The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Today is a day of story spoilers for L.A. Noire, including, potentially, all DLC, because I’ve played it all. If you have any inclination to play the game and haven’t yet, do it, and don’t read this, please. Mechanical discussion was yesterday: feel free to peruse that if you want to know what the game is all about.

Okay, we all good? Okay. Spoilers start now.

I was, overall, very satisfied with the overall plot. I really liked how it hinted at its existence with the newspapers at the beginning, and by the time you got to Vice, it was slowly creeping into the actual cases you were doing until it basically took over the narrative full-force. I love the switch in player characters as well. I wasn’t expecting it, and it gave the story a lot of much-needed perspective, as well as showed how Cole and Kelso differ as people even more than the flashbacks did. There were some things that I felt could have used a bit more clarification. For example, I would have liked to see a bit more of Cole’s home life, in order to understand a bit better why he cheated on his wife, or be able to more accurately guess if he did, or if Roy used questionable circumstances in order to make it seem as such, and once he was outed in the media, he just went for it. I like Cole, even if, in a lot of ways, he’s the annoying side of Lawful Good. I wanted him to justify himself, but it leaves you really separated from his home life. It’s an interesting idea: you only control Cole’s professional life, not his personal. You can only watch that. It puts you in an interesting place as a player. I’m not sure if it totally worked out, but it was good to attempt.

I was also really impressed by how well the DLC cases integrated into the story. None of them had “important” story beats, but most of them (with the exception of, perhaps, Nicholson Electroplating, which kind of pulled you out of the end sequence for an inconsequential case if you played it during the story) felt like they were part of the whole game, having some conversations that tied into the overall plot while not being something that you would have felt like you missed if you didn’t have access to them. They were pretty well the perfect DLC, as far as I was concerned. I wanted more L.A. Noire, so I got more L.A. Noire. It was awesome. I do recommend them if you like the game, though now that the Rockstar Pass has increased in price over the 10 bucks I paid for it, it might be a slightly harder sell.

Really, though, this game shines with its characters. The arc of Galloway as he changes from a guy with all the answers to someone who respects Cole’s detective work and realizes he’s more the muscle than the brains is really awesome. Watching Roy Earle do the shitty things he does while Cole’s Lawful Good clashes with his Neutral Evil is just flat-out entertaining. Watching Hershel change from his “hunker down and just survive to retirement” mode in a dead-end desk to “we could actually accomplish something here” is also just fun. It’s those interactions that really sell the game and make it something special. Rockstar brought the cash to let Team Bondi get top-notch actors who sell everything they do in the game. You aren’t suspending disbelief on how characters feel because it’s a video game. It’s well-acted, and well done. It’s something that’s unfortunately rare in the video game space.

I also thought the game did a mostly good job of cluing you in to what it was doing at the appropriate times. For example, during the Homicide Desk, it gives you a case called “The White Shoe Slaying” where there is a missing white shoe. You never find it. It was then that I realized there were missing pieces of evidence at every single case before that. I could have noticed it earlier, certainly, but with that title, it made sure I recognized it before it became a big part of the story. I liked that. It made sure I had the a-ha moment. If I had already figured it out, it wouldn’t have bothered me or stuck out, but as someone who hadn’t gotten it yet, it worked perfectly as it should have.

The ending was… fitting, though perhaps a bit anticlimatic. It was the sort of thing Cole would do, and was not unbelievable. It wasn’t satisfying, perse. It does clear the way for Kelso to get with Elsa, I guess, which gives him a happy ending of sorts. But seriously, seeing Roy give the Eulogy at Cole’s funeral was just like man, this Cole guy cannot catch a break. That’s what you get for being Lawful Good, Cole! You get fucked over. Better to be Neutral Good like Kelso, eh? But so it goes. Cole served his country and the city, made mistakes, was kind of an uptight dick, but accomplished a lot of good and got screwed over for it. That’s what happens to good guys, I suppose. As I said, I didn’t mind it, but it didn’t blow me away either.

I loved L.A. Noire. It’s going to be one of my top games of the year, to be sure. It’s such a solid narrative experience that really immerses you in a world and a story. Apparently developing it was really shitty, but the game created was really great. Really great.