L.A. Noire. And how long can I admire this game, although it has obvious flaws that sometimes hurt my eyes?. But let’s start, as always, with foreplay. My favorite game of childhood and youth was and remains Mafia: The city of Lost Heaven, or, as it is popularly called, “the first mafia”. This was the first game I played on a PC, but there were no “duckling syndromes” – before that I had a PSOne and I was already familiar with video games that had interesting graphics for that time, wonderful gameplay and a gorgeously staged plot (Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo, Soviet Strike, Crash Bandicoot). But the classic plot about good people committing monstrous acts, a detailed embodiment of the open world, the spirit of that dark era, a wonderful soundtrack, a variety of game missions, beautiful almost realistic cars of those years and adequate weapons are just one of many features that struck me to the core in this game. After that, I played through everyone’s favorite GTA III at the time, but it seemed to me as poor, pointless and stupid as any part of the superhero franchise compared to Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev. Of course, then there were many delightful works in the gaming genre, but in terms of meticulous design, thoughtful plot and delightful scenery, L.A. Noire approaches exactly the same First Mafia, although it reflects the other side of life, namely the everyday life of a police detective in the turbulent post-war times.
But what is the “Noir” genre itself?? Being a big fan, but by no means a connoisseur of cinema, for myself personally I understand this as a detective story, where some innocent little thing like the disappearance of a person or a kitten unwinds into a plot about something huge, unimaginable and terrible, into which the main character, due to his stupidity or courage, got involved. As for the main character, he should be a lonely melancholic person with some problems. That the plot should have a tragic heroine in the form of a fatal beauty, whose story will run like a thread through the main narrative (or she will simply be killed at the beginning and we will not remember her again). That the villain must be powerful, cruel and almost infernal (or he is just a pawn in the hands of a real villain, who throughout the story pretended to be a funny companion of the protagonist) and in general that, given certain almost integral canons of this genre, playing with these canons, turning them around or presenting them from a completely unexpected side – this is the main canon of the Noir genre. Moreover, you should not think that Noir is only a period from the 20s to the 60s of our century. Polanski’s wonderful film “Frantic” takes place in Paris in the 90s, but the very atmosphere of mystery and behind-the-scenes life of “the most romantic place on earth” is conveyed delightfully, as is the clash of American and European culture in the person of the heroes Harrison Ford and Emanuele Seigner. “Dark City” by Alex Proyas is generally a shapeshifting film, starting as an ordinary detective story, and ending… look for yourself, but it is from there that the basis of the story of the well-known “Matrix” is taken, therefore I perceive “The Matrix” as an unoriginal and boring repeat story, without any revelations. “The O.C.” is also a Noir, but unique in its cruel realism, like a twisted story about Bonnie and Clyde, showing another couple in love not as desperate rebels, but as tough killers, whose complexes are compensated by their thirst for violence. Even Pushkin’s work “The Queen of Spades” is quite similar to a noir story with a touch of mysticism.
Why, the word “Noir” itself (it can be with or without an E at the end) is translated from French not only as the color black, but also as dirty, dark, illegal, hopeless and many other meanings, just like in English for the word “Stuff”. In general, there is nothing clear-cut here, which is why we love the genre.
Returning to the plot of the game L.A. Noire, which does not hesitate to borrow, or even quote ideas from a bunch of films about the same era, starting with “Casablanca” or “North by Northeast” and so on all the way to “LA Confidential” and the already mentioned “The O.C.”. History is both fragmented and whole in its fragmentation. In general, this whole project is a complete oxymoron and a game with the viewer, because as a video game L.A. Noir is not perceived in principle, it is more something cinematic, and in some places – literary, like “Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs”, where after finishing it you feel as if you had read an excellent monstrous thriller.
Together with the main character, Detective Cole Phelps, we will go from patrolman to detective in different departments. In addition to a very introductory patrol, where we are introduced to the basic mechanics of the game (to which we will return later), there will be a department of the local traffic police, where it will be necessary to investigate crimes in one way or another related to motor transport. This is just an introductory part, where there are 5 unrelated investigations, one of which will involve the abandoned Packard of an ambassador of some southern country, in another the mysterious disappearance of a loving husband, and even about movie stars, their producers and their dirty morals will be mentioned, because everything happens in Los Angeles. And already here the game begins to reveal itself as a truly worthwhile work, because together with the main character we get rid of the patrolman’s uniform that bothers us and the patrolman’s duties that are even more boring to us. Now we have an ironed suit, a service Buick and a young but already quite experienced partner Stefan. We spend most of the game driving cars, but not in pursuits at all, but in traveling from place to place and, despite the simplest model of transport behavior (cannot be compared with the same GTA IV), I never get tired of this driving routine. Yes, perhaps this can be said about the whole game, this is not a crazy action, and not even a moderate action, but a calm narrative, where chases, fights and shootouts emphasize this or that event, and do not serve for stupid entertainment, as in other mass products of either gaming or cinematic culture.
It is in the first part that https://giantspinscasino.co.uk/games/ we understand the main idea that this game needs to be played slowly, carefully and almost meditatively. In each of our four departments (traffic inspection, murder, drug control, arson) we have 5 cases and almost every case begins like this:
At the station, the chief inspector assigns us to investigate the case, we get into the car and drive to the crime scene, talking with our partner along the way and discussing our personal lives, views on life, or the outcome of the previous investigation. When we arrive at a place where, say, an abandoned blue Lincoln Continental with a bloody interior was found, we slowly walk around the location and collect evidence. Evidence can be anything from the contents of a car trunk to small objects lying unnoticed on the ground. To successfully complete the case, it is advisable to collect ALL the evidence on the spot. From this evidence we learn a couple of addresses/witnesses/suspects and, armed with confidence in our own rightness, we go to them. While we are driving, we talk again or listen to the radio, where they play old jazz tunes mixed with simple as a stick advertising or news that China may become an ally of the USSR in the upcoming Cold War of Ideologies.
We arrive at a place where we also need to inspect everything, find more evidence and connect it with the material already found, maybe solve a couple of very easy riddles about making pipes in the bathroom, and then interrogation.
Interrogation is the most interesting thing in this game, it is its main mechanic and the main item in the development budget. The fact is that, with or without evidence, we need to extract information from the witness or suspect that will help our investigation. Team Bondi, the creators of the game, spent a huge amount of money and time to use, if I’m not mistaken, 32 cameras from different angles to record the facial expressions of living actors in the form of a reaction to Cole’s questions, and then, with insufficient evidence, for us to guess on behalf of the detective whether the interviewee is lying to us or not, looking at his antics and facial gestures. It’s hard to describe it in words, but in reality everything becomes clear and it’s more captivating than any chases or shootouts! So we have three options for asking the question:
— Polite option (Good Cop), that is, ask in a polite manner about the name’s involvement in the crime.
– Not a polite option (Bad Cop), means putting psychological pressure on the interrogated person, focusing on raising the voice, loud statements and direct suspicion of committing a crime or colluding with criminals.
— Accusation. It’s stupid to convict or accuse a person, but then he will say something like “What is your Evidence?”?!”, for which we need to refer to the notebook in which they are all given. If the evidence coincides with the accusation, then the interrogated person has nowhere to go, but if not, he will accuse you. Although the latter does not affect anything.
Here we need to briefly digress and note that I am writing about the Remaster version of the game for PS4 and XBone, which was released in November 2017. The game itself was released in May 2011 and there these options were called Truth, Doubt and Lie, but I’m glad that they were renamed here, bringing a little more clarity to the course of the conversation.
But you think that’s the end of it? No matter how it is, interrogations only lead us to other locations, other evidence and other interrogations, from time to time diluted with scenes of fights, shooting and chases, which… can be rewound! Yes, in this game you can’t skip the introductory video, but you can rewind the entire action, returning to what is actually a leisurely but interesting investigation. It is this component that I fell in love with so much and it is such a rarity in modern (even in 2011) game making that the game is perceived almost as the same art house, where the show is ruled not so much by commerce as by the self-expression of the creator.
So, first, in the motor vehicle department, we can investigate thefts, insurance scams (like this), disappearances and even some conspiracy against a movie star. Cole Phelps at first seems like a real idealist who can find evidence, put pressure on a criminal, and quote Shakespeare. But, since the whole action takes place in 1947 and the world is just recovering from the shock of World War II, our hero also has an unpleasant baggage of memories associated with serving in the US Pacific campaign on the island of Okinawa. This parallel story develops in flashbacks between the main cases and sheds light on the completely different personality of the main character and his actions. This is where it becomes clear that all the feigned correctness and moralism of the hero is just an excuse to seem different, and not the scoundrel that he deservedly considers himself to be, after what he did in the war. An interesting line that not only reveals the main character to us, but, closer to the middle of the game, is woven into the narrative of the game. But there is also a third storyline, given to us from the found newspaper articles, about a psychiatrist and a medical student.school, which will also be fully revealed by the end of the game, where all the lines will intertwine and we will be able to see the whole picture.
Especially when, having served in the homicide department and even having found the mysterious killer “Black Dahlia”, we end up in the drug department and we have to investigate cases related to former fellow soldiers and the theft of morphine on an especially large scale. In this we will be “helped” by a cynical corrupt official – detective Roy Earl, who takes bribes, steals evidence, hates work, loves expensive suits, is friends with Meyer Cohen and drives a maroon Cadillac.
It is here that the main character and we, together with him, will have to understand that corruption exists everywhere, and especially in the police, that some criminals are simply released after literally being caught by the hand, and that the world is not a completely fair place.
And you’ll see for yourself what will happen in the arson department when you get to this place. My favorite, but the darkest, even compared to Homicide, plot interval. I would write more about the plot, but you need to go through it and experience it yourself, how simple, but great everything is implemented there.
It’s just that the game doesn’t avoid rough edges and shows that sometimes it’s easier for police to accuse an innocent person of anything than to admit their mistake, that jokes can be extremely cynical when you see corpses every day, and that all the people around you sooner or later become suspects, and surrounding objects become true or false evidence.
Another thing I’m delighted with is the reconstruction of Los Angeles in 1947 from photographs and documents. Not all, but only three areas: Hollywood, Wilshire and Downtown. But believe me, there is something to see there. Many in the press criticized the game, saying that the open world here is just a decoration and is empty and boring in itself, but I see this as an advantage, not a disadvantage, because this game is more of an interactive film and the city is really just for the background, but for what background and how is it recreated! And I’m not just talking about streets and courtyards, but in each case we have to spend time in different rooms and you should see with what love and fanaticism the authors recreated the very rhythm and type of life of that time, in which telephones are a luxury, and television is an unaffordable luxury! Где нет карты GPS и направление нужно искать самому или следовать указаниям напарника, где негров открыто называют ниггерами даже в полицейских протоколах, где к женщинам относятся как аксессуару для мужчин, где все еще по старому, «как раньше». While searching for evidence in an apartment, in an alley or in a warehouse, I catch myself thinking that a fantastic job was done in decorating the interiors and filling them with details that are not particularly necessary for the plot, but very accurately emphasize the lifestyle of their inhabitants. During the entire 25 hours of the game there was not a single typical room, all of them, even the three police stations, are very different from each other and just walking there is already a pleasure. It’s true, it’s like being in another time. Of course, I can’t imagine what life was like at that time, but if everything was at least somehow like that, then now it’s much better and easier in every way, although the cars were, of course, more beautiful then.
Oh yes, cars. The authors were fooled by them, licensing 95 machines for the game. There are no left-wing brands like Ulver or Bolt, as in the same Mafia, these are completely real cars, and with each department not only the partner and the costume of the main character changes, but also the car he drives. Yes, you can theoretically steal or even take away any car in the city, but we play as an exemplary policeman who will not do this, so we only drive what they give us, and this will be first a Ford, then a Buick, then a Nash, and even a Cadillac and Hudson. But no matter how well the cars are drawn in appearance, apparently the effort and budgets went into creating an engine for the game and digitizing the animation of faces, so the vehicles behave in an arcade-like manner not believably. But in all the splendor of the sun-drenched streets, hiding the vile insides of the inhabitants of the City of Angels, I somehow stopped paying attention to the controls of the cars and the physics of their behavior on the road and simply drove to the next crime scene, maintaining a conversation with my partner.
Of course, there are shortcomings in this game, but I don’t want to think about them, much less list them, I’m not a journalist and I’m not writing a review, but only a note about my own impressions. And the impressions are:
When I played this game for the first time, in 2011, I was pleasantly shocked by what I saw. When I came back to it now, I liked it even more than before. And I really envy those of you who will play this for the first time, because you can’t return the first impression.
A real masterpiece in its genre and if this note of mine encourages at least one person to play L.A. Noire, then I wrote it all evening not in vain and my conscience is clear. If there were more quality products in every area of life, and life would be even better.
main character Cole Phelps, extremely controversial protagonist
sometimes the game throws up simple but original riddles that lead to clues, clues and evidence
