Alright, not quite, but they’re the most convincing faces in any computer generated product, including Hollywood movies, and it’s almost impossible to convince yourself that they’re not real at times.
This animation is absolutely key to the feel of the game. L.A. Noire creates the most involving world yet seen in a videogame, and it’s down to that facial animation. There’s a lot to be said about how “graphics don’t matter” but when you play a game that looks this real, there’s an inexplicable pull on the player. It's not just the faces, though. There’s an incredible atmosphere around the whole game and it's further amplified by the addition of an optional black and white filter, which is beautiful. The filter causes a few problems (“find the yellow taxi”) but it feels totally right and there’s no better way to experience L.A. Noire. This is a game that can draw the player into its world like no other.
You play as Cole Phelps, a veteran of the Second World War and the newest recruit to the L.A.P.D. team. In your new job you must solve case after case, investigating various crimes in the eight square-miles of city that you’ve got to play in. These cases are generally independent of one another and the overarching story develops slowly throughout them as you look for links that may or may not be there. This means that for much of the game it appears as though there's no plot at all, but it just feels like real police work, and so the development of the plot never feels forced. Where the game is particularly successful is in the fact that no matter how damning your evidence was, you can never be entirely sure you've got the right man and it's a very uncomfortable feeling when you think you may have sent the wrong man down.
The cases normally play out like this: you’ll first comb a crime scene for clues, and from these clues you’ll go on to interview witnesses or head to locations where more clues might be found. Interviewing witnesses is where the facial animation really comes into its own. Your job as a detective is to discover the truth, and you can do this by noticing when people lie. Are they averting your gaze? Are they biting their lip? Are they looking nervous or fidgeting? There are numerous tell-tale signs and the technology is such that even the most minor tic can be detected by the player.
You then have three options: truth; doubt and lie, though these may be misnomers. If you believe the person has told you everything, select truth. If you think they have more to reveal then select doubt, though this should be thought of as more akin to ‘pressing’ in the Phoenix Wright series of games. If you have evidence to prove that the person is lying, then you can select lie (OBJECTION!) and present the evidence to make them open up further. It can be a clumsy system sometimes, with the “doubt” command having particularly erratic results but it’s still a lot of fun reading faces and outsmarting a suspect is always very satisfying. Those erratic results are usually comedic rather than disastrous to an investigation and even if your questioning technique does lead you into a dead end, you can simply leave and progress the case elsewhere.
Between these investigation sections are a few action sequences, though these don’t account for much more than 10% of the game. These can involve car chases, tailing suspects or shoot-outs. For a game not focussed on these sections, they are surprisingly well realised, and while often they're not difficult they always feel tense and authentic, and you genuinely feel as though Cole's life is in your hands.
Most of the action scenes take place in the game’s street crimes. These are optional cases that you’re alerted to on the police radio as you’re driving around. Robberies in progress, hostage situations and numerous other things. They rarely take longer than a minute or two to finish but offer a break from your investigation and a change of pace as you get a snapshot into the life of another not-quite-all-there Los Angeles resident. Peculiarly, these almost always end up with a dead perp. The L.A.P.D. are very quick to resort to gunplay.
Even with these extra cases, there is not as much to do in Los Angeles as there is to do in Liberty City - there's no sandbox here. That's not to say that the game is linear, but if the game has a weakness then it is the illusion of linearity it creates in each player's mind. When you’re given a clue, you’ll decide what to do about it and you’ll do it. When you reach the end of the case it will appear as though the game has led you by the hand through it because every piece of evidence was set out for you. Someone else, however, who took that same case and performed it differently (maybe they missed a clue or didn't get help from a witness they interviewed poorly) will also feel the game was linear having reached the same end result. In actual fact the two experiences could have been entirely different, but neither player might ever find out.
Each case has one outcome and that no matter what actions the player takes, it’s that outcome that they head towards. It’s this that can lead to almost every action in the game feeling like it was the ‘right’ action, and that there’s no opportunity to go wrong, or go away from what the player perceives the game to want them to do. The problem, then, is that no matter how many ways there are to solve a case, it will always feel linear to the person playing it and if that’s something that you’re not looking for, this game is not for you.
For everyone else there’s a wonderful, involving experience to be discovered here, in what is the best-looking videogame ever. Maybe not in counting polygons or draw distance, but there has never been another videogame that has felt this real and as a result, there are few experiences so compelling.
Pros
- The facial animation is so good that a deaf person could lip-read it.
- More immersive than any other game ever.
- It's Rockstar (Team Bondi) does Phoenix Wright.
Cons
- It will feel linear.
- Dialogue options are sometimes unpredictable.
- You won't be allowed to play it if your partner isn't there watching, like when you tried to play Heavy Rain.
Score: 8/10
'it’s almost impossible to convince yourself that they’re not real at times'
Er, what?
'The facial animation is so good that a deaf person could lip-read it'
I seriously doubt that having finished the game.
'More immersive than any other game ever.'
Again, what? Is this a serious statement? An extremely bold claim to say the least.
More considered opinion and less hype please.