LA was a much different place in 1947.
Hollywood was in it’s infancy, there was glamour and money, but scratch the surface of it’s polished exterior and you were liable to get bitten. Crime and corruption were rife, not to mention drugs and the illegal gambling. Organised crime had a tight grip and only but the best cops were on the mobs payroll.
This is where new video game LA Noire takes it’s cue.
From the people who brought you ‘Grand Theft Auto’ and Red Dead ‘Redemption’, LA Noire is making waves across the gaming scene for all the right reasons and could be one of the highlights of 2011 in the gaming world.
The Game
For the first time ever in a Rockstar game you get to play one of the good guys. You are detective Cole Phelps, a war veteran and new LAPD officer. The early parts of the game serve as a learning curve tutorial that see you go from job to job, case to case, learning the ropes as you go. Your objectives are to follow the clues, track down suspects, interrogate witnesses, examine evidence and solve the various crimes and misdemeanors thrown on your desk.
As only small previews of the game are currently available there is a lot to be filled in, but it is thought the story arc is continued through from case to case.
Visually it’s dark and stylish atmosphere is inspired from the ‘pulp’ crime fiction of the era. To set the scene think LA confidential or the novels of Raymond chandler and personally I can’t wait to play it.
[nggallery id=5]A number of high profile actors have been hired to ‘star’ in LA Noire, including Mad Men’s Aaron Staton who plays your character Phelps. One thing noticeable from the teasers is the amazing motion capture used on the actors to produce visual realism far ahead of what’s gone before in this type of game. Part crime solving, part action, part driving, part adventure, part as yet unknown, LA Noire is an ambitious project and by the look of things Rockstar Games have set their already high bar their even higher this time.
Personally I think (and hope), LA Noire becomes a flag bearer for a new breed of adventure game where both brain and trigger finger are be used in equal amounts and it can live up to the hype.
If anyone can do it Rockstar Games can (let’s all keep our fingers crossed).