar fans had known that, perhaps they wouldn’t have bought the game—or, at least, gone in with different expectations. Does this mean Rockstar shouldn’t have published the game? Of course not; it sold quite well, and simply Rockstar’s name on the product was enough to spark interest in its concept—not to mention that, at the time, Rockstar was looking for these unique and engaging experiences, to test the different avenues that the video game medium could explore. But simply the company’s involvement and the inevitable subsequent comparisons, I suspect, is one of the reasons that some players came to be confused and disappointed by the game. But it wasn’t the only reason… For some of the final cases in the game, the player no longer controls Cole Phelps—instead, they’re placed in the shoes of Jack Kelso. Now, if there’s one thing that watching some livestreams and videos of people playing through the game has taught me, it’s that a lot of people don’t understand who Jack Kelso is or why they’re playing as him. Some people straight up have no idea who he is, and some think that he’s good friends with Phelps. But, of course, if they’d paid closer attention to the narrative, they’d know who he is, and they’d know that he’s certainly not good friends with Phelps. They were candidates together at Camp Elliott, where they developed an intense rivalry, and they eventually fought together in Okinawa, where they rivalry only intensified. The only reason you’re playing as Kelso is because Phelps can no longer investigate his case in an official police capacity, but doesn’t want to ask Kelso directly because their rivalry is so strong. Therein lies perhaps one of L.A. Noire’s biggest flaws in the eyes of a casual player: it demands your attention. You can certainly still understand most individual cases as their own episodes, but to understand the overall narrative of the game and its characters, you need to pay attention. The game expects you to care about Phelps, Kelso, the Marines, and the Suburban Redevelopment Fund. If you weren’t paying too much attention, as clearly some players and commenters weren’t, you might think that Phelps’s affair comes out of nowhere—but it most certainly doesn’t, having been subtly teased as far back as Traffic, and almost completely given away several times during Homicide. This one is partly on the game for not emphasising it, but you might be completely unaware that you’d actually met the Black Dahlia killer Garrett Mason in the past—twice, depending on your actions in a previous case. And, without that recognition, you’ll have to catch the almost-throwaway line in the Homicide finale to connect the dots—Garrett Mason: “D’you remember me, Detective? Cole Phelps: “The temp bartender.”—because, of course, at least half of his known victims had been at bars he temped at the night they were killed. And, of course, if you weren’t paying attention throughout the flashbacks and even some newspapers, you might be unaware of who Ira Hogeboom actually is, and his connection to both Phelps and Doctor Fontaine. The game expects you to care about these stories and characters. But is that a bad thing? Not really. By the time Phelps starts his affair, you’re already around at least 12 hours into the game; by the time you play as Kelso, 15 hours; and by the time you discover that Hogeboom is behind the fires, you’re about twenty minutes away from the end credits. It’s fair enough for a game to expect you to care about its characters after 12 hours. Whether or not you actually care is entirely up to you—and not caring is perfectly valid too—but similarly it’s not invalid for the game to assume that you do care. But, judging from most of the comments I’ve read about it, the complaints spawn less from people not caring, but more from them not understanding. If the game had been throwing random characters and stories at you out of nowhere in its opening hour and expecting you to connect the dots, then that is valid to complain about. But, after 12 hours of playing, if you haven’t been paying attention, then surely that’s on you, not the game. And it’s not like it makes these concepts difficult to understand—the Suburban Redevelopment Fund can get a little complicated with its many characters and concepts, but the gist of it is simple enough to grasp—and the rest of the stories are pretty straightforward. You just need to recognise names and faces. In this way, I’m reminded again of The Getaway. In that game’s very first gameplay sequence, you’re placed in a car with absolutely no instructions on your screen. You need to work out the first steps yourself: chase that car. At some points, it may end up getting away from you and you’ll want to know where it’s gone. Grand Theft Auto players might look to the bottom left of the screen for a mini-map, or perhaps in the pause menu for a missed mission briefing—but they won’t find anything. Attentive players, however, will notice the car’s indicator keeps blinking. And, once they turn in the direction that it’s blinking, it will likely stop, indicating that they’re on the correct street. That’s the game’s navigation system, and, unless they use an external guide or something of the sort, the player has worked it out themselves. Now that’s a gameplay example rather than a narrative one, but the concept still applies—these developers want you to pay close attention to their games if you want the experience to be beneficial to you. Of course, that’s not exactly the wisest way to get more players to buy and appreciate your game, but it’s a commendable way to present your art, nonetheless. One of the most significant and important mechanics in L.A. Noire is the interrogation feature, introduced in the final tutorial case. As part of this, you have a set list of questions to ask to your person of interest—usually a suspect or witness. Upon hearing their answer, you have three options of response. In the game’s original PS3, Xbox 360, and PC releases, these options were: “Truth”, when you believe they’re telling the truth; “Doubt”, when you think they might be lying or withholding information but have no evidence to prove it; and “Lie”, when you believe they’re lying, upon which you’ll need to select a piece of evidence to prove your claims. It didn’t take players long to realise, however, that something was up with Phelps whenever you selected “Doubt”. He seemed to take their answer far too personally. Cole Phelps: “You blew a man out of his socks over an empty grudge, you son of a bitch. Do you think I have sympathy for you?!” This outlined a problem that several players had about the interrogation system: it didn’t seem to make sense. See, during development, these options were originally presented as “Coax”, “Force”, and “Lie”—meaning it wasn’t necessarily about believing someone or doubting them, it was more about persuading them to reveal information or forcing them to. Changing this—while still keeping Phelps’s responses the same—was seen as misleading by some, and confusing by others. All they wanted to do was doubt their answer, and suddenly Phelps is screaming at them and threatening to put them in jail. It’s an understandable confusion. The 2017 re-release on Switch, PS4, and Xbox One (as well as the VR version) changed the three options to “Good Cop”, “Bad Cop”, and “Accuse”—definitely a step in the right direction, especially for the middle choice, but some still felt that it lacked the nuance required for Phelps’s response. Phelps’s anger issues aside, some players still don’t seem to understand how these options should be used. Perhaps they weren’t paying too much attention during on the on-screen prompts during your first investigation, or not listening to Dunn when he explains them to you beforehand—or maybe the game doesn’t make it clear enough—but they’re actually fairly simple to understand. If you think they’re telling the truth—or, in other words, their expression doesn’t change too much—then select “Truth” or “Good Cop”. If you think they’re not telling the truth—or looking away from you too much—then check your evidence: if you have something that clearly disproves what they’re saying, select “Lie” or “Accuse”; if not, select “Doubt” or “Bad Cop”. This logic starts to falter as you progress through the game, with more subtle performances and nuanced answers, but it generally holds up. And if you don’t understand that this is how it works, the entire interrogation mechanic might be a complete miss for you. I saw some commenters admitting that, at one point, they completely gave up and just started selecting randomly to see what Phelps would say. Because, of course, your choices don’t really have consequences. Selecting the wrong answer never really changes anything. At worst, you might miss a bit of evidence (which oftentimes can be found using a different method later, but sometimes not at all), or you might get a scolding from the captain instead of a smile, and a low star rating at the end of the case. But there’s no demotions, and no being forced to do street crimes before getting your next case (despite, on at least one occasion, being told to do this exact thing by your captain, only to receive your next case moments later). Perhaps this should have been a system that was implemented—if you fail a case, you have to complete a certain number of street crimes before being asked to return to the office for your next assignment. I mean, the street crimes are already a feature in the game, so the implementation isn’t totally bizarre. But, then again, perhaps it would have disrupted the progression of the main narrative, especially in the Homicide desk. I know that some players wanted more choices when it comes to evidence as well—and selecting who to charge in a certain case. There are only two cases in the game where you can choose who to charge, but in both of these there is a correct answer and an incorrect one—and yet, in both cases, charging the ‘wrong’ suspect will only get you a reprimand and low stars. There are arguments to be made about the game’s lack of choices, and whether or not adding more options here would have improved the game. But, at the end of the day, L.A. Noire is a linear story. This is the story that the developers were trying to tell, and if they felt that the addition of player choices could be detrimental to their storytelling, then who am I to say differently. But this isn’t the only area in which the game’s linearity was pulled into question. Perhaps this is due again to Rockstar’s involvement, or perhaps the game’s marketing made it seem that way, but L.A. Noire is often believed to be a fully open world game. But that’s only partly true. In some ways, it is—it has a large world, full of detail and intricately-crafted buildings, vehicles, and characters. There are a few activities to complete and collectibles to find. And, ultimately, you can explore the world at any time. But, once you’re within the main story, you cannot do any of this while not pursuing an active case. If you want to roam around the map looking for film reels, fine, but don’t forget that the coroner is waiting for you at the crime scene with an already-decomposing body. If you want to complete the army base obstacle course and get the extra suit, go for it, but after that, make sure you head over to William Shelton’s residence to speak to him before he leaves town. Once you’re done, of course—take your time. Because, of course, the only way to freely roam the world while not in an active case is by choosing “The Streets of L.A.” in the missions list—and, at that point, it’s basically a separate game type. Perhaps granting this ability to explore the world during a case is somewhat detrimental, potentially drawing focus away from the main narrative during a possibly intense case. But, then again, if the player decides to drive away from a case and collect police badges, then is the developer really to blame? You control the buttons you press—if you want to focus on the story, the game is actively encouraging you to do so. That’s the thing: the game always feels focused on the story. You always have a destination, and one quick look at your notebook will remind you that you’re still in the middle of an investigation. To complain about, say, the NPCs repeating the same lines over and over again—NPC: “That’s that cop!” NPC: “Isn’t he the cop who won a medal…?” NPC: “Isn’t that the cop who caught the guy who was pretending to be dead?”—is valid. But complaining about a lack of activities to complete around the world feels a bit less valid to me. This isn’t Red Dead Redemption 2, with its vast open world littered with quirky and interesting characters to talk to, help, or kill. Nor is it Grand Theft Auto, with near-limitless opportunities to cause as much chaos as you please. In L.A. Noire, the open world is a bonus, not the focus. Making it a linear game without the ability to drive between destinations could ruin the immersion and lessen the pacing; on the other hand, making it a fully open world game with side characters to meet, errands to run, and towers to climb would have the same effect, drawing away from the immersion and the pacing. To make the open world explorable—but not mandatorily—then, feels like the perfect balance. It helps to make Los Angeles feel large, real, and alive, but not to the point where it’s detrimental to the narrative or distracting to the player. Because—and I feel like I’ve said this a dozen times already—the focus here was clearly on the story, and Team Bondi found an entertaining and enjoyable way to do this. While still fitting somewhat within the familiar Rockstar formula, too, so it wouldn’t scare the fans off. Speaking of which, I feel as though the addition of the street crimes in the game was also a way to appeal to the casual gamer. There are some gunfights and combat sequences in the game, but they’re few and far between—especially until the final act—so the street crimes act as a way to include more of these sequences. That being said, I know a lot of people thought that they went too far with the number of gunfights. More than half of the street crimes—including all but two from Traffic—feature shootouts. I believe only one actually involves investigation, and none require interrogation. They’re mostly gunfights, fistfights, car chases, and foot chases. Personally, considering the fact that these are optional and I usually avoid them during my main playthrough, I don’t really mind that much. But it’s certainly a fair argument, and I definitely wouldn’t have complained if we’d been given more chances to investigate and interrogate outside of the main story. Several street crimes feature returning characters from the main game, so to see even more—or to have these few recurring characters expanded even more—would have been a nice addition, and an effective justification for completing all of the street crimes. Despite the potential disappointment of this side content, though, it still doesn’t detract from my ultimate opinion of the game. Notice the lack of the word “flawless”. For something to be “flawless”, it needs to be completely devoid of flaws and faults, and while I don’t think it’s ever possible to use the word “objectively” to describe the quality of something, I think there’s a large enough consensus to agree that there are some flaws in L.A. Noire. And I can agree with that—the lack of consequences can sometimes pull you out of the immersion, the NPCs often feel like set dressing rather than part of a living world, and the body animations frequently don’t match up with the heads since they were recorded separately, to name a few. But my usage of the word “perfect” is in spite of these flaws. It’s not that I’m unable to recognise and acknowledge them, just that I ultimately find them so insignificant that they’re unable to damage my own experience of the game. They simply can’t shake the feeling that L.A. Noire is perfect to me. I’ve been putting some thought recently into the games that I enjoy replaying every year or two—or, at least, the ones that I think about replaying before realising that I don’t have the time. (Or the ones I think about playing before just replaying Red Dead Redemption 2 again.) There are a few—mostly for their narrative and characters, or their art style and aesthetic; sometimes I mostly just want to watch a scene again and decide to replay the entire game so I can view it in context. While recently replaying L.A. Noire, though, I discovered that it may actually be the quintessential game to fit those criteria. It’s not necessarily the game I enjoy the most, it doesn’t necessarily have my favourite characters, and it’s far from the prettiest game I’ve ever played. But there’s something so comforting about it. I know, that’s a weird thing to say about a game like this—one with an entire chapter based around naked, mutilated bodies, and with an overall narrative thread of political corruption. The story itself is typically quite far from comforting. Maybe it’s the mission structure—knowing that, once I solve the Black Dahlia, I’ll get promoted to Vice, and then once Cole cheats on his wife, I’ll get demoted to Arson, and then this is the part where I play as Kelso… Perhaps it’s simply the knowledge of where the narrative will go, and the absence of any type of choice—not only in the cases, but the cases themselves, which will always play in the predetermined order, unlike the missions in Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption games. Maybe it’s even the fact that I’ve played this game so many times that I know most of the answers, at least in the first half, so I don’t feel pressure to work too hard or stress myself out. More than any of this, though, I just think it’s the world. I know I said that it’s not really a proper open world game—and, really, I don’t think it is—but I could spend hours simply existing in that world. There’s next to nothing to do besides a handful of street crimes and a few dozen collectibles—I just want to drive around. This is where I think L.A. Noire actually is a Rockstar game—or, at least, what I find that it has in common with most Rockstar games. Put me in a nice car, at night, with the radio playing, and I could drive around Los Angeles for hours. There are very few other games that can replicate a similar feeling, and pretty much all of them are by Rockstar. I don’t need dialogue or objectives—I just want to exist in that world. I find a strange comfort in that. That’s not to say that I don’t love L.A. Noire’s dialogue and objectives, though. I find the narrative so clever and well-written, throwing enough twists at you to keep you engaged. The characters are almost always fleshed out, and every single performance shines, bar none. The music is gorgeous and engaging, sometimes haunting, and the three credits song have been stuck in my head for at least eight years. So, what went wrong with L.A. Noire? Depending on who you are and what you expected, any number of things—from the inevitable comparisons to Rockstar, to the attention-demanding narrative, the lack of player choice and consequence, Phelps’s anger issues, and the large but mostly empty open world. But at the end of the day, to me, nothing went wrong with L.A. Noire. steam sale history Support Real Pixels on Patreon — Check out YouTube Membership — Twitch — Twitter — L.A. Noire certainly wasn’t an unsuccessful game, but whenever the game is raised in conversations now, two typical responses seem to follow: either its underrated but flawed; or flawed and disappointing. My opinion lies more with the former, so I’m fascinated with the thought process behind the latter. So let’s take a look at what went wrong with L.A. Noire. 00:00 - Introduction 01:07 - Go Away Rockstar 06:49 - To Be Fair, You Have to Have a Very High IQ to Understand L.A. Noire 11:03 - Phelps Needs Anger Management 15:14 - City of Angels, But Where Have They Gone? 19:20 - Why L.A. Noire is Perfect to Me 23:05 - Credits #LANoire #RockstarGames benton steam cream god of war ragnarok steam steam lessons for elementary gzdoom steam deck can i add pirated dlc to steam games
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