L.A. Noire Reader Review

(Fade In)

(Across a small wooden table in a dank, smoky interview room at the LECPD sits Detective Joe Public and the chief suspect for in the Game That Is Not a Game case, Mr L. A. Noire.)

Public: So what do you have to say for yourself Noire?

Noire: What? I think I pulled it off pretty well. I’m on top of the charts, I’m packing some neat new face-capture technology, the critics think I’m swell. I may have even saved Erika Heynatz’s career after that Australian Top Model screw-up last year.

Public: (Doubt) I’m pretty sure that was Sarah Murdoch.

Noire: Ah whoever. Are you saying you watch that vapid heap of shit? Anyway the real point is I did everything right. Should’ve been getting 10/10s across the board. I’d be looking much better if weren’t for that limp-dicked Metacritic.

Public: So this face-capture technology. Do you think it’s the only thing worth mentioning about yourself? Is there nothing else?

Noire: Hey screw you! I’ve got a bitchin’ story, I’ve got nearly 100 authentic cars, a tonne of L.A. mapped down to the nearest square foot. There’s shooting missions to break up the searching missions. Sometimes you get a car or foot chase. What the hell more do you want?

Public: (Truth) I’ll give you all that Noire. But don’t you think you dumbed it all down a little? Scaling a fence or a fire escape in those foot chases was pretty much a one-button action.

Noire: Hey, if you get bored pushing buttons on a joypad to simulate things you wouldn’t normally be doing then you’re in the wrong business pal.

Public: The face-capture was eerily good –

Noire: (Butting in) Hell yeah it was! (Resorts to a series of excitable whoops)

Public: (Patiently) But the quality of the bodies doesn’t match up and the skin looks like plasticine.

Noire: Jeez there’s no pleasing some people! I spent millions making sure every damn wrinkle on John Noble’s face made it into my scenes. I’m sorry I didn’t manage every nose hair too.

Public: (Doubt) So if you couldn’t nail the look completely, why bother at all Noire? The uncanny valley just got a little bit deeper thanks to you.

Noire: Ok, ok. Truth be told, making skin look like actual skin in real-time is really hard, especially on the current generation of consoles. All that subsurface light scattering – heck I don’t know if it’s even possible. And simulating good-looking cloth at the same time? C’mon man – gimmie a break! Do you know how many polys go into John Noble’s face? Half that freakin’ Blu-Ray – that’s how many!

Public: About those 100 cars. Why do all of them drive like bloated 2-week old corpses in concrete shoes?

Noire: Those cars look fantastic! You’re just bitter because your Audi has less charisma than Detective Cole Phelps.

Public: (Doubt) Come on Noire, you could have spiced things up a little. They all look and drive the same. Did you ever try a 3-point turn in one of them?

Noire: Aw heck, I know. I didn’t realise until just before I shipped, and then it dawned on me: I’m 50 percent a driving game and I’m set in the damn 1940s. Big mistake. That’s why I snook in that feature where your partner drives for you.

Public: But doesn’t that defeat the object somewhat?

Noire: Well by that stage I’d pretty much forgotten about the whole GTA heritage anyway. I was so in love with the smell of my own story farts and the driving thing had become ancillary.

Public: Speaking of ancillary, why is there nothing to do in the city of L.A. other than be driven to and from your objectives?

Noire: You can collect all the cars. You can even collect golden film reels. What about collecting all those landmarks? That’s the sort of thing that keeps a game like me away from the trade-in counter.

Public: (Lie) That’s bullcrap Noire and you know it (produces a photo of a gamer, deceased with joypad still in hand, and a terminally bored expression set on his dead face). I didn’t even find one of those damn film reels Noire. I don’t even think there are any. And even so, it’s hardly giving me a boner wondering where to look next.

Noire: Look – Los Angeles is a soul-sapping concrete maze in real life. I was just being true to my source material.

Public: But then you coax me with achievements for wasting my time driving through that “soul-sapping concrete maze”. You want me to drive around those nauseatingly straight roads, just to unlock a paragraph of text about a building that probably has an extensive Wikipedia entry already.

Noire: Your OCD will nag and nag at you until you try for some of those collections. Anyway, you’ve got the street crimes – they’re interesting.

Public: (Doubt) You mean the ones that spawn on the opposite side of L.A. to where the player is, meaning another tedious 10-minute slog across a busy city in those hateful metal behemoths, just to complete a 30-second shoot-out, only to then have to drive back to the main objective?

Noire: … Yeah. Uh… those ones. But there’s 40 of them! That’s content, right?

Public: That’s padding Noire. There’s a huge difference.

Noire: Well, like I say: gotta keep myself out of GameStation’s pre-owned drawer somehow.

Public: What can you say about the inability for the player to save their in-game progress whenever and wherever they chose? That’s a pretty fundamental function in most games these days.

Noire: I… don’t know what you’re talking about.

Public: (Lie) You’re a liar Noire and I can prove it (produces screenshot of the in-game Statistics page). I was only a handful of miles away from getting the Miles On The Clock achievement, and now because of your stupid save game mechanic I’m back down to a measly 132 miles.

Noire: Aha! I knew it, you OCD son-of-a-bitch. Well maybe you should have done another story mission then.

Public: I did Noire. It was a pain in the ass – I got chased by a bulldozer. It still didn’t save.

Noire: All right, all right! Sorry. I got balls-deep in my personal sense of achievement. I figured people would start playing me, and then not stop until 20 hours later when they were at the end.

Public: That’s you all over Noire. You arrogantly assume that everybody is so blinded by your shining brilliance, they forget about your honky game mechanics. You’ve forgotten your roots Noire. You’re practically an interactive movie.

Noire: But you gotta admit, it would be a good movie.

Public: (Ignoring, with some reluctance) Case in point: the shooting is terrible. It’s like the main character is glued to walls and his shoulders have rusted tight.

Noire: That’s why I’ve got that auto-aim thing. Just pop out of cover, don’t nudge the stick, and you’ll be automatically pointing at the closest bad guy.

Public: (Doubt) You’re not helping your case for the claims against you Noire. That’s pretty much “Press R2 to kill bad guy”. There’s no game in that.

Noire: Shooting is not really my thing any more. Like I say, I ditched the GTA ideas. I’m all about the clue hunting and the gripping narrative now.

Public: About those clues Noire. You paint a pretty scene, all full of incidental detail. You’re the zenith of environmental detail. But why are half of the clues irrelevant cigarette stubs and hair brushes?

Noire: They’re red herrings! Jeez, haven’t you ever played a point-and-click? Not everything is useful. It throws you off the scent. Makes you think and deduce.

Public: (Doubt) So why does the main character automatically tell you the object is irrelevant as soon as he picks one up? There’s no possibility for deduction there Noire. It’s just another wasted button press.

Noire: I needed to add something else in there. If everything you picked up was entirely relevant to the case then you’d complain that the whole clue hunt was sign-posted. You’re the one complaining that I’m not enough of a game, and then you go complaining about my game bits. Screw you, Public!

Public: It’s a half-assed attempt at best Noire. One of several in your case.

Noire: All this talk of clues… You’re not even mentioning my star attraction – the interrogations! You’ve gotta admit, they’re pretty tense!

Public: That’s a given Noire. You did well on that front. But…

Noire: (Butting in again) Aw C’mon! There’s nothing wrong with my interrogations!

Public: (Doubt) Too much guesswork Noire. You fill up the notepad with a long list of similar evidence, and then give no indication as to which piece is correct for each accusation. I failed too many questions because I picked the wrong clue as proof, even though it seemed completely relevant. That didn’t make me feel like a detective. It made me feel like I was sitting my multiple-choice Driving Theory again.

Noire: But… what about the faces? They’re so expressive. Like in the movies!

Public: That’s my point Noire. I’m convicting you for the crime of being a Game But Not a Game. Your story may well be entertaining, and I applaud the progress you’ve made for gaming narratives. But you are so obsessed with the story that you’ve forgotten about the fun. Even the strides you’ve taken to advance the technology behind your facial and environmental detail – these are just mechanisms to hold up your dreams of being a movie. I can only hope others learn from your mistakes. There’s room in the world for a story like yours in a game that’s fun to play, but you just didn’t try hard enough to be a game. Book him boys!