This Week In Retro: L.A. Noire (Patreon)

May 17, 2011: Open-world gaming leans towards law and order in L.A. Noire

by Diamond Feit

The past year has forced a huge percentage of us to reflect and re-examine a lot of things in our lives. When so many facets of society that we took for granted as bedrock are upended by a global catastrophe, it opens the door to questioning our own deeply-held beliefs. I don't know if I'd call it a "silver lining" to the viral cloud we're all still coping with, but if we can't casually leave the house without debating safety protocols, at least we're able to speculate about the immutability of all other cultural norms.

For me, I've been experimenting with new interests now that I'm no longer fully employed, and that has included ways of expressing myself artistically. One item on my list which has long sat on the "dream job" back-burner is acting: I loved performing as a child and always wanted to return to the practice, so I've been attending workshops and, yes, podcasting more often to practice speaking aloud. Acting as a job appeals to me but acting as a craft thrills me; playing make-believe seems like such a simple task, but doing it "right" takes a lot of practice and effort.

Ten years ago this week, the much-hyped video game L.A. Noire launched after repeated delays. There were two primary selling points for the game: First, it made the perennial promise of highly-detailed graphics that required the latest and greatest technology, and second, the gameplay revolved around careful observation of the in-game characters. Hence, L.A. Noire relies on actors and the strength of their performances more than any other game of its kind—a tall order given the troubled legacy of "realistic" human portrayals in the medium.

L.A. Noire was developed by Team Bondi, a studio initially founded in 2003, and by all accounts development began in earnest the following year. The game's unusual concept blends the popular open-world explore-a-real-city genre with the responsibilities of being a police officer. It's also a period piece: L.A. Noire takes place in 1947, a particularly volatile time in the Californian metropolis' history. Countless movies and television programs had tackled these topics in that exact era for many years, but at first glance a video game about actually solving crimes (not just shooting criminals) seemed antithetical to what most games do best.

L.A. Noire began to get real attention once Rockstar Games stepped in as publisher. Rockstar was red-hot in the 2000s thanks to the success of the Grand Theft Auto series, and their involvement turned L.A. Noire from a curiosity into a major release. Any casual comparisons were now implicit: L.A. Noire and GTA represented two sides of the same coin, cops-vs-robbers-themed rival projects sold by the same company.

L.A. Noire as a game relies on a lot of the same hooks that Grand Theft Auto does: Players get a large section of a hyper-real city to explore, either on foot or by car. Passersby stroll down every sidewalk and a steady stream of other vehicles roam the streets, maintaining the illusion that this digital backdrop is fully populated and always active. However, in L.A. Noire the player simply isn't free to do as they please, as their on-screen avatar is an officer of the law. Reckless driving and wanton endangerment of the public will anger the higher-ups, resulting in diminished performance ratings.

In fact, the open-world aspect of L.A. Noire is largely optional, as players can elect to ride in the passenger seat and leave the driving to their A.I. partner. This shortcut skips over the longer trips in the game and allows players to jump to the next location of interest and investigate a new lead. Should they encounter trouble with the more action-oriented segments of the game, players can even opt to skip the shootouts and get back to the crime-solving scenes instead (not such a controversial idea after all).

The investigation segments are the real heart of L.A. Noire, as players guide Detective Cole Phelps to search crime scenes (and dead bodies) for clues, gather information from official sources, interview witnesses for leads, and question suspects in order to verify (or break) their alibi. Every significant data point is logged in Phelps' notebook and collectively provides the framework for available topics of conversation.

In addition to traditional computer animation techniques, Team Bondi used extensive close-up and motion-capture cameras to photograph professional actors from every possible angle. The resulting detailed character models of L.A. Noire are not merely for show; they are an integral part of how the dialogue scenes function. Players can examine a characters' face during interviews, whether they're actively speaking or waiting for the next query, and judge their veracity based on their posture and mannerisms.

For each answer they hear, players must decide if it is the Truth, express their Doubt, or call out the interviewee on a Lie. In the case of the latter, players must select a piece of evidence from their notebook to support their claim. Accepting lies or half-truths as fact gives players less evidence to work with, while rejecting honest answers will convince speakers to clam up and refuse to answer more questions. Either way, mistakes close avenues of investigation and make solving the case more difficult for Phelps, if not impossible.

Replaying a few L.A. Noire cases for its 10th anniversary, I remain impressed by the fidelity of the in-game models. Few if any high-definition video games hold up visually after a decade, but the so-called City of Angels and its inhabitants have a warmth that few make-believe worlds of the era can offer. However, looking at all these animated faces on clumsy polygonal bodies does produce an uncanny valley feeling at times. As L.A. Noire writer/director Brendan McNamara said in 2011, "we had all this animation in the neck and all this animation in the face, but the clothes don't move. Once you get to the level that people can actually see that level of realism, then people expect to see clothes moving and the rest of the body moving in a way we can't replicate in video games."

A larger problem with relying on carefully-crafted performances as a means to gamify police interrogations is the lack of subtlety. Typically, actors aim for plausibility when playing a character. In L.A. Noire though, the player needs to see signs when a character is lying to them. This results in comically exaggerated shifty-eyes, twitching mouths, and other such obvious tells. I'm hardly a worthy poker player but no one in L.A. Noire could bluff their way out of a paper bag.

Worse, the distinction between when to cry Doubt versus when to say Lie is a hard line to draw, as the system does not allow for any ambiguity. If a character lies but players say Doubt, the game judges this as "incorrect" and will penalize them accordingly. This is further complicated by the nature of the dialogue, as choosing Doubt or Lie will often flip Phelps into an aggravated state, leading to wild, belligerent statements that in turn makes interviewees irate and uncooperative.

The L.A. Noire interrogation mechanic has a surprising history in that regard, as McNamara once explained that during the writing process, the three player choices were Coax, Force, and Lie. This means that the middle response often produces a more aggressive approach, even though "doubt" sounds more nuanced. Interestingly enough, current editions of the game have changed these choices yet again to Good Cop, Bad Cop, and Accuse, a more accurate representation of the tactics.

Beyond any graphical or emotional hiccups, the most dated aspect of L.A. Noire is its implicit cultural bias. This is a video game celebrating the police that takes place during an era of extreme racial tension in the United States, staged in a city with notoriously crooked cops. It's more difficult to accept a video game about a heroic detective at face value now that we are actively examining the troubling legacy of law enforcement in our society. I should stress that I haven't completed the story of L.A. Noire, so I don't know if the game takes steps later on to critique its own premise, but that's a feat few police procedurals accomplish.

Having expressed all these reservations, I must admit that my recent visit to make-believe Los Angeles was, at the very least, superficially compelling. The story unfolds one tidbit at a time, cutting between Phelps' current life as a cop and his experiences during World War II. As an aspiring actor, I appreciated how much effort was put into casting and bringing all these characters to life, even the ones who serve no greater purpose than to shoot at Phelps and justify his use of lethal force.

Video games have long served as escapism for me, and I've always been drawn to open world adventures that allow me to play a role. All too often, that role is "sociopathic mass murderer," so it was refreshing to pick up L.A. Noire for a couple hours and pretend to be a decent guy who doesn't run red lights or sideswipe pedestrians. I can't say if Cole Phelps is a genuine hero or just another cop, but he's got more going on in his life than just his job, so I remain curious as to his fate. If you're feeling the same way, L.A. Noire has been remastered for modern consoles, PCs, and a hilarious VR version exists as well. "Uncanny valley" doesn't begin to describe the effect of a Hollywood actor's face grafted onto a body animated with motion controls.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts on Twitter and playing games on Twitch.