The story L.A. Noire takes place in the 1947 city of Los Angeles when an upstart police detective Cole Phelps begins his professional journey at the local precinct. In essence, L.A. Noire is a crime investigator simulator where the player has to start from the bottom and rise up the career ladder, earning the respect of their colleagues and instilling fear into lawbreakers' hearts. Very rarely will you switch over to control Phelps' partner Jack Kelso, to see the unfolding events from another actor's perspective. The game goes a great length to flawlessly convey the atmosphere of the 40s, largely thanks to its authentic soundtrack. The MotionScan technology used to animate the characters' faces during cutscenes is especially noteworthy, as the smallest changes in expressions play a pivotal note during the many interrogations the player has to conduct. Suspect questioning mechanics are very well done, but every conversation is largely scripted with each option hardwired towards certain outcomes, so trying to veer off a paved path will likely count as a mistake and may result in a failed case. As a lover of crime fiction, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that most in-game missions were based on real-life crimes that happened in the City of Angels back in the post-WWII days. What spoils the overall experience are the driving mechanics: your slick police car handles more like a hijacked garbage truck that takes a few moments before reacting to button presses and slides around paved roads as if they were a freshly flooded ice rink. Even that, however, won't ruin your fun quite as much as the gunplay - the inability to adjust the camera rotation speed threatens to turn every firefight into outright torture. I would have probably pushed through all these hurdles with tears in my eyes for the sake of the plot, but luckily the devs have thought of the more casual half of their player base and added the option to skip difficult action segments after 3 unsuccessful attempts. Final score: 8 hijacked garbage trucks out of 10.
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